Aisu Kurimu onegaishimasu

If there’s one thing I enjoy it’s seeing the ways in which different cultures will take elements of other cultures and adopt it as their own. Japan, like so many other countries has adopted elements of the English language and fit it into their own linguistic framework. This has made for some very interesting and unusual, how shall I say, Engrish. Japan has three alphabets, one of which is used for loan words; words or ideas that are not originally from Japan. There has been an explosion of new words, taken especially from the English language after Japan opened her doors to the world in the Meiji period. In the last couple of decades there has been an explosion of loan words, taken especially from the English language. You would think that this would make teaching English in Japan easier, but guess again. The Japanese language has about one third the amount of sounds than that of the English language. Two of the most difficult sounds for Japanese speakers studying English are words that have the letters R and L. Just for fun, I sometimes have my students attempt the word “parallelogram”. In order to get around the problem of not being able to pronounce these English sounds comfortably, the Japanese have taken these new words and ideas and turned them into Japanese sounding words. Words like ice-cream and hamburger have phonetically become aisu kurimu, and hambaaga. Going to any western style restaurant you will find the menu items said in this katakana style. Place names have also been katakanaized. New York, London, Winnipeg become Nu Yooku, Rondon, Uinipegu. When I first heard this, I thought that it was some form of Pidgin, but later realized that there are many other languages that the Japanese have adopted, specifically from Korea and China. I suppose the English language does the same thing with other languages; adopting words for such natural phenomenon’s as El Nino and Tsunami, and we often pronounce place names without consideration of how it would be said in the local dialect. I just like to think of Japan as a special case, just because there are some words which are adopted that are worth a chuckle. Words such as ‘camara-man’ meaning photographer, or movie titles such as the movie “Up” has become “Karl”. Some words are just adopted because they sound cool to the Japanese. For instance, a hair salon that for whatever reason decided to name itself poo-p. “Wow, where do you get your hair done?” “Oh I go to Poo-p.” (First word learned perhaps?) Grammar is generally very difficult for Japanese learners of English. There are a lot of things poorly translated into English that are just plain bizarre. Often the grammar on signboards and official documents are too wordy, many of which are out of context, the grammar is off, and the idea becomes lost. One example, my Aunt and I went to an aquarium last week, and one sign read, “Please do not disturb sunfish by taking photographs with a flame of flashlight. Thank you for your cooperation.” Another one read, “Please to not get over the handrail.”

Also articles such as A and The do not exist in the Japanese language and is very difficult for Japanese speakers to know when to place these properly in a sentence. One sign I saw the other day read, “Please push a door” I’m a little worried this Engrish is going to effect the way I talk. By the time I come back, I will be saying everything with adopted English loan words. Canu yu undasusando mi?