Everything about Japlish totally explained
are Japanese
pseudo-Anglicisms:
English constructions not in use in
Anglophone countries nor by English native speakers, but only by speakers of
Japanese. A more general term for made-in-Japan foreign words is
wasei-gairaigo, which usually applies to words made from European languages.
The term has become the common moniker for these words inside of Japan, meaning that some people are aware that they're terms used only as Japanese
vernacular. Indeed, despite the fact that the term "Japanese English" could be said to imply that these words are "English," they're actually
Japanese words that happen to be derived from English. Nevertheless, the Japanese have difficulty in the distinction between these words and true Anglophonic English, as a survey conducted in August 2007 demonstrated.
One example is the word . It seems like perfectly normal English, but in Japan, it often refers to a title for a person.
Tanaka-desk would be a
reporter or editor in charge of a department at a newspaper (for example, the city desk). Wasei-eigo words can form compounds with Japanese words, for example, combines
oku, meaning hundred million, with "mansion" to form a new word meaning "luxury apartment". This is actually a
pun, since the word "man" (万) means "ten thousand" in Japanese: "oku-shon" is ten thousand times more than "man-shon". Sometimes, two English words with their normal meanings will be combined to form a new compound word. One famous instance is, a
portmanteau of "family" and "computer", meaning a
video game system (especially, but not necessarily, the
Famicom, known to the rest of the world as the
Nintendo Entertainment System).
Some wasei-eigo have in turn been borrowed as pseudo-Anglicisms in other countries. For example, 아파트
apateu/ap'at'ŭ in
Korean is borrowed from the Japanese word
apāto.
For an extensive list of terms, see the
List of Gairaigo and Wasei-eigo terms.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Japlish'.
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