English words, but Japanese meanings
I had one of these “you know you’ve been in Japan too long” moments reading this list, as for three or four of them I had to stop and think if they really were Japanese inventions, 和製英語, wasei eigo, Japanese-style English! How many of these expressions that the Japanese didn’t know were Japanese-English, as reported by goo Ranking, did you have to mentally double-check? The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.
Ranking results
Q: What expressions were you unaware that they were really Japanes-English?
Rank 日本語 English Explanation Score 1 オーダーメイド Order-made This should be “custom-made”, although I must admit to having forgotton that! 100 2 スキンシップ Skin-ship Personal contact, physical contact within a family or pet relationship 89.9 3 コンセント Consent Outlet if you’re American, socket if you’re from the UK. The expression comes from “concentric plug”, apparently 88.9 4 キーホルダー Key holder Key ring 85.8 5 パワーハラスメント Power Harassment Bullying, in the workplace primarily. I was surprised that this isn’t English! 85.2 6 デコレーションケーキ Decoration Cake Fancy cake 83.3 7 ガードマン Guardman Security guard 79.9 8 コインランドリー Coin laundry Laundromat, according to the survey, but “coin laundry” is also acceptable, is it not? 75.9 9 リフォーム Reform Renovation, used when a home or commercial building is remodelled either partially or fully 75.3 10 リベンジ Revenge Return match 75.1 11 グレードアップ Grade up Upgrade 74.2 12 ナンバーディスプレイ Number display Caller ID 71.8 13 スパッツ Spats Leggings 71.2 14 フリーサイズ Free size One-size-fits-all 70.1 15 マグカップ Mug cup Mug 67.1 16 ベビーカー Baby car Baby carriage 66.2 17 メールマガジン Mail magazine Email newsletter 65.9 18 ノートパソコン Note pasocon Laptop. Here “note” is short for “notebook” and “pasocon” comes from “personal computer” 65.4 19 パンティストッキング Panty stocking Pantyhose 65.0 20 マニア Mania Enthusiasm, rather than implying a serious mental disorder as the English term perhaps does 63.8 21 ワンパターン One pattern Manneristic 61.3 22 フライドポテト Fried potato French fries. This one seems a bit of a stretch to me, though. 61.1 23 スリーサイズ Three size Measurements, vital statistics, bust, waist and hips - that’s another one - Japanese use hip (or ヒップ) to mean bottom 59.7 24 プラスアルファ Plus alpha Additional value. I saw on the television that this came from baseball. Someone saw an American scoreboard with an “x” in one box, but he misread it as α, and it stuck. 57.0 25 ペーパーテスト Paper test Written examination. A similar expression is “paper driver”, someone who has a license but no car. 56.3 26 リストラ Restra Downsizing. The Japanese is an abbreviation of “restructuring” 56.0 27 ファンタジック Fantasic Fantastic. Apparently the misspelling comes from video games, and seems to have got stuck in Japanese 53.1 28 ラジカセ Raji-case Boom box. The expression comes from “radio-cassette” 52.6 29 テレビゲーム TV game Video game 50.7 30 ガソリンスタンド Gasoline stand Gas station, petrol station 49.3
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wintersweet said,
September 24, 2007 @ 08:04
Great post! As an English teacher with an interest in sociolinguistics, I found this really intriguing. For me it’s a fine line between clarifying my students’/clients’ assumption that all words like the above are comprehensible English, and trying not to embarrass them. Many Japanese friends I’ve talked to have mentioned the mortification they experienced the first time they found out that something they thought was gairaigo was actually wasei eigo. In some cases, this caused them to totally abandon their entire katakana vocabulary–which is too bad, because these words can still serve as a good jumping-off point for improving their English vocabularies. It’s similar to the huge number French-originating words in English: using our greatly transformed meanings and pronunciations for these words indiscriminately in France would be a disaster. Using these kinds of words thoughtfully and cautiously is the trick. Otherwise, you may find yourself shrinking your vocabulary–like my Japanese friend who had been avoiding the perfectly functional phrase “window-shopping” because she assumed it must be wasei eigo.
It’s useful for teachers of Japanese students to be aware of these words, so that we have some idea what they mean when they say or write “a trump game,” for example. It’s just important to not embarrass them, and to let them know that all languages do this kind of thing to other languages; it’s not a specifically Japanese concern.
And yeah, I agree that coin laundry is fine. It might be regionalized–perhaps it doesn’t occur in the UK or in some parts of the US or something–but it’s acceptable anyway.
Is Foreign Jargon Polluting the Japanese Language? : Japan Probe said,
September 24, 2007 @ 09:18
[…] Even as an English speaker it is quite hard to understand what the hell many katakana loanwords from English actually mean. For a good look at some “English” katakana words English speakers would have trouble understanding, check out What Japan Think’s new post on “English words, but Japanese meanings.” […]
Fat Tony said,
September 24, 2007 @ 17:17
“U-Turn” - not used to describe turning a car around to go in the opposite direction, but the process of returning home to one’s family for new year.
nihonhacks.com said,
September 25, 2007 @ 22:57
[…] labeled Mail Magazine (メイルマガジン [a term which incidentally came up in an interesting poll on WhatJapanThinks […]
How To Find Cheese In Japan | nihonhacks.com said,
September 28, 2007 @ 21:37
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Ian Lewis said,
October 1, 2007 @ 11:52
What’s wrong with order-made? It’s perfectly fine english afaik. If a Japanese person said that I would understand immediately. Though I admit almost anyone would say custom-made or made-to-order before order-made.
Also, マニア is a bit more like excessive enthusiasm afaik which fits the english word a bit better though still quite different.
5parrow said,
October 4, 2007 @ 00:24
I was under the impression that “free size” was fairly common. Apparently the term is used in India as well.
In any case, there are very nearly as many dissonances between British and American English. I recall playing Taboo with some American friends during my first extended stay in the US, and attempting to use “zebra” as a clue for “crossing”. Imagine my surprise when I realized that there is no such thing as a “zebra crossing” (see Wikipedia) in America!
But by far the most characteristic (and, for foreigners, troublesome) thing about wasei-eigo is the use of abbreviations such as terebi, hara, etc.
Oh, as a “mania” I must note that another popular wasei-eigo word in mania circles is “buruma” (bloomers)… -_-;
Chanpuru.org » Blog Archive » Even Japanese can’t understand their own Engrish said,
October 18, 2007 @ 22:05
[…] read this article shortly after reading Ken Y-N’s translation of a survey on English words with Japanese meanings. One of my favorite examples is the word “revenge” (リべンジ or ribenji). It […]
Overthinker said,
October 20, 2007 @ 01:32
Order-made, Key holder, Coin laundry, Reform, Free size, Gasoline stand, Plus alpha, and you don’t have things like Handle (steering wheel) and Winker (indicators) and Back Mirror (rearview mirror) - cars are a wonderful source of Japanese-English-that-should-be-Real-English….