damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 probably as a result of my grumpy mood rather than valid reason. I find the Japanese habit of refering to @ within an email address as "atu maku" or "atu sainu" childish and annoying. Like wise the spelling of dottu comu rather than the universal .com Link to post Share on other sites
dale#1 1 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 Probably your grumpy mood. I can understand annoying....but stupid? Hmm. Cheer up! Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Author Share Posted July 1, 2003 Fair enough. Not really stupid. Perhaps just sounds stupid, which doesn't really make Japanese stupid. I do find that a lot of katakana words annoy the hell out of me. They make adult Japanese men at work sound like children with a silly rhyming make up language. Link to post Share on other sites
dale#1 1 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 Know what you mean. Probably lots of English and sounds daft to them too. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Author Share Posted July 1, 2003 Someone bought their holiday snapshot album in to work. Written on the front was the word "arabumu" Link to post Share on other sites
dale#1 1 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 Look at all those silly t-shirts on sale overseas with nonsensical Japanese written on them, etc, etc Same kind of thing.... Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Author Share Posted July 1, 2003 not really dale. Those t-shirts are not intended to convey meaning or a message. The kanji employed are done so for so called artistic or design reasons. Very few non-Japanese people actually care what it says. On the other hand, the words I mentioned above and hundreds of other katakana words are not employed for design purposes. They are nationally lagitimised words that are used every day with meaning by non-Egnlish speakers. By the same token, I am not teasing Japan for for making silly-reading or badly spelt signs, t-shirts, labels etc in English. What I have a mild (depending on how grumpy I am) thorn in my side about is the fact that these katakana words are in the dictionary. They are not mistakes or design/marketing ploys. After a year of Aussie laziness in Japan, I now make an effort to pronounce a Japanese persons name as it should be pronounced in Japanese. I also expect the same from them with my name and take offence when they instantly mangle my name to suit themselves. Link to post Share on other sites
BagOfCrisps 24 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 We are in a bit of a mood today it seems, db....! Summat up? Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Author Share Posted July 1, 2003 yeah, I wish I had not called the thread "stupid and annoying". That was in itself stupid. Link to post Share on other sites
MistaSparkle 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 Whenever I hear a katakana word, i'm always thinking in the back of my head... yea what they meant to say was "(proper pronunciation)". The pronunciation is a bit akward to my ears, but it's the katakana words that have different meanings, or specified uses like "me-nia"(mania) or charenji (challenge) that are really whacked out. a-san: Do you do sa-fingu? b-san: No I haven't but sa-fubo-do getto. Are you sa-fu me-nia? a-san: Yes, this summer lets do safingu charenji! Link to post Share on other sites
MistaSparkle 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 In all fairness, i'm sure german and french speakers find our pronunciation of borrowed words to be horrible. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 katakana words are a real bane. Firstly, many Japanese people are incapable of reading them. I could understand it if they couldn't quite get my name right reading it in romaji, but they falter over it in katakana too, even though there's only a limited range of sounds that can be produced. Secondly, Japanese people seem to think that the katakana engrish word means something different from the Japanese word. Thus you get nonsense like 'imajineeshon - tsumari, souzouryoku' that you are invited to 'translate'. "Imagination - in other words, imagination" (but not actually in other words). You can tell when Japanese are talking vague and pretentious shit when you get a good admixture of katakana words in a sentence. Thirdly, you know when you've been in Japan too long when you go to type the word 'idol' and the first letters come out as 'ai'... Guilty as accused m'Lud. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Author Share Posted July 1, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by MistaSparkle: In all fairness, i'm sure german and french speakers find our pronunciation of borrowed words to be horrible. Agreed there (and to prove it I will no doubt misspell a few below), bbuuut, we borrow words that are unique to the article/object of reference: Arc de Triumph, pizza, escargo, Lufthansa. Or other dicky phrases that are used only for no good reason at all within English, like the French for "On the contrary" and that silly "tit 'a tet" or what ever hell it is. Ocean, it is interesting to hear your take from a translators perspective. I had to pull out my dictionary to understand it, but the 'imagination' example is great. MistaSpankandGobble the homophobe, are you still up for a safu charenji this summer? Link to post Share on other sites
MistaSparkle 0 Posted July 1, 2003 Share Posted July 1, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by db: bbuuut, we borrow words that are unique to the article/object of reference: Arc de Triumph, pizza, escargo, Lufthansa. Or other dicky phrases that are used only for no good reason at all within English, like the French for "On the contrary" and that silly "tit 'a tet" or what ever hell it is. There are tons of german and french words that are n't unique to an object of reference. I found this long list of languages and words that English borrows from and this list of French terms and expressions commonly used in English Pretty interesting stuff.... Quote: Originally posted by db: MistaSpankandGobble the homophobe, are you still up for a safu charenji this summer? Lets go, db the nut farmer. I need to SA-FU CHARENJI! Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 A tit a tete sounds rather good to me. My gf at college complained to me that I knew too many words, and resolved to humiliate me by choosing words at random from the dictionary and challenging me to define them. The first (and last) word she chose was 'knobkerrie', a kind of Zulu club. I defined it accurately. Although I didn't tell her this, we actually had a real knobkerrie displayed at the bottom of our stairs and my dad used to point to it and say "Know what that is son? That's a knobkerrie. That's what Zulus use for bashing in each other's skulls." My girlfriend still thought I was stupid and was annoyed. You can't win. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Author Share Posted July 2, 2003 only you Ocean, only you. Now MrSpakerFill, stop obstructing my unfounded generalisations by providing made for the moment websites. They are actually pretty interesting. BUUUUT,...... I will think of something. I just learnt that the word 'they' comes from Norse, an extinct language. Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 db, Im right there with ya mate - I think Japanese is going to become a katakana language only in the next few years. Half the words they spit outta their mouths recently are katakana anyways. I think monbusho should just stop teaching English and teach only Katakana. maybe that way I wont have to study Kanji anymore I just found this article and thought it was interesting... check it out. www.msnbc.com/news/932997.asp?cp1=1 Link to post Share on other sites
zwelgen 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 back to the "stupid and annoying" I heard a guy the other day yelling a website across the office and he was saying "dabu dabu dabu dotto ...." that dubdubdub really made me want to stand up and get him to say it over and over until he could do it properly, or at least wash his mouth out with soap. back to the borrowed words in English though, we dont pretend that they are English like "lingerie" we say "lohn ger ay" and although the pronunciation may be horrible, we at least make some kind of effort to at least try to pronounce it correctly. ok thats my 5c Link to post Share on other sites
mikazooki 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 just sumairu and try not to worry about it. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by zwelgen: back to the borrowed words in English though, we dont pretend that they are English like "lingerie" we say "lohn ger ay" and although the pronunciation may be horrible, we at least make some kind of effort to at least try to pronounce it correctly. That is to say, we get the pronunciation completely wrong, and have no idea how the French actually pronounce things. It's pronounced 'lanj-air-ree' which if you were to use in most English speaking countries would get you strange looks and incomprehension. Better to use the English equivalent 'tackle'. I get pretty annoyed by the systematic misspelling and mispronunciation of loanwords to English. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by Ocean11: Better to use the English equivalent 'tackle'. The last I heard, 'tackle' was something most definitely NOT removed at any point during coital engagement... Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 I was just thinking the very same........ Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 2, 2003 Share Posted July 2, 2003 "I knew summat was up when she came over to ours wearing some right nice tackle." "I got caught up in her tackle and couldn't find me way out." Aren't there any English speakers on this forum? Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 I know I have had this same conversation in person with most of the people commenting in this thread, but katakana mispronunciation doesn't bother me at all. We do it with our borrowed Japanese words, or even proper names. Are you telling me when you are talking to your friends at home you use the proper Japanese pronunciation of "karaoke." How about "Narita" airport? I like sounding stuff out and with katakana you always know exactly how to say it (as opposed to confusing english, french, etc). MistaS* - I love your long embedded links. I was surfing the web one fine day when I came across this incredibly interesting website from some bloke that recently spent some time in Japan. I was especially impressed by his design skills and really enjoyed the time I spent browsing through his pictures gallery. Click on this link to go and check it out. Link to post Share on other sites
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