1

Friends is unquestionably one of the most popular TV series of all time. For a non-native English speaker like me, since the language in Friends is just plain English that people use everyday, watching the drama again and again is a great and fun way to learn English.

2

But things become a little tricky when I try to learn Japanese using Friends.

The first problem is that, although Friends does have a Japanese edition (even with Japanese voiceover), it’s really hard to find it both online and offline, at least here in Shanghai.

Luckily, i eventually found the whole DVD box set in a Japanese shop. 60 DVDs, CNY ¥750, not bad.

Then it comes to the second problem: the Japanese subtitles in the DVDs are incomplete! It’s really weird because the DVDs are direct copies (bootlegs) of the original, official Friends Japanese edition released in Japan. How come the official Japanese subtitles are incomplete!

What makes the issue even worse is that it’s impossible to find Japanese transcripts. English transcripts are all over the internet, but not Japanese. Recently, I have been reading quite some science fictions and I think it’s probably easier to find extraterrestrial life than Japanese transcripts.

3

Okay, enough problems. What to do?

Friends Nihongo to the rescue! It’s a simple project I started that aims to do one and only one thing: make Friends Japanese transcripts.

Anyone can be involved in the project. What you do is listen to the Japanese audio recordings and complete the subtitles.

I’ve already ripped some episodes into audio tracks and subtitles:

https://app.box.com/v/friends-nihongo

And I’m currently working on Season 1 Episode 1. If you are interested, leave me a note and let’s get it started.

Hopefully one day Friends Nihongo will look like this.

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I’ll be there for you.

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Update on July 14, 2018

Big news: someone had already made transcripts for all the eposides, just get them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12NzyFnxZcEI9Jgjn_08AXQdfVqVOg8xh