Learn about common English loanwords in Japanese
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some common English loanwords in Japanese? |
| Risa: And are any English words used differently in Japanese? |
| Michael: At JapanesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sasha Lee and Shin Ishikawa are talking about their hobbies. Sasha asks, |
| "Do you play games on your computer?" |
| Sasha Lee: パソコンでゲームをしますか。 (Pasokon de gēmu o shimasu ka.) |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: パソコンでゲームをしますか。 (Pasokon de gēmu o shimasu ka.) |
| Shin Ishikawa: はい、時々します。 (Hai, tokidoki shimasu.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: パソコンでゲームをしますか。(Pasokon de gēmu o shimasu ka.) |
| Michael: "Do you play games on your computer?" |
| Shin Ishikawa: はい、時々します。(Hai, tokidoki shimasu.) |
| Michael: "Yes, I sometimes do." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Today, we will talk about loanwords from English in Japanese. There are many Japanese words that originated from English and in some cases their meaning changed as well. You may have noticed that Sasha used the words |
| Risa: パソコン (pasokon) |
| Michael: and |
| Risa: ゲーム (gēmu). |
| Michael: Even if you don't know them, they might sound somewhat familiar, as they do, in fact, come from English. |
| Risa: パソコン (pasokon) |
| Michael: is a shortened form of "personal computer," or PC, and |
| Risa: ゲーム (gēmu) |
| Michael: is just a version of the English word "game" fit into the Japanese system of pronunciation. As you may know by now, most consonants in Japanese are followed by vowels, forming so called "open syllables," with the one exception to this rule being the nasal /ŋ/ which can appear on its own. Because of that, native Japanese speakers can't easily pronounce clusters of consonants, so loanwords from English will often have vowels added to the consonants, in order to make them easier to pronounce. This is what happened here where an extra /u/ was added to the end of the English word /ɡeɪm/. In Sasha's sentence, the meaning of the loanwords is essentially the same as their English equivalents: |
| Risa: ゲーム (gēmu) |
| Michael: means "game" and |
| Risa: パソコン (pasokon) |
| Michael: means "PC," as in a laptop or a desktop. However, it's not always this simple. Sometimes the meaning of English words change when they are incorporated into the Japanese lexicon. A good example of this is |
| Risa: イメージ (imēji) |
| Michael: which originated from the English word "image" but is closer in meaning to "impression" or "style," as in |
| Risa: あの店は高いイメージがあります。(Ano mise wa takai imēji ga arimasu.) |
| Michael: or "I have the impression that that store is expensive." Another tricky word is |
| Risa: マンション (manshon). |
| Michael: While it comes from the English word "mansion," it's used to refer to a type of apartment. In fact, there are two types of apartments in Japan: |
| Risa: アパート (apāto), |
| Michael: which are usually in wooden buildings with only a few floors, and |
| Risa: マンション (manshon), |
| Michael: which tend to be in taller steel-construction buildings. The walls are also usually thicker, so, in general, manshon are considered to be more private than apāto, but also more expensive. Words like these, that originate from English but gained a new meaning in Japanese, are referred to as |
| Risa: 和製英語 (wasei Eigo), |
| Michael: or, literally, "English made in Japan." They may be a bit confusing, so let's look at some more examples. First is |
| Risa: バイキング (baikingu), |
| Michael: which came from the English word "viking" but really means "buffet." The origin of this word dates back to 1957, when the manager of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo traveled to Denmark. There, he experienced Smörgåsbord — a Scandinavian version of a buffet-style meal. While he was impressed with the idea, the name was just too difficult to pronounce for native Japanese speakers, so he held a contest for a better name. Since Northern Europe was associated with Vikings, this is the name that was proposed and selected as the first buffet-style restaurant in Japan. Now, after over half a century, it is very common in Japan to refer to a buffet-style meal as |
| Risa: バイキング (baikingu), |
| Michael: but as you can see, it has little to do with real vikings. Another "English made in Japan" word that you may encounter in a school setting is a Japanese version of the English word "cunning." In Japanese, however, the word, pronounced as |
| Risa: カンニング (kanningu), |
| Micheal: means "cheating on an exam or a test." While this is different from the original English meaning, it's not difficult to imagine how "skill employed by deceiving" eventually led to "cheating" in a school setting. Moving on, another word that is also used a lot in school, for both exams and competitions, is |
| Risa: ファイト (faito), |
| Michael: which comes from the English word "fight." But rather than calling for some type of "street fight," this word is said to show encouragement, and it can be translated as "Don't give up!" or "Do your best!" |
| In this way, it's very similar to its Japanese counterpart, |
| Risa: ganbatte, |
| Michael: but since it comes from English, some feel it sounds a bit "cooler" or more modern. Now, moving from a school setting to a work setting, here are a few more interesting words: the first one is |
| Risa: サラリーマン (sararī man), |
| Michael: which is made of the English words "salary" and "man" and denotes a "white-collar worker." Another, related word, is |
| Risa: オーエル (ōeru), |
| Michael: which comes from the letters "O" and "L," and stands for "office lady." Although both still relatively common in everyday language, lately, they seem to be gradually getting replaced by the Japanese word |
| Risa: 会社員 (kaishain), |
| Michael: or, literally, "company worker" but often translated as "office worker." Lastly, one can't talk about work without mentioning some degree of stress or high tension: |
| Risa: ハイテンション (hai tenshon). |
| Michael: In Japanese, however, this word has a completely different meaning. |
| Risa: ハイテンション (hai tenshon) |
| Michael: is used for saying that someone is "excited" or "enthusiastic" about something. For example, one can say |
| Risa: 今日の山田さんは、ハイテンションですね。(Kyō no Yamada-san wa, hai tenshon desu ne.), |
| Michael: which can be translated as "Mr. Yamada, you're in high spirits today, aren't you?" OK, let's now summarize what we've learned. Today, we've looked at different English loanwords in Japanese. While some of them, like |
| Risa: ゲーム (gēmu), |
| Michael: have basically the same meaning as their English counterparts, with slight adjustments to their pronunciation, others, like |
| Risa: バイキング (baikingu), |
| Michael: are almost impossible to understand, at least without the proper context. Don't worry: You don't have to memorize them all at once. Learn the ones which are the most useful for you, and you'll learn all the others with time! |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Risa: またね！ (Mata ne!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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