Comments on J-List side blog: Difficult English and the Japanese

Reminds me of the time my friend say one of his st...

2009-03-19T22:15:00.000+09:00

Reminds me of the time my friend say one of his students on the train as she was getting off. He shouted out to her:

Him: 現在、なにを行っていますか
Her: ?!(・◇・;)

And he turns to me to say, "Damn, these people don't understand anything I say."

lololololololol

Right, Overoften. It's in the dictionary, it's cor...

2009-03-19T09:57:00.000+09:00

Right, Overoften. It's in the dictionary, it's correct, right? Basically, there were waves of influence, with the British having a bit more at the start, then the Germans (there's a bunch of medical terms the Japanese imported and still use today) and then the Americans with the WWII and afterwards era.

I'm not sure it's down to British English, to be h...

2009-03-19T09:44:00.000+09:00

I'm not sure it's down to British English, to be honest.

I think it's more likely a good example of why translation should be done by a native speaker of the target language. Give a dictionary to a student who's not terribly proficient, and they won't know which of the many alternative translations to choose from. Couple that with the fact that directly translated Japanese usually sounds very formal in English ("I attended a party with my club members") and this is where you end up.

I'd have to disagree with kalleboo. As someone who's looking out for it, I reckon British English hasn't had anywhere near the influence in Japan that US English has. Perhaps the isolated examples of B.E. stick out more. Recent cultural and linguistic influence has tended to be pretty one-way, after all, so B.E. speakers tend to be less phased by U.S. English than vice versa.

And remember of course that there is that stubbornly strange 3rd way of Japanese English - to take your car example, neither US nor British English uses (as far as I know, but I'll happily stand corrected) "front glass", "handle" (for steering wheel), or "winker".

alight is used on all the trains here in britain, ...

2009-03-19T08:40:00.000+09:00

alight is used on all the trains here in britain, nobody uses domicile or vestibule tho...I thought vestibule was a type of seating, like in a theatre :S

What, are you saying the Brits don't wear pants? ^...

2009-03-18T23:54:00.000+09:00

What, are you saying the Brits don't wear pants? ^_^

Yes, I know a lot of that. So often the "strangeness" we experience is just British words like bonnet or saloon.

A lot of it is because Japan's English (and really...

2009-03-18T21:53:00.000+09:00

A lot of it is because Japan's English (and really any country where english is a second language) mostly comes from british english, where these words are more common. This also explains a lot of katakana oddities, where they make a lot more sense if you use a british meaning (e.g. pants) or pronunciation of the source word.