# Japanese words in English **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2000, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562 "2000-08-08T14:11:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/41 "2000-08-09T08:36:53Z")
_(for those not in the know “no-pans” referes to a “resturaunt” or “coffee shop” where the waitersses wear no underwear)_ Bingo. As for the rest, Family service: When the salarymen who spend so much time at the office that they never see their wives or kids finally set aside some time on the weekends to do something with the whole family. Bargain: Sale. To quote my fiancee: “I have to go shopping, they’re having their winter bargain.” Print club: Small photo booths that print out sheets of 24 little adhesive photos. Hard to describe just how insanely popular these things became a few years ago. Most schoolgirls will have notebooks filled with little photos of their friends. I just use them to decorate my bike helmet. Kissa: Short for ‘kissaten’ or coffee shop. Is that derived from some western language? –sublight. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/42 "2000-08-09T13:42:39Z")
I agree that it’s harsh to attribute American mispronunciation of Japanese to ignrance or laziness. It really is ignorance, in a way, but I don’t mean that as a put-down. It’s not as if everyone hears the original Japanese words, then decides “That’s too hard, I’m going to change the word to smething else so I can pronounce it easier.” People learn words by transmission rom others. If they learn it from the media it has a sense of authority to it. Most Americans certainly got the pronunciation of the words “sake” and “karaoke” from TV, radio, and movies. How the heck did they know that they were being given blatantly incorrect pronunciations? Unless their jobs brought them into contact with Japan or Japanese people, how would they even learn opf their mistake, let alone want to fix it? The real question is how and why these opinion-setters morphed and mutilated the words in the first place. One example that hasn’t been brought up yet is “hara-kiri”, vulgar term for “seppuku”. When I was a kid this was universally pronounced (and spelled) “hari kari”. It wasn’t until I started reading about Japan that I learned the truth, and started using it properly myself. Then the TV-movie “Shogun” came along and, I think, re-educated America about the term. I never hear “hari kari” any more. Why “hari kari”? I suspect it’s partly because English has a lot of such rhyming terms – hurly-burly, helter-skelter – that this almost fis the pattern. I suspect the Chicago Cubs announcer’s name Harry Carey might have pushed things in that direction, too. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/43 "2000-08-09T14:52:07Z")
I grew up outside of Philadelphia and now have lived in New York for 4 years. Here’s my twentysomething white middle-class assessment: **_salaryman_ - a salaried worker, a businessman** Never heard of it. I don’t think anyone I know would get it. Although its meaning is clear enough (salary+man), it’s not in popular usage and someone would probably look at you funny if you said it. **_anime_ - an animated cartoon** Yeah–but it STRICTLY refers to Japanese animation (Akira, Dragonball Z, Star Blazers, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, etc.). American/Disney/Warner Bros./etc. animated cartoons are just called cartoons. **_indies_ - independent musical artists** Sure. Although I’ve never heard the plural used. It’s usually “Indie music” or “Indie films/filmmakers”, which is equally common. **_road show_ - referring to a movie currently playing at the cinema** Wouldn’t be understood at all. Road Show refers to a traveling performance–like a carnival, etc., never to a film. I think the first thing that will come to peoples’ minds nowadays is “Antiques Road Show”, the PBS TV series where folks have their valuables appraised. In short, Salaryman=no; anime=yes; indies=yes; road show=no. \*\*I also have a question about the pronunciation of _karaoke_. Many Americans pronounce this like “carry-okie,” but most Japanese wouldn’t understand what they mean. In Japanese it sounds more like it rhymes with “mama-okay,” though without stress on any syllable. \*\* Definitely Carry-okie. I have never heard anyone pronounce it correctly. Why? Couple of reasons, I think: 1. It’s tough for Americans to switch vowels without an intervening consonant–hence we split the “a” and the “o” with a “y”. 2. It’s REALLY tough to pronounce a word with no accents (stresses). No word in English is unstressed. That’s why it’s ka-rottey, not karate. 3. Like harry-carry, it sounds “cuter” and rhymes better–karry-okey vs. kara okeh ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/44 "2000-08-09T15:05:10Z")
_harry-carry, it sounds “cuter”_ Did we really need cute word for cutting one’s own stomach open? 😃 –sublight. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/45 "2000-08-09T15:08:30Z")
Well, I certainly do. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/46 "2000-08-09T21:33:11Z")
I agree that native english speakers have a hard time with two vowels not separated by a consonant. They try to join them up somehow, either by inserting a consonant sound (y) or by just running the vowels together. Where I went to college we had a lake named after the famous Pocahontas. Pocahontas was her nickname-- her real name was was Motoaka. Which most people naturally pronounced ma-TOKE-a but actually, the correct pronunciation is ma-to-Aka. And, although I think that most people would _understand_ the word salaryman, it sounds very foreign and not at all correct to me. Kind of like saying “lift” for elevator – most people know what it means but it sounds so _British_. So if you are teaching them to get by, sure it’ll pass, but if you are teaching them to sound American, you might want to revise the ol’ lesson plan. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2000, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/47 "2000-08-09T22:23:08Z")
mellonhead – [Homer voice] mmmmmmm - uni [/Homer voice]. Gonads of the gods. ---
**Author:** ![Nekochan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@Nekochan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nekochan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/48 "2000-08-10T00:15:11Z")
One thing that bugs me is how many people, newscasters in particular, pronounce certain Japanese place names - Toe-kee-yo for Tokyo and Kee-yo-to for Kyoto. I guess some Merkins can’t pronounce the consonant-Y combination. While I know it’s incorrect, I say “carry-okey” because otherwise people wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![fluffinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecc23a/32.png) [@fluffinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluffinator)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/49 "2000-08-10T01:03:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ricepad \* > \*\* > > So is it laziness or ignorance? Certainly not “linguistic convenience”… \*\* Laziness \* and \* ignorance… it’s the same people who pronounce the word nuclear as nook-you-ler… I don’t think it’s language specific, I suspect it’s just that you hear the ones that are more important to you… ---
**Author:** ![Amok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@Amok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amok)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/50 "2000-08-10T01:24:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Kissa: Short for ‘kissaten’ or coffee shop. Is that derived from some western language? My guess is that it is short for ‘delicatessen’, which of course is usually just shortened to ‘deli’ in the US. As for Americans mispronoucing Japanesse words, it’s mostly ignorance (with a bit of lazyness thrown in), but I don’t mean that in a harsh way at all. Furthermore, it’s fairly natural. It certainly isn’t as if the Japanesse pronounce English words they borrow as an American would (or as a person of the region from where the term comes would, in the case of words borrowed from some type of English other than American English). As an example, I took a couple years of Japanesse in college, and the professors and TAs in the department were almost all native Japanesse speakers, who invariably misprounced my first and last names. My last name ends with _ght_, and that ending _t_ sound does not natively occur in Japanesse. I forget how they spelled it exactly in katakana, but I remember the last character used was the one for _to_ (pronounced _toe_), and that _o_ sound would always get added on to the end of my last name when they pronounced it. My first name is _Brian_, and they tended to pronounce it _Buraian_ as _br_ is another sound that doesn’t occur in Japanesse. Those pronouncations never bothered me; a few times when I was asked how Americans say it I responded with the “correct” pronouncation, in the interests of teaching them (most of the TAs at my school were native Japanesse who had gotten an undergrad degree there and then come to the US for graduate work, so while their English was usually pretty good, it often times wasn’t perfect, especially when it came to pronoucation), but other than that I let it go. Anyways, the point is that it might be both lazyness and ignorance, but it’s hardly limited to Americans (which is what **ricepad** seemed to be implying), and I don’t think it’s the most horrible of things by any means. ---
**Author:** ![Teach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@Teach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/51 "2000-08-10T03:30:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Amok \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > Kissa: Short for ‘kissaten’ or coffee shop. Is that derived from some western language? > > My guess is that it is short for ‘delicatessen’, which of course is usually just shortened to ‘deli’ in the US.\*\* Interesting idea, but I don’t think it’s a loanword at all. _Kissaten_ is formed by three kanji: _kitsu_ (eat, drink, smoke), _sa_ (tea), and _ten_ (shop). I wouldn’t even mention it, but it made me think of another bit of Japanese English. Most train platforms have a _kitsuen kona_, a “smoking corner.” I don’t think **corner** is used this way in American English, but I thought I’d ask. ---
**Author:** ![Teach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@Teach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/52 "2000-08-10T03:33:17Z")
Thanks, everybody, for your interesting and useful comments. I just thought of another one to consider. Many of my working students introduce themselves as **office workers**. I’m sure no one would have trouble understanding what they mean, but do you say it? If not, what would you say instead? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/53 "2000-08-10T06:32:02Z")
Well, I guess I’d describe myself as an office worker, since it sounds better than what I actually am: [rant] a secretary for a bunch of bureaucratic halfwits who hired me for tech. writing and translation. Instead, I’m stuck typing their letters, taking dictation, and listening to seven different bosses make contradicting and ungrammatical corrections to my work. [/rant] So, in answer to your question, Teach, yes. –sublight, starting a new job on Monday, and soooo glad that tomorrow is his last day at NEC. ---
**Author:** ![Gravity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gravity/32/14322_2.png) [@Gravity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gravity)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2000, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/54 "2000-08-10T17:02:08Z")
I have to agree with most folks who have answered before me. Salryman: I’ve heard it, It would make me smile, but I don’t have a problem with it. Anime: Oh yeah, give me somma that! I’m a big anime fan. Indes: Well, other than it being just “indie” here, of course. Independent artists, or filmakers. Roadshow: Well, no. I’d think that you were talking about a traveling play or maybe even an evangelical ‘tent revival.’ Office Worker: Sounds fine to me. I would say ‘receptionist’ because that’s specifically what I am, someone else would be a ‘file clerk’ or a ‘data clerk’. For a good broad-category word, that’s a nice catch-all that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. As far as the mispronounciation of foreign words in America goes, I think that it’s just because of the different ways that things are pronounced. My first exposure to most words is in written form, and if I don’t have a good grasp on how the foreign words are supposed to be pronounced, I have to fall back on the old ‘sound it out’ from first grade. Even though I am now trying my best to learn very basic functional Japanese, I find a lot of the vowel combinations very hard…but not as hard as the whole thing with using pitch instead of emphasis. K. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu\_Tashoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2000, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/55 "2000-08-11T08:51:02Z")
Teach: Yep, “office worker” seems as good an explanation as any. Maybe a bit generic, but anybody who’s worked in an office and/or done mindless clerical work would understand. Just my $0.02 on salaryman, though, I’ve only seen/heard it in Japanese class, anime, and, as someone mentioned before, cyberpunk. Personally, I don’t think most Americans would know the term (though they could probably guess at its meaning closely enough). ---
**Author:** ![Teach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@Teach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teach)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2000, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/56 "2000-08-11T15:12:53Z")
Let me rephrase my question about **office worker**. Imagine someone you’ve just met asks you, “So, what do you do?” Would you say, “I’m an office worker”? To me, the response is a bit unsatisfying, even evasive. How would most people respond in such a situation? ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2000, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562/57 "2000-08-11T17:16:21Z")
In this situation I describe the kind of company I work for, or sometimes the name of the company I work for (since people generally recognize it) because its hard to describe my work in 3 words or less. in other words: “I work for an electronics firm” or “I work for Sony.” (note: just an example) And then I can elaborate if they’re interested. Some people describe the specific work they do, especially computer types: “I’m a network administrator” “I’m a games developer” or their specific job title “I’m a Regional Manager for Retailer X” I, personally, would say that it is very unusual to describe work in general sweeping terms such as “office work” these days. If a person said to me that they were an office worker, I would assume they did the lowliest types of office wor – such as data entry – because anyone else would declare their (higher) status through a job title. “I’m a junior account exec.” Oh, and I was thinking long and hard on the over the past couple days and I think I found a synonym for “salary man”: “Company Man.” Of course, this is no longer used and has a distinct 50s-ish “you take care of the Company/The Company takes care of you” feel to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-words-in-english/28562.md?page=2)