Why doesn't Goku speak incorrectly/improperly in the various dubs?

[SaintEvolution]

Well, just for explain first, Goku in the japanese version came from nothing and until his adult life he was a dumb person, he doesn't even know how to count right. And because of that, Masako Nozawa does his voice talking with a mediocre and wrong japanese vocabulary till I know.

But, in all the dubs I saw before, not only in the english dubs but probably all of them, the french dub, the brazilian dub, the latin spanish dub, the german dub... all of them, he talks correctly the local languages. He talks english correctly, he talks portuguese correctly, he talks french correctly, etc. Why does that happened?
He was supposed to sounds like a silly hillbilly and a not a cult person who talks accurately.

[mabalia]

Goku has an accent because he's from the countryside. Roshi taught him mathematics, he's not smart like Gohan and Bulma are, but he's not dumb either. Some of the weirdness he has is because he grew up isolated during a part of his childhood, but you can see he is quick at learning.

And to answer your question, I don't know why the dub didn't incorporate the accent, it's a shame. I'd like to watch his country accent in the dub, it's a part of who Goku is.

[nickzambuto]

It's probably pretty difficult to translate a thing as native as Goku's hillbilly accent. You can approximate it for an English audience by dropping a few G's and stuff ("I love fightin'!" rather than "I love fighting!") but that's not actually what Goku is doing, so I can understand why some people wouldn't be satisfied.

[Kokonoe]

Kinda reminds of the other day where I was watching the first episode of the funimation dub of DBZ and noticed the farmer has a southern USA styled country accent, and it made me think of how such an accent might sound if it was more Japanese country.

[Baggie_Saiyan]

I read somewhere on here a few days ago that Goku speaks normally in the actual Manga or he doesn't sound as hillbilly as he does in the show. Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

[UltimateHammerBro]

I think I recall someone saying that Nozawa gave Goku an approximation of some regional accent, but I'm not sure...
Regarding dubs, I'd say giving different regional accents may be a total no-no depending on the language. I've seen some examples of that

[floofychan333]

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

[Kokonoe]

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Goku's voice in the funi dub is generally higher pitched than what one would assume from an "ultra-masculine hero".

[floofychan333]

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Goku's voice in the funi dub is generally higher pitched than what one would assume from an "ultra-masculine hero".

It isn't as oddly high as Nozawa's though. And a super deep voice generally is used for a terrifying villain, while Goku's relaxed baritone voice is more fitting.

[Kokonoe]

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Goku's voice in the funi dub is generally higher pitched than what one would assume from an "ultra-masculine hero".

It isn't as oddly high as Nozawa's though. And a super deep voice generally is used for a terrifying villain, while Goku's relaxed baritone voice is more fitting.

Just merely stating that, to me, his voice is far from typical and not ultra masculine.

As for preferences on which voice more properly suits Goku as a character, that's another topic and I lean on the dub side. Of course, it's all opinions anyway!

[Chuquita]

I like the pitch TFS has MasakoX use for Gokû, personally. I think that's a good "If Gokû had a male VA he'd probably sound like..."

[TheMikado]

I may be wrong, but I think the separation in formal "proper" speak is a bit wider than that of English. At least that's what I remember from Japanese class. Something as subtle as that may not translate over properly.

[huzaifa_ahmed]

People often complain about accents in dubs tbh. Unless it's accented "in-canon", like Baccano/Bebop for instance (& in that case it's "the only version to watch because realism"), adapting, say, an Osaka accent to a New York accent, is taken as a light cultural appropriation, like "OMG how dare they!" It's weird, but it gets the job done within the context of them speaking a foreign language in-canon. One decent example that gets far too much hate: Katsuya Jonouchi from Yugioh. Okay...renaming most of the main characters, replacing music, editing video, script changes, etc...aside..."Joey's Brooklyn accent" that's become such a meme, is actually a simple adaptation of his honorifics & Osaka accent. Yet people detract from it because it's not the exact same thing they're doing in Japanese (unless you want "Joey" to speak in a Japanese accent...)

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Goku's voice in the funi dub is generally higher pitched than what one would assume from an "ultra-masculine hero".

It's not even in just the FUNi dub, but also in the Mexican dub, which was very accurate to how it was done in Japan. (Although I dont speak Spanish so I have no idea if there's an accent).

I like the pitch TFS has MasakoX use for Gokû, personally. I think that's a good "If Gokû had a male VA he'd probably sound like..."

I've recently thought Greg Cipes (Beast Boy & Iron Fist in recent games & cartoons) would be a really good male Goku. He even acts like that IRL, he is a vegetarian & Zen Buddhist too. Really chill, happy-go-lucky guy.

[SaintEvolution]

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Well, in the english dub and maybe some of the european ones he can be dubbed like a "super hero", but in some other dubs like the asian ones or the brazilian and mexican spanish his lines are pretty accurate to the japanese version.

But the point here are not the lines, but how correctly he speeches in the dubs, even if he is a super hero or not. Masako Nozawa on purpose dubs Goku with some japanese vocabulary errors and some kind of local accent. It's not an easy thing to adapt, but would be accurate if in the dubs Goku had a few grammar mistakes, like a hillbilly usually has.

People often complain about accents in dubs tbh. Unless it's accented "in-canon", like Baccano/Bebop for instance (& in that case it's "the only version to watch because realism"), adapting, say, an Osaka accent to a New York accent, is taken as a light cultural appropriation, like "OMG how dare they!" It's weird, but it gets the job done within the context of them speaking a foreign language in-canon. One decent example that gets far too much hate: Katsuya Jonouchi from Yugioh. Okay...renaming most of the main characters, replacing music, editing video, script changes, etc...aside..."Joey's Brooklyn accent" that's become such a meme, is actually a simple adaptation of his honorifics & Osaka accent. Yet people detract from it because it's not the exact same thing they're doing in Japanese (unless you want "Joey" to speak in a Japanese accent...)

Goku is made out to be an ultra-masculine hero in dubs, and many viewers might feel that a hick accent would detract from his valiant good-guy personality.

Goku's voice in the funi dub is generally higher pitched than what one would assume from an "ultra-masculine hero".

It's not even in just the FUNi dub, but also in the Mexican dub, which was very accurate to how it was done in Japan. (Although I dont speak Spanish so I have no idea if there's an accent).

I like the pitch TFS has MasakoX use for Gokû, personally. I think that's a good "If Gokû had a male VA he'd probably sound like..."

I've recently thought Greg Cipes (Beast Boy & Iron Fist in recent games & cartoons) would be a really good male Goku. He even acts like that IRL, he is a vegetarian & Zen Buddhist too. Really chill, happy-go-lucky guy.

It's not a question of pitch, super heroes or things like that. The question is that Goku is not dumb/ignorant in his way of speech in the dubs. He originally speaks japanese wrongly with some grammar errors, like some person that originally was an hillbilly, but he spokes english, portuguese, spanish, french and etc with an ultra-correct and cult grammar in the dubs of those countries.

Also, the latin american spanish Goku has truly accurate lines to the japanese version, but his voice is deep as hell. Combines with action moments, but not so much with comedy and light moments.
But anyway, that is not the point; the point here is about Goku's grammar/kind of speech, and not voice tones/pitches, being-masculine stuff or accurate dialogues.

[Nejishiki]

Goku & Kuririn received basic education from Turtle Hermit. They're not really "dumb", just simple.

In the manga Goku's speech is comparatively close to standard Japanese. The main characteristics of his speech are his use of improper/impolite first and second person pronouns, lots of contractions, and how he slurs ai or oi sounds into ee. None of these points are exclusively "hick" things (Kuririn, for instance, does the "ai/oi into ee" thing when flustered). Altogether it seems super-casual and uneducated, which I guess fits the "hick" stereotype, but it's not a style of speech specific to any region. In the anime though, Nozawa plays Goku up more as having a vague Tohoku accent. The Tohoku accent has a "country bumpkin" stigma around it, so the closest thing in US English would probably be a Southern accent.

I read somewhere on here a few days ago that Goku speaks normally in the actual Manga or he doesn't sound as hillbilly as he does in the show. Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

Are you referring to these posts that TheBlackPaladin referenced awhile ago?

Typical Yakuza stereotypes speak in a Kansai (Osaka/Kobe) or Chugoku (Hiroshima) dialect; when they do use Eastern Japanese, it's usually an extremely "rough" working-class Kanto dialect. This does bear some similarities to Goku's speech (chiefly in the monophthongization of vowel pairs), but is much more aggressive and vulgar (with things like trilled "r"s, colorful slang, and regular use of "temee" as a second-person pronoun). While I assume Tohoku yakuza exist, I'd have a hard time considering them threatening if they spoke with the dialect in fiction.

Goku's speech, in contrast, is relatively neutral Kanto dialect in vocabulary and even pronunciation, with the main things setting his speech apart being his use of "ora" as a first-person pronoun, "omee" as a second-person pronoun (though he often uses "omae" as well towards the start of the manga), and "yatsu" meaning "thing", as well as his assimilation of trailing "r" into the next consonant ("Kekkon sukka?" comes to mind right away). These things are all marked (in contrast to Standard) as "rural" or "uneducated" speech, and "ora" in particular is a mark of people from the Tohoku region, which carries the "country bumpkin" stereotype.

By comparison, Chi-Chi and Gyumao speak in quite thick Tohoku dialect (or Toriyama's approximation thereof) in their first appearance; for Gyumao in particular, this has the effect of completely disarming him in the eyes of the reader, despite his considerable size and strength. When they reappear later on, however, their "Tohoku" speech has been whittled down to just a few key quirks (chiefly: monophthongized vowel pairs, use of particle "be", and use of "da" after verbs).

Regarding a question earlier in the thread, Beerus doesn't sound "just like Goku". His speech is unmarked Standard Japanese, with his defining traits being the use of "boku" (soft-masculine informal-polite) as a first-person pronoun, and "kimi" (soft/affectionate informal to equal or lesser status) as a second-person pronoun. He is also capable of using polite speech when required, though his default way of speaking is plain style (which, since he really does outrank everyone else in status, isn't really being rude).

I can converse casually in Japanese (I left too young), but my ear for accents is not great. Luckily, I have 1-2 Japanese that can help.

"Goku speaks a mix of the Nagoya and Tohoku dialects. But at the same time its neither."

On the Yakuza Accent

Note form:
- Nozawa's tone is rough and may pronounce certain words like a Yakuza would (due to Goku's "beranmei" accent), but he's too innocent acting to really speak like one.
- He's just rough. Unrefined. (I get that impression just from listening to him).

[Thouser]

I read somewhere on here a few days ago that Goku speaks normally in the actual Manga or he doesn't sound as hillbilly as he does in the show. Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

Goku speaks in an accent in the manga as well. A common thing is that he replaces the sound "ai" with "ee" at the end of words.

So, for example, when he says "I'm not Kakarrot," the normal Japanese for "am not" is "janai" (じゃない), but Goku says it as "janee" (じゃねえ).

[ABED]

I read somewhere on here a few days ago that Goku speaks normally in the actual Manga or he doesn't sound as hillbilly as he does in the show. Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

Goku speaks in an accent in the manga as well. A common thing is that he replaces the sound "ai" with "ee" at the end of words.

So, for example, when he says "I'm not Kakarrot," the normal Japanese for "am not" is "janai" (じゃない), but Goku says it as "janee" (じゃねえ).

Is that the equivalent to chopping off g's at the end of -ing?

[Kendamu]

I read somewhere on here a few days ago that Goku speaks normally in the actual Manga or he doesn't sound as hillbilly as he does in the show. Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

Goku speaks in an accent in the manga as well. A common thing is that he replaces the sound "ai" with "ee" at the end of words.

So, for example, when he says "I'm not Kakarrot," the normal Japanese for "am not" is "janai" (じゃない), but Goku says it as "janee" (じゃねえ).

Is that the equivalent to chopping off g's at the end of -ing?

I don't really know for sure if that's the technical way to describe it, but that's sort of how it plays out in my own head. I don't "bumpkin" Son Goku up as much as I just make him sound rough. Like, he's from the middle of nowhere, but he's not necessarily the equivalent of someone from the deep South (USA) like people might imagine. He comes off as someone from the Midwest who has a neutral accent, but little local quirks to their pronunciation of things.

Ex: "Hey'a! I'm Goku! S'really excitin' t'meet such'a strong fighter! Less go all out f'r this fight!!"

I might just be projecting my own quirks and accent onto how I imagine Son Goku, but I feel like it's a closer approximation than the, "Hey, y'all! Pan wus crah-yin' but I gave'r mah ahs cream coan an' she cheer'd raght up," kind of Rogue (X-Men) accent that people automatically associate with people who grew up in the middle of nowhere.

[El Diabeetus]

Goku speaks in an accent in the manga as well. A common thing is that he replaces the sound "ai" with "ee" at the end of words.

So, for example, when he says "I'm not Kakarrot," the normal Japanese for "am not" is "janai" (じゃない), but Goku says it as "janee" (じゃねえ).

Is that the equivalent to chopping off g's at the end of -ing?

I don't really know for sure if that's the technical way to describe it, but that's sort of how it plays out in my own head. I don't "bumpkin" Son Goku up as much as I just make him sound rough. Like, he's from the middle of nowhere, but he's not necessarily the equivalent of someone from the deep South (USA) like people might imagine. He comes off as someone from the Midwest who has a neutral accent, but little local quirks to their pronunciation of things.

Ex: "Hey'a! I'm Goku! S'really excitin' t'meet such'a strong fighter! Less go all out f'r this fight!!"

I might just be projecting my own quirks and accent onto how I imagine Son Goku, but I feel like it's a closer approximation than the, "Hey, y'all! Pan wus crah-yin' but I gave'r mah ahs cream coan an' she cheer'd raght up," kind of Rogue (X-Men) accent that people automatically associate with people who grew up in the middle of nowhere.

That's about what I do with fandubs. Drop g's, throw ain'ts here and there. Mispronounce certain words like he does in Japanese like bai (times) as bei (tames) and daijobu (don't worry) as deijobu (don't werry), etc. To, for, etc. becoming ta or fer.

[UltimateHammerBro]

That's about what I do with fandubs. Drop g's, throw ain'ts here and there. Mispronounce certain words like he does in Japanese like bai (times) as bei (tames) and daijobu (don't worry) as deijobu (don't werry), etc. To, for, etc. becoming ta or fer.

This sounds like what fan translations (and IIRC, the actual Viz translation) do to convey a Kansai dialect in the English version of Case Closed.