Friday, April 22, 2005, 14:45 GMT
(I'm bilingual, Japanese/English)
A sad story:
Many Japanese words are dying nowadays... (disappearing from everyday usage) They are replaced by English words written in Katakana (one of the Japanese writing systems). This happens every week, every day...
Many people don't know about this, but those who have studied Japanese and experienced how the language is used in Japan probably know what I mean.
A crash course in Japanese:
knife, table, spoon, fork, size, cup, bottle, free, choice, pattern, curtain, juice, shop, card, cocktail, glass, color, event, ball pen, coin, light, lamp, arcade, mall, world, sale, bargain, open, ticket, bed, generation, tea, violin, hall, love letter, soccer... and thousands more. These words were the ones I could quickly, spontaneously think of. It's perfectly normal to use them in everyday conversation.
The current percentage of English words in the Japanese language is about 10%. That's the highest percentage worldwide (by far!)
Especially in commercials, the percentage of English words may reach 20% or sometimes even 30% or more.
There are many signs (in public places) in Japan today, which are written in English ONLY. This is a current trend. English is seen as modern and "cool", whereas Japanese is "traditional" and "old".
Product names are often in English only, you'll see "Apple Juice" and "Chocolate Cookies", "Wellness Drinks", "Fruit Therapy Yogurts" in Japanese supermarkets.
All the convenience stores in Japan (which are of course called "convenience stores" or just "conbini") have English names: Seven-Eleven (well, that's obvious), but also: Family Mart, Lawson, Circle K...
On many products, there are short English texts, describing/praising the product, but no Japanese translations. Many product designs, book covers, magazines use English, not Japanese.
Especially older people have severe difficulties to cope with this strong trend of adopting English. The government has recognized this problem, but so far nothing has been done about it.
Even grammer and verbs are Anglicized: a new trend is to use "GET suru" in commercials, which means "to get". Not only does this construction violate Japanese grammar (usually noun + suru = verb), it also replaces the Japanese verb "morau" (to get, receive) with the English equivalent.
I've noticed (while talking to Japanese) that many English words creep into the Japanese language unconsciously. I've asked Japanese people for the Japanese translation of the English words the used, and I was quite shocked when they couldn't remember the Japanese equivalents. Recently, a Japanese friend of mine used "coin" and I asked him why he didn't use the Japanese word, but he simply couldn't remember it. I had to tell him and then he said: "Ah, yeah. Of course..."
There are pessimistic estimates about the Japanese language 100 years from now... since the current trend I described above is growing stronger and stronger every year (since 1945....)
I like English very much, but I think it is very sad that the Japanese language is destroyed though English influence... what do you think?
A sad story:
Many Japanese words are dying nowadays... (disappearing from everyday usage) They are replaced by English words written in Katakana (one of the Japanese writing systems). This happens every week, every day...
Many people don't know about this, but those who have studied Japanese and experienced how the language is used in Japan probably know what I mean.
A crash course in Japanese:
knife, table, spoon, fork, size, cup, bottle, free, choice, pattern, curtain, juice, shop, card, cocktail, glass, color, event, ball pen, coin, light, lamp, arcade, mall, world, sale, bargain, open, ticket, bed, generation, tea, violin, hall, love letter, soccer... and thousands more. These words were the ones I could quickly, spontaneously think of. It's perfectly normal to use them in everyday conversation.
The current percentage of English words in the Japanese language is about 10%. That's the highest percentage worldwide (by far!)
Especially in commercials, the percentage of English words may reach 20% or sometimes even 30% or more.
There are many signs (in public places) in Japan today, which are written in English ONLY. This is a current trend. English is seen as modern and "cool", whereas Japanese is "traditional" and "old".
Product names are often in English only, you'll see "Apple Juice" and "Chocolate Cookies", "Wellness Drinks", "Fruit Therapy Yogurts" in Japanese supermarkets.
All the convenience stores in Japan (which are of course called "convenience stores" or just "conbini") have English names: Seven-Eleven (well, that's obvious), but also: Family Mart, Lawson, Circle K...
On many products, there are short English texts, describing/praising the product, but no Japanese translations. Many product designs, book covers, magazines use English, not Japanese.
Especially older people have severe difficulties to cope with this strong trend of adopting English. The government has recognized this problem, but so far nothing has been done about it.
Even grammer and verbs are Anglicized: a new trend is to use "GET suru" in commercials, which means "to get". Not only does this construction violate Japanese grammar (usually noun + suru = verb), it also replaces the Japanese verb "morau" (to get, receive) with the English equivalent.
I've noticed (while talking to Japanese) that many English words creep into the Japanese language unconsciously. I've asked Japanese people for the Japanese translation of the English words the used, and I was quite shocked when they couldn't remember the Japanese equivalents. Recently, a Japanese friend of mine used "coin" and I asked him why he didn't use the Japanese word, but he simply couldn't remember it. I had to tell him and then he said: "Ah, yeah. Of course..."
There are pessimistic estimates about the Japanese language 100 years from now... since the current trend I described above is growing stronger and stronger every year (since 1945....)
I like English very much, but I think it is very sad that the Japanese language is destroyed though English influence... what do you think?