Japanese English
I think
that the practices of the early education of
"Romaji" and the expression of foreign
languages by "Katakana" produce Japanese
English.
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Japanese Edition
Japanese English
Romaji: Originally
Japanese language has three kinds of characters. They are
Kanji, Ktakana, and Hiragana. Kanji is an ideogram and the
others are phonograms (Katakana and Hiragana have one to one
correspondence.) We relatively recently began to use Romaji,
which expresses Katakana with English alphabet. It has also
one to one correspondence with the Katakana and Hiragana.
Probably Romaji was developed as a convenient tool for
Westerners who wanted to learn Japanese language. But we
Japanese learn English alphabet at first and then learn
Romaji and English. We often learn Romaji earlier than
English. I think we learn Romaji too early because we easily
fall into a habit of pronouncing English like Romaji, that
is, Japanese pronunciation. But we cannot get off from too
early Romaji education because Romaji is now essential for
the Japanese word processor.
Loanwords:
Japanese people have changed many foreign words to
Katakana-Words, that is, loanwords, and have used them widely
since the Meiji Restoration in 1868. We have no problem while
using loanwords in Japanese context. But, when we speak or
write English, loanwords bother us because some of them are
partially correct English. The others are incorrect English,
or Japanese English, or the other languages.
Examples:
| Loanword |
English |
|
Loanword |
English |
Bakkumira
(back mirror) |
rearview mirror |
|
Arubaito
(German) |
part-time job |
Konpurekkusu
(complex) |
inferiority
complex |
|
Karuta
(Portuguese) |
cards |
Gasorin
stando
(gasoline stand) |
gas station |
|
Pan
(Portuguese) |
bread |
OL
(Office
Lady) |
female office
worker |
|
Pasokon
(perso. com.) |
personal
computer |
Sarariiman
(salary
man) |
white-collar
worker |
|
Hocchikisu
(manufacturer's name) |
stapler |
Pronunciation
and listening: Among the many difficulties in
learning English conversation, the most famous difficulty is
to distinguish between L and R when we listen to and speak
English. Recently I found interesting scientific data that
showed how it is difficult to identify "L" from
"R" to Japanese people. According to the Asahi
Shinbun newspaper (May 25, 1997), the ATR Ningen Joho
Kenkyuusho (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute)
carried out a listening test of "Right" and
"Light" on Americans and Japanese. At first
researchers of the ATR synthesized two pure voices,
"Right" and "Light," and then mixed them
with various ratios, and obtained 17 levels of sample voices.
The researchers had examinees listen to the voices at random.
Results are shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1 A
Listening Test
a) 40
Americans b) 200 Japanese
Sample No. .
Where Sample No. 1 is pure
"Right," Sample No. 17 is pure
"Light."
Other samples are mixture of No. 1
and 17 (The "Light" increases gradually from 2
to 17.)
R (W or L) is the people (%) who identified the sample
voice as "Right" ("White" or "Light.")
( I read the article and wrote this
explanation about Figure 1.)
Of course, Americans
identified them better than Japanese. It is interesting that
most of the examinees, including Americans and Japanese,
identified the No. 9 sample as "White.
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Uploaded December 23, 2000
Revised December 21, 2001
Revised June 11, 2006