Japanese artists who speak other languages?

[anadentone 478]

I th

 

Saki of Mary's Blood speaks excellent English. She responds to English speakers on Twitter.

 

I'm pretty sure Marina of Aldious speaks English.

 

Let's not forget Yoshiki, he speaks very good English.

 

Since I've seen Kpop references, add CL from 2NE1. You can hear it in Psy's "Daddy" song and she's in the video (which is hysterical, btw). And 3 members of SNSD are American-born, so yeah, they speak the language.

I think ever kpop group has 2 members who speak English, either because they're American or they learned it. I think Shin Hye Sung, Min woo , Eric & Andy of Shinhwa speaks English

[Kaye 296]

Coldrain's Masato but he was raised bilingually (like Utada)

 

Apart from that there's quite a few vocalists in those type of bands that either try their best, learned from being on tour, or are just fluent because they were raised bilingually. Another Story's Keigo, OOR's Taka, Crossfaith's Kenta, MFS's Hiro, Swanky Dank's vocalist, Noisemaker's vocalist etc etc...

[Traxan 148]

Is it safe to say Mari Hamada speaks English, since she sings the entire intro here in English?

 

 

I think ever kpop group has 2 members who speak English, either because they're American or they learned it. I think Shin Hye Sung, Min woo , Eric & Andy of Shinhwa speaks English

 

And Amber of f(x). She's American born but of Chinese descent.

[Lasuto 0]

Misa (Gt.) from BRIDEAR write very well constructed English on Twitter, and she said she has learned the language since she was a kid.

Yashiro (Mary's Blood support guitar and tons of other projects) wrote excellent English.

Yuki (Gt. D_Drive), I think she has excellent English as well, sometimes post in English on Twitter and Instagram.

Female members of Moth in Lilac (Lisa13 Gt.), Ayano (Vo.) and Haruuna (Gt.) also did quite well in English.

Kanon (Bass, Ms. RedTHEATER), she can read and answer in English decently. I found that out while watching their twitcast broadcast.

Suzuhana Yuko (Vo. Wagakki Band and Hanafugetsu) also has decent English.

[Lestat 2167]

Milly from Ryuuketsu Blizzard always talks to me in English on Twitter. She doesn't seem to be using a translater so I can assume she's fairly adequate at doing so. Obviously Kyohei, and Kyouka always tries very hard, it's sort of cute.

[Ikki 807]

  A shitload of former MMs (Morning Musume) speaks English ( I think they're Americans).

 

Out of the 38 former and current members, only 7 of them speak English fluently.  That is if we don't include the Chinese members, Linlin and Junjun.  I believe only Linlin could speak English out of the two.

 

Kago Ai (ex-Morning Musume) - lived in the US with a family member a short time after one of her many scandals.

Takahashi Ai (ex-Morning Musume) - really enjoys English-language music and was her inspiration to learn the language, was going to try and become a performer on Broadway after her graduation from Morning Musume.

Ogawa Makoto (ex-Morning Musume) - graduated Morning Musume to go to collage to study English, has since retired from being a talento to teach English.

Mitsui Aika (ex-Morning Musume) - after graduating Morning Musume, she studied in New Zealand for English and now acts as an official translator for Hello! Project and Up-Front Production

Sayashi Riho (ex-Morning Musume) - is learning English as she is planning to go to a performance art school in the USA.

Iikubo Haruna (Morning Musume) - learned English to connect to Western otakus.

Nonaka Miki (Morning Musume) - lived in the USA for 8-9 years prior of joining Morning Musume in 2015.  She is pretty much promoted in the Momusu fandom as the English-speaking girl.

 

For other Japanese artists:

Yamada Masaki (ex-EZO/ex-Loudness) - Has been living in the USA since the '80s and prefers to speak in English over Japanese.

Tatsu (Gastunk/ex-Jacks 'n' Joker) - Really fluent in English. Will speak English 80% of the time if he has the chance.

George (Ladies Room) - Can string up basic sentences in English and likes to use English slang from what I have seen.  He prefers to speak in Japanese, though.

Hitomi Genki (ex-Vow Wow) - Was in Bow Wow when they changed their name to Vow Wow and when they relocated to England.  After he left the band, he became a high school teacher in Japan and teaches English.

 

I know Takasaki Akira and Niihara Minoru (both of Loudness) can speak English to some degree, but it's not the greatest English I have ever heard.

[BrenGun 2261]

niihara speaks good english. easy understandable. and he also understand it very very well.

so good enough for deep interviews.

but he writes all lyrics together with somebody who speaks english at a higher level. (*^^*)

but they do understand everything.

[Pretsy 1343]

Regarding Leo Imai

 

 

he grew up mostly in London, attended highschool in Tokyo, went on to study at SOAS, London, and The Queen’s College, Oxford. His doctoral work at Oxford was sponsored by the Sasakawa Fund

 

So it's certainly given that he knows/speaks English much better than most of us would think (AFAIK Japanese is just "second language" to him, note his interviews). In addition, he knows more than just a bit of Swedish now (considering that he felt regret about not knowing it in his teens, haha).

 

Why do you guys limit yourselves to English? Let's see:

 

Anna Murashige (HKT48, ex-NMB48) (Half-Russian, fluent speaker)

Kaori Kawamura (Half-Russian, lived about 1/3 of her life in Soviet Union-era Moscow, native speaker (RIP))

Marius Yo (Sexy Zone) (half-German, fluent speaker (meddles between his home city Heidelberg and Tokyo -thx Johnny's shrines!))

Ray Fujita (Dustz) (Half-French, fluent speaker)

ILMARI (Rip Slyme) (that's his second legit name, Half-Finnish  - average skills afaik (Rip Slyme being one of the very first J-music (note: mainstream J-music) acts to visit Helsinki (his former home city) in 2002 was due to his own passion/desires)

Kahimi Karie (fluent in French, semi-fluent in Italian, Spanish)

BoA (Korean but she counts - fluent in Japanese, semi-fluent in Mandarin)

 

Wew!

[seikun 317]

Shino (Gram∞Maria). He speaks English.

 

I still remember when he was interviewed on TV in 2008 when Miyavi played for the first time in my country and he came as a supporting artist also promoting his single, AQUA, and he spoke English with the reporter. It was a bit hard to understand because his pronounciation wasn't the best, but grammatically speaking, his English was fine.

[anadentone 478]

Oh I forgot, not Toshi but Nimo from ACE speaks English.  Doesn't Subaru/Kento from Royz speaks English or was that "he flirts in English"? Which I wouldn't put it past him XD 

[Igyou_Hime 80]

Don't forget Morrie from Dead End, he lived in the US for a long time so his english is really good!

[Undead burger 24]

I highly doubt that kamijo is fluent in french XD He can speak french a bit, but he can't have a full conversation in this language... I've seen him live, he was talking english/japanese to us but except "bonjour" and "merci" he dind't say anything else to us in french. His english skills are pretty decent too I really appreciate the fact that he's talking japanese slowly and in a very clear way when he's overseas (so if you have basics, you can understand him pretty well) ^-^

The guys from crossfaith seems to be fluent-ish in english as well.

 

Die from dir en grey is doing great in english too, he told once in a interview that he learned it by drinking Jägermeister with american musicians lol

And don't forget Mikaru from Glams/DIO. He's always posting things in english on his facebook page (sometimes it's hilarious because it's in a very weird english XD)

[Tokage 5930]

One of the members from japanese non-vk indie band Mothercoat is pretty good at (written) English... dunno if she uses a translator or not though, but doesnt seem that way