Comments on: It’s English* Jim, but not as we know it…(dealing with Japanese English) http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/dealing-with-japanese-english/ Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:31:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Laurent http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/dealing-with-japanese-english/#comment-1286 Laurent Sun, 07 Oct 2007 16:17:44 +0000 http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/360#comment-1286 nice! but yeah you seem to know an awful about this subject, ha ha. Personally i've developped a guilty pleasure in trying to pronounce english words in Japanese English just for fun and to see if people understand, which they do a lot of the times. my pronunciation isn't quite there just yet, it's actually a lot more difficult than you first think. I always thought pan was from the french until someone pointed that it was from portuguese. I like Kanji though, well I do now, give me another month trying to learn the first basic set and i'll probably go back to moanin about how archaic the whole thing is! oh yeah other suggestions? Janish... no? ok i'll go now... nice! but yeah you seem to know an awful about this subject, ha ha. Personally i’ve developped a guilty pleasure in trying to pronounce english words in Japanese English just for fun and to see if people understand, which they do a lot of the times. my pronunciation isn’t quite there just yet, it’s actually a lot more difficult than you first think.
I always thought pan was from the french until someone pointed that it was from portuguese.
I like Kanji though, well I do now, give me another month trying to learn the first basic set and i’ll probably go back to moanin about how archaic the whole thing is!

oh yeah other suggestions? Janish… no? ok i’ll go now…

]]> By: Alex Case http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tesol/dealing-with-japanese-english/#comment-1238 Alex Case Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:31:56 +0000 http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/archives/360#comment-1238 Just remembered another whole category- country and city names, where the Japanese tend to use a version much closer to the original than the English version. The exception is Chinese and some other Asian place names, where they use the same kanji Chinese symbols as the original but use the Japanese pronunciation of those symbols (perhaps understandable when even the Chinese pron would change between dialects). In fact, in both English and Japanese cases the general rule is that the longer the history between the two places the more the name varies from the local version. In the case of English this sometimes means using something closer to the old, for example Latin, name when the real name has changed, which incidentally is also true of the Japanese still using "Pekin". Some examples: Firenze Venezia Roma Milano Napoli Wien Berugi (Belgium) Swiss Just remembered another whole category- country and city names, where the Japanese tend to use a version much closer to the original than the English version. The exception is Chinese and some other Asian place names, where they use the same kanji Chinese symbols as the original but use the Japanese pronunciation of those symbols (perhaps understandable when even the Chinese pron would change between dialects). In fact, in both English and Japanese cases the general rule is that the longer the history between the two places the more the name varies from the local version. In the case of English this sometimes means using something closer to the old, for example Latin, name when the real name has changed, which incidentally is also true of the Japanese still using “Pekin”.

Some examples:
Firenze
Venezia
Roma
Milano
Napoli
Wien
Berugi (Belgium)
Swiss

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