Katakana examples: English loanwords
Examples of English words taken into Japanese (spelling/pronunciation)
Background
I took a brief trip to Japan in April 2018 and learned to read hiragana and katakana. Once I knew some of
the rules of the Japanese language it was quite easy to trace back some words written in katakana to their
English origin.
In particular:
- Apart from
n
, no consonant can stand alone, so oftenu
oro
is added in between consonants or at the end ("group" becomes "guruppo") - There is no
l
in Japanese, so those are turned intor
's (en. "hotel" is jp. "hoteru") - Although there exist symbols for the
v
sound it is more usually transliterated asb
, so a word like "event" is taken over as "ibento" - If an
r
is not pronounced in non-rhotic English variants (like British English) it is often left out in Japanese—a word like en. "corner" becomes jp. "kōnā" - Lone-standing
n
in Japanese (ン
) is pronounced as "ng" or "m" depending on context
Examples
The following table contains ONLY examples I have actually seen on signs in Japan, besides a handful which were found in magazines.
English | Japanese | Romaji |
---|---|---|
Bar | バー | bā |
Bus | バス | basu |
Camera | カメラ | kamera |
Center | センター | sentā |
Cleaning | クリーニング | kurīningu |
Club | クラブ | kurabu |
Coin locker | コインロッカー | koinrokkā |
Collaboration | コラボレーション | koraborēshon |
Collection | コレクション | korekushon |
Contrast | コントラスト | kontorasuto |
Corner | コーナー | kōnā |
Counter | カウンター | kauntā |
Destination | デスティネーション | desutinēshon |
Dining | ダイニング | dainingu |
Dinner buffet | ディナーブッフェ | dinābaffe |
Elevator | エレベーター | erebātā |
Escalator | エスカレーター | esukarētā |
Event | イベント | ibento |
Express | エクスプレス | ekusupuresu |
Fan | ファン | fan |
French | フレンチ | furenchi |
Gallery | ギャラリー | gyararī |
Garden | ガーデン | gāden |
Gift selection | ギフトセレクション | gifutoserekushon |
Group | グルッポ | guruppo |
Guide | ガイド | gaido |
Hotel | ホテル | hoteru |
Image | イメージ | imeji |
Italian | イタリアン | itarian |
Keyboard | キーボード | kībōdo |
Lemon | レモン | remon |
Lounge | ラウンジ | raunji |
Machine | マシーン | mashin |
Menu | メニュー | menyū |
Park | パーク | pāku |
Parking | パーキング | pākingu |
Point | ポイント | pointo |
Private | プライベート | puraibēto |
Recycling | リサイクリング | risaikuringu |
Restaurant | レストラン | resutoran |
Salmon | サーモン | sāmon |
Sandwich | サンドウィッチ | sandowitchi |
Shop | ショップ | shoppu |
Spot | スポット | supotto |
Stretcher | ストレッチャー | sutoretchā |
Supermarket | スーパーマーケット | sūpāmāketto |
Timing | タイミング | taimingu |
Tobacco | トバク | tobaku |
Toilet | トイレ | toire |
Tulip | チュリップ | chūrippu |
Whiskey | ウイスキー | uisukī |
What is your favorite one? Let me know here.
Mine is "kurīningu" for cleaning because it's so different but its meaning can still be guessed.
Otherwise I find "ショップ" ("shoppu") interesting due to the writing: it has two small katakana symbols following
each other (ショ = shi + yo to make "sho", followed by a small "tsu" ッ to double the following consonant).