December 6, 2007
Stolen English Words!
We all know that the Japanese think really highly of foreigners. This is displayed during normal, everyday life and I found that it was also happening on the soccer pitch. There are a countless number of ‘stolen’ English words that the Japanese use.
When I first came to Japan, this was an extremely funny experience for me because I came from an English speaking country where the pronunciation was…lets just say very different. Many English words are used incorrectly in Japan. For example, words such as abauto (about) are used in soccer when a coach wants to tell his team that they are playing indecisively.
The amusing thing is that these incorrect words and sentences are even used in advertisements where everyone can see them! Last year, when I went to an ‘all you can eat buffet’ there was a label near the curry table saying ‘curay’. This is because the Japanese have what is called romaji which changes the Japanese pronunciation directly into the English alphabet. There are many funny things like this but I guess that it doesn’t matter too much because not many people can spot these mistakes, but still…hilarious!!
Shooto (shoot – telling someone to shoot), naisu (nice – when someone has played well), naisu torai (nice try – when someone misses an attempt at goal), nai-shoo (nice shot – after a well constructed shot), are also some of the words I hear everyday during soccer training, and struggle to not laugh about.
I will keep in touch, but right now got to go to my next training. I’m looking forward to it too. I wonder how many Janglish (Japanese-English) words I’m going to hear today……
Ryosuke Yano