jcdietz03 Wrote:Related: Why do Japanese people use "English" words when there are perfectly good Japanese words that say the same thing?

Why not? They're not English, they're Japanese. Do you have the same complaint about all the Chinese loanwords, or all the French loans into English? At one time those were all new-fangled as well.

Quote:Are there really no Japanese words for "positive thinking" or "teamwork"? Is the best way to communicate these concepts (in Japanese) really to just use "English"?

I'd say so. Both of those terms are fairly modern words.

Quote:A guy replied to that and said it'd be weird if there wasn't a native word for stalker before they borrowed one.

The concept of a "stalker" is also fairly recent as well.

Stealing words from other languages is a great way to get a hold on particular ideas and concepts. Which sounds better, words like "zeitgeist" and "schadenfreude" or phrases like "push the envelope" and "blue sky thinking"....

zachandhobbes Wrote:For instance... when I see 'アドベンちゃー' I don't just know it, I think in my mind 'hmm... アドベンチャー。。。 sounds like ADVENTURE!"

i thought of アドベン茶。

heh.

i had a similar story when trying to describe orange range to my american-born japanese friend.

"well, i heard anime expo was supposed to get orange range to come this year."
"who?"
"orange range."
"what?"
"uh, オ・・・オレンギランゲ？"
"oh you mean オレンジレンジ”
"oh yeah. them."

isn't there a famous movie line about forte really being pronounced fort?

well that's enough for now.
i should probably go apply for an arbeit.

I struggled a bit with 和製英語 at first because I didn't treat it like Japanese either - "Oh I got this no problem." But it really has to be treated like Japanese - because it is! I noticed that I sucked at reading Katakana (kind of still do hehe) because I never put those words in my SRS. It finally dawned on me that even though they are much easier then regular Japanese words, they shouldn't be pushed aside - so now I SRS them. My katakana reading did improve (I think my pronunciation is ok, but who knows), but I'm finding it is still lacking, as I quickly memorize the word pattern. I still mix up some of the characters, so I think another run through on smartfm is probably a good idea at this point. I just don't get much practice with them in general compared to Hiragana and kanji.

I'm always surprised and tickled when I here a random english use in doramas. I have no idea why/how these phrases are picked, but it's fun.

Mushi Wrote:You're *from* California, and they think they can correct you on how to say "California"?? I mean, I have a French colleague, and when she talks about "Pah-ree", I sure don't correct her and say, "Hey, it's called 'Pare-ess', get it right."

Well, it's akin to a German in America who, even while speaking English, refers to his homeland as "Deutschland" instead of "Germany". It sounds odd, to say the least.

In other words, think of カリフォルニア as a different word, not merely a different pronunciation.

What worked for me is: I just kept reading katakana based words for almost everything. And now I can read it easily. Although i'd say I can read hiragana better still....