About Ukeru
Ukeru (ウケる, “to get a laugh”) teaches the Japanese people actually speak, using real Japanese comedy. You look up a form you learned from a textbook and watch comedians say the spoken version on stage, biggest laughs first.
How it works
- Real recordings. Every clip comes from a live comedy recording in the library of MediaBrest (株式会社メディアブレスト), which runs owarai.ai. The comedians did not write or record anything for this site.
- Two machine transcriptions. Each routine is transcribed by machine. Every scene we show is transcribed a second time, more finely, and is only published if both passes agree that the form is really said. The lines around it can still be misheard: those are marked “≈ unclear audio”, with the likely Japanese when we can tell.
- Laughs measured from the sound. “Biggest laughs first” means the scenes where the room is loudest right after the line, measured from the audio of each recording and compared within that recording. It is a guide, not a score.
- Translations and notes. We use AI as part of writing the English, the textbook version and the note under each line, so some of them may contain mistakes. Scenes that fail our checks are not published, and a scene someone reports is checked again.
- Furigana are added automatically and can be wrong on rare words. Use the ふりがな switch to hide them.
What this is not
The list of forms is our own selection, not an official JLPT or textbook list. The “use it with” scale is advice about tone, not a rule. Search results and the “More lines” lists come from the first, automatic transcript and are not checked line by line.
Mistakes
If you find a wrong line, reading or translation, press “Report a mistake” on the scene: it is recorded anonymously and the scene is checked again. You can also write to us (the form is in Japanese; English is fine in the message). Rights holders can reach us through the same form.
Whole shows
Ukeru shows short scenes for learning. To watch whole routines by Japanese comedians with English subtitles, go to owarai.ai, run by the same company.
Price
Ukeru is free while we build it. Live comedy means rough language and the odd insult; every scene says who you can copy a form with.