Kansai-ben is one of the most popular dialects in Japan. It is the dialect spoken in and around the Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe regions. Imagine you go to Japan after a grueling four years of learning the Japanese language. Those late-nights practicing Kanji, the distressing attempts at memorizing Keigo, and the agonizing months and months of mastering one of the most difficult languages. And at last, the efforts have come to fruition; you made it to Japan. But only to realize, you don’t understand much of the Japanese the people here speak! This is when most non-Japanese people encounter ‘dialects’. So how important is it to know about the Kansai dialect?