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Loanwords
Apr 3, 2015 20:22:40 GMT
via mobile
Post by Bokusenou on Apr 3, 2015 20:22:40 GMT
It's always surprising to me when English gets a new Japanese loanword. People seem to start using it out of the blue. That's what happened with "emoji", and I'm surprised how common a word it is in English now.
On the other hand, Japanese has a lot of fun loanwords from English, as well as ones where the meaning changed ("feminist" meaning "ladies' man" comes to mind).
What loanwords do you find interesting?
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Post by Jembru on Apr 6, 2015 23:42:40 GMT
I used to be one of those learners who would avoid loanwords, thinking they were cheating. I love using them now though, and especially when you're using wasei-eigo, that sound like English words but are used differently (like your 'feminisuto'), I think it actually does show off ones depth of knowledge. That said, it's a relief that you can get away with just saying words in katakana if you don't know them in English. In fact, Steve from LingQ slightly irritated me in a conversation because he was speaking to a Japanese lady living in Canada and she was using katakanago a lot (because she uses the words for work so that's just what comes to her mind first). He kept interrupting her and correcting the words back into Japanese. I was like 'Gaaah, we get it.. you know a lot of words in Japanese.. just let the poor girl speak..' (lesson #10 if anyone wants to hear for themselves).
I like it when they turn English into verbs.. オールする (pulling an all-nighter)、ネゴする (to negotiate)、リスケする (to reschedule).
Oh and I like it when they combine Japanese and English to make a whole new word. ドタキャン (last minute cancellation) from 土壇場 (どたんば) and 'cancel', ダントツ (runaway best) from 断固 (だんこ) and 'top' (which has a small 'tsu' in katakana which has become voiced here) and 顔パス (jisho lists this as 'getting free admission for being well-known', but I have only heard this word once and it was in the context of not being asked for ID because the bar staff know you) from 顔 (かお) and 'pass'.
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Post by Bokusenou on Apr 17, 2016 20:06:42 GMT
Those are great! I just found an interesting one, though it's an abbreviation: スクショ, which is an abbreviation of スクリーンショット (screenshot). I totally didn't recognize it at first!
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Post by Jembru on Apr 22, 2016 0:41:27 GMT
I'd never have guessed the meaning from that! That's a great example. You've just reminded me of シャッターチャンス, I guess this counts as waseieigo because we would say 'photo opportunity'. It's pretty long so I wonder if this has been abbreviated too? 'Shacha' maybe? Generally I like these kinds of words, but there's a family of waseieigo that I really don't like, that has been haunting the Japanese language for the last decade. It's when they use English letters to abbreviate phrases. 5 years ago everyone was saying 'KY' for '空気読めない', and these days the buzzword of the moment seems to be 'NG' from 'no go'. I'm not sure why it annoys me so much. Maybe because it is so overused, or maybe because it sounds like everyone is saying 'energy'. ^^ Maybe I'm just starting to show my age.
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