NICK: Japaneezed English 101
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2006
1
30
106
Trip End
Ongoing
Osaka,
Japan
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
I locked myself away for a while, reading and studying, etc. I practiced English with my aunt and uncle (I sort of had to, they start all conversations with me in broken English, and if they speak Japanese, they speak really quickly. I've given up and let them speak slowly in bad English)
I've now realized that a lot of the problems with the Japanese learning English is that they're so insistent on writing English in Japanese characters.
This is like melting ice cream so you can refreeze it to eat it: it's like it's the same thing, but it's REALLY NOT the same
01 We love Ikeda
.This is also why I'm having a difficult time learning Japanese. The second character set, Katakana, is specifically used for foreign words, and rewriting Japanese names from the Chinese characters, or Kanji character set. This makes reading Japanese difficult because a lot of times you're reading English words, written in Japanese.
They use the phonetic sounds:
a = ah
e = eh
i = ee
o = oh
u = ooh
Take this for instance: Be-so-bo-ru
In English: Baseball
A lot of the time I'll just sit there, read the characters, and trying to figure out where the end of one word is, where the beginning of the next word is, or whether it's all one word. Traditional Japanese doesn't have spaces between the words, I guess you just know where to stop. I look kind of silly as I stand there making weird noises until I can come up with a word.
chi-zu-ba-ga
cheeseburger
I'll give you a quiz, read the following words and write them down on a piece of paper
02 Akiko and Taka and me
. The answers will be at the bottom, and email me back how many you got right. Remember, these are all common words in English, but they've been Japaneezed. They'll get harder the further down. It sometimes helps to convert the "r"s to "l"s, tho it's hard to know when to do that. I'm curious to see how well you all do. 1) do-a
2) to-i-re
3) hi-i-ta-a
4) ko-o-hi-i
5) re-ta-su
6) ki-i-zu
7) ta-ku-shi-i
8) u-e-ta
9) ma-ku-do-na-ru-do
10) su-to-ra-i-ku
11) su-ke-jyu-ru
12) gi-hu-to-ka-a-do
13) po-te-to-sa-ra-da
14) o-o-su-to-ra-ri-a
15) gu-re-pu-hu-ru-tsu
16) kan-re-sa-i-ku-ru
17) o-ri-bu-o-i-ru
18) pa-so-na-con-pyu-ta
19) do-ra-i-ku-ri-nin-gu-sa-bi-su
20) ra-pi-do-ri-mi-te-do-e-ku-su-pu-re-su
I understand that this isn't entirely fair - these have to be read out of context
03 Pimple sucker
. Sometimes tho, these have to be read out of context since you don't know what the business or sign is really for, which is why you would be reading it.This is probably the greatest problem for Japanese speakers learning English. When they think of the English words in terms of Japanese pronunciation, they can't really read the words clearly.
Student: "Su-pu-n."
Me: "No, say "spoon", there's no "oo" in between the "s" and the "p". "
Student: "su-pu-n"
Me: "no, think of just the "ssss" sound."
Student: "sssuuu.."
In other languages, they use the English word, written in English. I've seen in German and Spanish that they leave the English word untouched, and with the case of German, use the English pronunciation. You could be listening to an entire conversation in German and pick out all the English words; they leave them as English.
However, in Japan, when I try to talk to a sales clerk in the store, I've learned to add extra vowels in the middle of my words to break up every sound in to a consonant. If I ask them:
Sumimasen, steam iron wa doko deska? (excuse me, where are the steam irons)
they look at me blankly and blink
04 Me and the Colonel
. But, if I ask:Sumimasen, su-chi-mu-a-i-ron wa doko deska?
Then they say "ah! over here" and take me right over to them.
sigh.
I think I'm getting a bigger understanding of what a task this is going to be.
Answers to the Japaneezed English:
1) Door
2) toilet
3) heater
4) coffee
5) lettuce
6) kids
7) taxi
8) waiter
9) McDonalds
10) strike
11) schedule
12) gift card
13) potato salad
14) Australia
15) grapefruit
16) (aluminum) can recycle
17) olive oil
18) personal computer
19) dry cleaning service
20) rapid limited express (train)
