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 oftenuorois added in between consonants or at the end ("group" becomes "guruppo") - There is no
lin Japanese, so those are turned intor's (en. "hotel" is jp. "hoteru") - Although there exist symbols for the
vsound it is more usually transliterated asb, so a word like "event" is taken over as "ibento" - If an
ris 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
nin 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).