So I made a Japanese learning game on steam and I get hit with negative reviews all the time because it doesn't have enough real Japanese words in it. /facepalm
Edit: Game name is Influent, heavily focused on vocabulary building.
So I made a Japanese learning game on steam and I get hit with negative reviews all the time because it doesn't have enough real Japanese words in it. /facepalm
Edit: Game name is Influent, heavily focused on vocabulary building.
Q: How do you say "farm aura" in spanish?
A: "Farmear aura"
🫤
Actually, that's an anglicism but the word for "farm" exists in Spanish: "granjear". So you could say "granjear aura" but doesn't sound cool.
The difference with japanese is that some words don't exist in their language so they adapt the english word to their language by transcribing the pronunciation as closely as they can with their phonems.
I kept getting asked how i would say brainrot stuff in hungarian but its usually by native speakers of english but once it was by someone from burundi wnd i was like how would you say it in kirundi and it was fun looking at her think about it for a moment 💀. Also i surprised her so much when i knew how their flag looked, where the country is located and what langauges they speak cause i memorized it for every country on earth but she was used to people literally not knowing that burundi existed. Its fun to do it with people from smaller countries.
Sure but one of those Rs has to be rolled right?
Faramir, you say?

My absolute favourite is
フライドポテト furaido poteto
French fries
When I was a kid, before you could translate stuff on the internet and we were waiting months for the new batch of translated Dragonball Z episodes to hit Toonami (I swear, if I come home from school today and it's goddamn Radditz again, I'm gonna Destructo Disc my mom's Camry), I got like a tiny little I guess travel book for translating English to Japanese thinking that maybe I'd start learning.
The only word I remember is "hamburger" because the book showed the Japanese pronunciation as "haam baah gaah" lol
That’s pretty close, though!
The thing is, the Japanese language has very few sounds compared to most languages, so their loan words have to be forced into the system of sounds they have.
For «hamburger» specifically, they don’t have any of the vowel sounds in the English word. They also lack the rhotic «r» sound, or really any «r» sound at all (edit: that is similar to the languages they loan words from). Their «a» sound is an open sound as in «say aah», so they just ended up using a long version of it to approximate the «ur» and «er» sounds (which are really similar in American English!).
They totally have «r» sounds. らりるれろ or ラリルレロ
「ランチ」、「りょうり」、その他。
You’re right, but they’re pronounced a bit softer than in most European languages for example, and often approach an «L» sound in practice. But yeah, saying they don’t have them might have been a bit too simplistic.
Oh so that's what rhotic means. But yeah the only consonant sound that Japanese has that isn't followed by a vowel is ん, which makes an "n" sound (though is often used for any "m" sounds preceding other consonants in loanwords).
Although the "u" sound is often unvoiced, so usually what they do is use the letter in which the necessary consonant is followed by an "u". For example く, す, つ, ぬ, ふ, む, ゆ, る as well as ぐ, ず, ぶ, and ぷ.
So yeah, "hanbaagaa" is a lot better than "hamuburuguru" which would be the other way it could be written (but isn't).
It's also sometimes spelled "hanbaagu", but this might have a slightly different meaning. I've only seen it spelled that way in certain restaurants where it's basically a patty served on a plate without the bun. They can do some really creative things with it though, depending on what else is on the plate.
You're spot on - ~ga is with bun, ~gu is without. I'm a fan on the Bikkuri Donki Cheese-in Hamburg (hamburger patty with cheese in the middle, covered with cheese for the 2x cheese version).
Is that from Donki Hote? I don't think it's ever ate there, but I had the chiizu-in hambaagu from Gasto a few times
Bikkuri Donki is a "steak" family restaurant similar to Gusto. The decor is always old wood and wild west knickknacks. Probably my #4 family restaurant.
I've never eaten at the Don Quixote cafe; I've never actually seen one in Japan, only Singapore, and there's better food to prioritise there 😅.
Over the last few years I've done occasional grocery shopping at Don Quixote in Japan though which still feels weird because they used to sell only sweets and drinks - it's just odd buying fresh spinach from the blue penguin store that sells PlayStations and vibrators.
They do have an R if i remember correctly, it's just that's very similiar to an L to most learners due to their mother language, that's also why Italians have it a little bit easier since we do use the same sound to make some words (we still have problems hearing it correctly because they way japanese uses it is very different and our brain gets tricked in to hearing an L instead of an R but we can make the sound with little to no practice compared to French or British people)
i was there with you, waiting for years for some legendary yellow hair
Honestly, I'm very thankful to have grown up with Dragon Ball Z with the Bruce Falconer soundtrack. Trying to go back to it now and listen to it with original Japanese music... It's kind of awful for me lol Is that terrible to say?
My favorite in my one semester of college Japanese was:
Hotto chokareto (hot chocolate)
ホットチョコレート
They sell delicious sand as well. My favourite is tuna sand.
Don't forget ハッシュドポテト hasshudo poteto for hash browns!
Although I always hate romaji spellings because people unfamiliar with the pronunciation will absolutely not get the right idea by looking at it. It's closer to "Hashdo poteito"
It must be because they love and respect British culture so much, right?
More because that's just how most loanwords are treated, especially western ones. There are a few that slipped through the cracks, mostly ones that were either introduced early on post-contact, or electrical appliances for some reason.
KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World
Don't let the trashy stuff fool you. It's actually just a genuinely good comedy. One of my favorites anime.
It's even better when the English word is so riddled with vowel syllabics that Japanese phonemes require that it wraps all the way around and becomes unrecognizable...even when it's "English." My fav: Makkudonarudo - マックドナルド even tho most people just call it "Maku-do" for McDonalds.
Also, gotta watch out... just when you think "Pants" is just "Pantsu" you actually just said "underwear" in Japanese.
just when you think "Pants" is just "Pantsu" you actually just said "underwear" in Japanese.
To be fair, that’s also the case in English.
Yeah but I've never heard anyone use it that way. I don't think anyone would mistake you for talking about underwear in most scenarios.
I wonder when American and English diverged on the meaning of pants, because it very much means underwear over here. Although with how prevalent American TV is (and I guess influencers are these days) people have no problem understanding what you mean... But we'll have a laugh over it!
Pants in British English (and probably more) more often carries the meaning of underpants.
I live in Scotland and I was very confused when my friend from America visited and they were like "it's hot, can I take off my pants" .__.
I tried to learn a bit of Japanese, one thing I'll say (if it was correct hopefully) for the most part you can figure out the hiragana (? I think correct name, whichever is the syllables characters come from) from the syllables.
Knife? Kite? Yeah completely different in English depending on the word. Would be convenient to know sounds when you see a symbol. Is K a .... Nigh or a ke sound. Really English is annoying glad I grew up with it, sounds awful to learn as another language. Sure there's worse but yeah.
I think I am pretty much agreeing is all just thought I'd comment on experiences.
Hiragana isn't perfect. 新聞 is しんぶん but the ん is pronounced more like an m (often happens before some p- and b- sounds) yet there's no hiragana for standalone 'm'. It also doesn't handle devoiced vowels such as in 靴下 くつした socks.
These are predictable rules at least. ん assumes the following place of articulation, and high vowels go unvoiced at the end of words or between two unvoiced consonants.
Yep. There are rules. Just trying to make the point that the orthography on its own doesn't 100% accurately tell one everything.
Yeah they have plenty of false friends. But that is also because a lot of words come from other languages not just English. Like how パン pan means bread, which comes from Portuguese Pão. The Chinese word Bao also has the same origin.
Here are some Japanese words that are false friends:
マンション literally Mansion but means apartment building or condominium.
コンセント Consent means electrical outlet.
バイキング Viking means buffet.
パーカー Parka can also mean hoodie not just the jacket.
ハンドル Handle means steering wheel.
ハンドルキーパー Handle Keeper is designated driver.
トレーナー Trainer means sweatshirt
Or close false friends like
ハイテンション high tension means very excited or energetic in a positive way unlike the English meaning.
ワイシャツ white shirt is a dress shirt but can be any color not just white. Probably because Japanese office worker dress code used to be a white dress shirt. Couldn’t even wear a light blue one.
pants can be either. Some people claim pitch accent differentiates them, but I think it's more often context. Generally, it's better to skip the ambiguity IMO and say ジーンズ (jeans) or ズボン (pants) rather than パンツ (underpants)
Like that South Park episode about Xbox vs PlayStation.
“Sony has announced a new Black Friday bundle, called the ‘Burack Friday Bunduru.’”
Bistek in Spanish for Beefsteak here always makes me laugh.
Learned in French class the word for roast beef is... rosbif.
Rosbif is also slang for ze English. Also, we have the word bifteck for beef steak.
I am sure that english got "beef steak" from there then
Because "bif" is pronounced the same as "beef" and "teck" is kinda similiar to "steak", Beef in french seems to be Bœuf which checks out with my theory
(Note: it's been a long time since i last talked in French ans i wouldn't be able to anymore lol)
I still get a chuckle out of the PIN pads in Spain when they say "Numero Secreto Correcto"
I mean, 桃色 exists, but it's been mostly supplanted.
That was my first thought, too.. momoiro isn't exactly common but everyone understands it. often see it on fancier products that don't want to cheapen themselves with katakana
I never learnt that and would just assume it meant "peach" which, at least to me, isn't the same. Interesting.
There is also cases where they strait up invent English word. Like ベビーカー, pronounced "babika", which is supposed to sound like "baby car", and means "stroller".
Ok ok, but how do I say ice cream then?
Iceu creamu?
So maybe I'm not so stupid for frequently thinking, every time I start Signal (the app): "Sigunaru."
It's kind of sad seeing a language with great heritage dissolve.
same with indian languages
Kinda a Yikes comment there.
It's just loanwords. Every language has them.
There's two other words for pink in Japanese
Momoiro 桃色. Which is more used for peach coloured things.
Sakurairo 桜色. Which is cherry blossom pink.
And then there's quite a few specific words for specific colours. Just like every language has.
薄紅色
撫子色
珊瑚色
薔薇色
ピンク is just for general pink
From what I have seen through my learning of the language, the entymology of many Japanese words (especially borrow words) basically comes down to "this is too complicated to write or say in everyday usage, so we're just gonna cut out 90% of it out."
The language itself was created by wanting to cut out a lot of characters from Chinese they were using for record keeping before developing their own.
I wonder how the Japanese language would have evolved if they developed their own writing system instead of adopting kanji. Because then all On reading words would go? But so many words use the On reading. Afaik we have no way of knowing what Japanese was like before the adoption of kanji?
The language itself was created by wanting to cut out a lot of characters from Chinese they were using for record keeping before developing their own.
They shouldnt have stopped, keep cutting my guy. Learning the language would be easier without the Kanji. Granted, not by much, but not nothing. And as far as I understand, the native speakers agree. They all mostly dont know all the Kanji in their language.
It's funny that kanji is simplified from the Chinese; but it's still fairly "complicated" in the strokes necessary to write each symbol. Katakana and hiragana are way simpler.
In a way, Kanji is more complicated than Chinese, not simpler unfortunately. In chinese languages, each character has one pronunciation, but kanji change pronunciation from word to word.
Mainland Chinese is quicker to write, too, due to simplification of many radicals in modern times.
Kind = German
See = German or Latin
Language = Latin
Great = Latin
Heritage = French or Latin
Dissolve = French or Latin
Nah, they can be pretty funny. Gujarati has:
Dustpan and brush = shovel brush
Bottle = Batley
UK = London
London = proper London
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