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Horse tornado for children
(lemmy.today)
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this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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Showcasing the brazen and nouveau in English communication.
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If you're communicating with Japanese people, you should not be worried about appearing racist.
For example, convenience stores are called konbini, short for konbiniensu sutoa (コンビニエンスストア), and milkshake is mirukuseki (ミルクシェーク).
I was struggling to figure out why those words were relevant for a minute. Then I figured it out that, if you thought of someone saying the English word in the worst most racist Japanese accent it sounds like those words.
Yup. Merry-Go-Round is called merigoraundo (メリーゴーラウンド) or merigorando (メリーゴーランド).
Yeah you literally say it with a racist Japanese accent and they understand it perfectly. If you say the English loanword that's the Etymon they have no idea what you're saying.
Pretty much the same the other way around too. If you tell Japanese speakers you do karadee or want to go to carryokee they probably won't get it.
Is it racism? I always thought that "engrisu" was just the normal way they transliterate. In Greek transliterated words also get "greekified" so as to better map in the language structure for example
Not really. It just makes people (the speakers) feel uncomfortable, like they're "making fun of the way they talk." To be fair, that kind of transliteration doesn't work all the time, and to assume it would might be racist? El spanish language-o does not-o just add -o sounds, and speaking like that would demonstrate a really poor understanding of who you're talking to.
Well...
I tried to get some ibuprofen in Italy and they didn't understand me, until I've added an 'a' and called it ibuprofena
Some languages are just build more on the rhythm or something
But always found it funny, that just adding the stereotypical '-a', '-o' or '-e' seems to resolve the misunderstanding
Maybe I didn't actually reply to your comment, but just wanted to share my association/memory...
That's fine. I love sharing. :p
It is funny how cultural mishaps like that happen, and it warms my heart every time two people can share a laugh about it.
I moved to a place that called liquor stores “pakis” and I thought it was some racist shit until someone explained it was short for "package store.”
Yeah, it comes down to what they determined to be basic sounds. In english, we have letters that make basic sounds. In Japanese, they have a bunch of compound sounds. Other than "n", all consonant sounds are followed by a vowel sound, and "u" (pronounced "oo") is the one that may or may not get vocalized (english usually uses "e" for this). So "pantsu" can be pronounced as it looks (pantsoo) or like english (pants). If you like Naruto, his friend/rival's name is spelled "Sasuke" but pronounced more like "Saskay".
The other big part comes from some sounds used in english just missing entirely from the japanese language. R/L are both missing, though japanese has a sound that is a mix between the two (which makes their "L" sound more like an "R" and vice versa, again if you're a Naruto fan, listen to how Sasuke pronounces "Naruto" or "Sakura", most of the english VAs just use the western pronounciation but he uses the japanese pronunciation for names). They also don't have "V" or "Th".
Another Naruto bit, they just use the japanese words for the various ninja techniques. They sound mysterious and cool in english but boring in japanese. Byakugon translates to white eyes. Rasenga is something like spiral ball. It's just funny to me how unknown word can seem like there's more to it but in their original language they come off more like one of Saitama's moves (like Normal Punch or Serious Punch).