An A to Z of Japanese English Part One- A to C

Posted on 21/05/2010 by alexcase

UPDATE: Polished up version of the whole list, including PDF version, now available here.

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13 Responses to An A to Z of Japanese English Part One- A to C

  1. Jeremiah Bouque's avatar Jeremiah Bouque says:
    23/05/2010 at 07:02

    Hi, nice to see such good work in action. I’m a current Japanese and English tutor and a former Japanese > English translator. I hadn’t even heard of all of these before, and beyond that, this may come in very handy for people learning Japanese. Warm congratulations. It’s fascinating to see how Japanese picks up so many words from so many sources.

  2. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    05/06/2010 at 05:52

    Hi Jeremiah

    Actually, the only ones here that have been picked up are the ones that are based on other European languages but sometimes are thought to be English as they are written in katakana. The vast majority are “made in Japan” (and quite often spread to Korean)

  3. Clarissa at Talk to the Clouds's avatar Clarissa at Talk to the Clouds says:
    21/06/2010 at 18:54

    Good list so far. :)

    The definition of BGM here makes it sound like Muzak, but in my experience it usually means the score or similar parts of a soundtrack to an anime series, videogame, etc., and many of these are quite good (I have a huge soundtrack section in iTunes myself, which includes a lot of “BGM”). :)

    I don’t think arubeito is exactly the same as temp work; it seems to me to be a kind of part-time job that is not considered a career. Working at a convenience store is arubeito, right? You don’t plan to work there forever and it’s just a way to make pocket money during college or whatever. But it’s not what I would consider “temp work” (that’s where you work for a temp agency and are dispatched somewhere).

    “Cake” actually fits the North American English definition and is much less confusing to us than the British (etc.) usage, although calling pastries “pan” gets a bit confusing. I suppose it was influenced by Americans.

    If you google “concentric plug,” I believe that’s the origins for “consent.” Quite a few gairaigo and waisei eigo have their origins in technical terms, I think (like PET, which is still basically industry jargon in the US).

    Good work–I’m still working on a wasei eigo/gairaigo project myself. :)

  4. Clarissa at Talk to the Clouds's avatar Clarissa at Talk to the Clouds says:
    21/06/2010 at 18:57

    Oh, I see “acryl” on your other list. It also exists in Japanese–I was told that “plastic” is for hard plastic, and “acryl” and “vinyl” are for flexible plastic (though “acryl” is usually acrylic fiber). Our instructor showed us a see-through, zip-up pencil case, and we all identified it as a plastic case–but she said in Japanese, it’d be a vinyl case.

  5. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    21/07/2010 at 10:22

    “boutique hotel” and “couples hotel” are apparently the modern ways of saying “rabuho” (love hotel), according to this month’s Japanzine

  6. jud's avatar jud says:
    17/09/2010 at 12:33

    buraja – Japanese pronunciation of “brassiere” (the shorter form “bra” isn’t used)

    yes, bra “bura” is always used !

  7. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    17/09/2010 at 21:31

    I just Googled both terms in Japanese, and bura does have twice as many hits as buraja, but it seems both are used

  8. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    29/09/2010 at 00:14

    How could I have forgotten to include my all time favourite, “bar code”, which means a comb over haircut!

  9. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    06/12/2010 at 07:56

    cake cut (keiki katto) means cutting a cake at a wedding

  10. Alex Case's avatar Alex Case says:
    02/01/2011 at 08:03

    Just discovered “baby circle” (beibii saakuru). No idea how to say it in English

  12. openreel's avatar openreel says:
    26/11/2014 at 22:31

    Adding Katakana would be lovely.
    By the way, I see Gairaigo or Wasei-eigo (Japanese loanwords) instead of Japlish here. Japlish (Engrish) is badly misused English. As an example, using “Take care of your head!” instead of “Watch you head!” or “NO SMORKING!” instead of “NO SMOKING!”.

  13. alexcase's avatar alexcase says:
    27/11/2014 at 02:49

    Would love to find time, but as this is a blog for English teachers it isn’t really a priority, I’m afraid. The two terms you use are Japanese and not in any English or English linguistics dictionary I’ve ever seen, so I’ve variously used Janglish, Japanese English and Japlish as an English equivalent. I’ve never seen “Japlish” defined as the same thing as Engrish. “Japanese English” is most often used academically to talk about Japanese communities in English speaking countries such as Hawaii, but I still think it is probably the best expression for wasei-eigo too. The problem is that it is not very googlable, so I’m swinging more towards “Janglish”.

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