When I was reading the other day, I came across the word "English" and for just a milli-second I stopped and thought "Wait. Shouldn't that be 'Engrish'?"
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
February 22, 2004
Comments
There is a scene in the coming movie "Lost in Translation" that ridicules us about how we Japanese pronounce Engrish. I'd love to hear your comments on our inability to discriminate betweeen "r" and "l". Does that sound so stupid and funny?
Comment by: Satoko. Posted February 26, 2004 07:51 AM.
Quite seriously, I believe that the Japanese do not discriminate between the English "r" and the English "l" because Japanese does not have either sound. The sound at the beginning of the Japanese syllables "ら、り、る、れ、ろ” is a sound somewhat between them, a sound that English does not have. Conversely, I can't pronounce those Japanese sounds correctly--they end up sounding like "r", which they are not. If you want a real laugh, you should listen to me try to pronounce りょかん. I can't pronounce that りょ correctly to save my life.
When English is written in katakana the natural response is to read it with the Japanese, not English, pronunciation and since both "l" and "r" sounds are written with the same katakana, Japanese are forced to pronounce them the same way. How could you distinguish between them?
The reverse happens when Japanese words are written in romaji. How many non-native speakers of Japanese slaughter the pronunciation of words like Kyoto (KEY-oh-to) and sake (SA-key) and karaoke (carry-OH-key).
I never think people are stupid for trying to communicate. But is it funny? Sure. As funny as me trying to pronounce croissant. Or my husband trying to pronounce caulk in the American way, rather than in his native British accent. Or my Japanese class trying to say "食べなければなりません" yesterday. If you could have heard us, you would have been laughing too."
Comment by: mss. Posted February 26, 2004 09:47 AM.
Thank you for your kind reply. The use of katakana for English words gives us some interesting anecdotes. As you would have already known, sewing machines are translated as 「ミシン」, which was introduced into Japan probably at the dawn of the history. Now we pronounce machines as 「マシン」. I have no idea which is better to use when I should buy one in the US. An NHK prime-time show 「英語でしゃべらナイト (Tonight, you must speak English)」, whose purpose is to make us speak English, featured how English was introduced into the Japanese people in the former days: A savant of the samurai class compiled a kind of English-Japanese dictionary, in which 「グーモー」 is 「おはようございます」, “Good Morning!”, which may or may not be better than 「グッドモーニング」. I don’t know how it was related to the last samurai, but surely Ken Watanabe was ordered to take a course in phonetics. A current best-selling book here in Japan on English pronunciation, 「ハイディの法則 (Mr. Hyde’s principle)」, which I also bought and found hilarious yet helpful, makes use of katakana in a very different way than the usual way of spelling out English in katakana. Here are some excerpts: 法則(principle) 12 「ワッケナイ、(訳無い？)」 : What can I do for you? (point: 「ホワット・キャン・アイ」ではなく「ワッケナイ」と発音。) 252 「エゼエゼ」 : Is it important? Is it OK? (point: 「イズ・イット」ではなく「エゼ」と発音。) 999 「サンマだ、ブリだ、カツオだ」 : I saw some of the paintings by Michelangelo. (point: 「サム・オブ・ザ」ではなくサマザと発音。) I don’t know whether they will work in the real world.
Comment by: Satoko. Posted February 26, 2004 03:43 PM.
Share Your Thoughts
More problems with spelling.