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Jap-English
Introduction
| International Dialects
| Facts about Japanese and English
| Word list of Jap-English
Introduction Japan is a country relatively new openned to the world. For this reason, we found Japanese in an Asimilation* or Borrowing* stage in which all the words coming from that "New World" (the West) are being incorporated to the Japanese Vocabulary (It is through the KATAKANA Alphabet that the Japanese represent such words).
*Note: The Japanese is being through the same asimilating/borrowing process that English has been through since its origins, so the process will continue, as still happens with English
For this reason, you will likely find a vast number of foreign words adopted for the Japanese to meet the lack of such terms in the Japanese Language since they belong to items that did not exist in Japanese before this new "opening" to the Western Culture. For example: "sombrero", "patisiere", "computer", etc. The mayority of these foreign words have an English origin and they all suffer a "shortening" effect once incorporated to the Japanese Vocabulary. For example, for the word "computer" Japanese people refer to it as "pa-so con" which is nothing more than a shorter way to say "PERSOnal COMputer".
The "problem" is when Japanese people use English words and mix them under their own logical understanding to create a new word. For example: "first aid box" is what they call to a "fisrt aid kit". This might sound logical, but it is not real english, I mean, if a Japanese National goes abroad to a Enlgish-native-speaking country and s/he uses such expression, the listener might not have very clear what it is being said. Another example: "housing". This is a word that Japanese use to refer to "Real state". It is clear that a english-native speaker might not have a clue of what do you mean when using such word, even though Japanese people perfectly understand it. This is what we call "JAP-ENGLISH" , "JAPLISH" or "JANGLISH". It is not wrong, but it must be clear that such words ONLY HAVE MEANING in the country where they were created
(Japan). The good news is that EVERY SINGLE LANGUAGE has their own "local" version of English words. So, we can find Spanglish, Arablish, etc.
International Dialects with Ties to English: Anglikaans/Anglicaans
Anglonorsk
Arablish
Benglish
Chinglish
Deutschlish/Gerlish
Dutchlish
Eurolish
Franglais/Frenglish
Hindlish/Hinglish
Indonglish
Inglish
Italglish
Japlish/Janglish
Manglish
Minglish
Punglish
Russlish
Singlish
Spanglish
Swedlish
Taglish
Tamlish
Wenglish
Yinglish
Top Nevertheless, English is a "Crazy Language". Therefore, sometimes I find that Jap-English is more logical than English since the latter sometimes has more exceptions than rules! (lol). And if you don't believe me, take a look at this great article "Why English is a language hard to learn?"
Top These are some FACTS about Japanese people and English Language: Since the Japanese language is spoken at fast a pace, words tend to be shorten. For example, you might hear a Japanese national saying "Paso Con". It is hard to figure that they are refering to a "PERSOnal COMputer"! Another example: "Cu-ra" when they actually mean "Cooler"! ...Isn't Cute??!! As happens with all languages, Japanese has its own hard-to-pronounce sounds. The sound "U" might be pronounced as "A". Therefore, "cut" and "cat" might sound quite the same when pronounced by a Japanese. Another example: "th" is pronounced like a "s", so you will hear "mouth" pronounced same as "mouse", or "happy baSday" instead of "happy birthday". Many Japanese LOOOOOVE "British English" so they try to use a "British Accent" but this misleads them to pronounce ALL the individual sounds in every word, which is not precisely correct. Japanese tend to add the suffix "-ING" to words so as to form NOUNS. For example (and I read this on a very important TV-news channel): "Making of love song". It is not clear whether they refer to "making" as a NOUN or as a "Progressive Tense". They also tend to add the suffix "-NESS" to many words so as to form NOUNS: "perfectness" instead of "perfection" but this is not always correct Since in Japanese Articles do not exist, they tend to omit them. Look at the same example above: "Making of love song". Do you notice that the Indefinite Article "A" has been omitted? It is confussing for them to distinguish between Countable and Uncountable nouns: "Do you want a FEW water?". Honestly, I still find hard to distinguish between them too! JA,JA! Prepositions is another weakness: "In Tuesday" they might say, or "My birthday is _ November 17" (Where is the preposition?) Some of them are not aware of the differences between the
American, Canadian, Australian and British English. I remember some co-workers believing that I had mispelled when I wrote "color" instead of "colour". They might find hard to distinguish between adjectives or nouns ending in "-ENCE" and "-ENT"like the following: "The difference..." / "It is different".
Some big companies have spelling or grammatical mistakes in their Publicity (labels, promotions or commercials) and nobody seems to notice it. I found out that even some Japanese DVD movies translated into Enlgish (either dubbed or subtitled) have spelling mistakes (see the chart bellow)
Top
Japenglish Word
Meaning in English
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