Japanese words in English

[Samurai_Jerk]

Many of the words in that Wiki list and Rob's list are hardly common currency. I can't think of too many people who would say chanoyu instead of tea ceremony and expect to be understood. I don't see Tenno supplanting Emperor anytime soon either.

And even if they were commonly used many of them are just words for things that didn't exist in the English language, so I don't find it very interesting. Wow, we too call raw fish on rice "sushi". Amazing. That's about as exciting as the Japanese calling a beef patty on bread a "hanbaagaa". However I was pretty darn surprised when I learned that "tycoon" and "honcho" were Japanese words. Those have become bonafide English words with different meanings and no realization by most people that they're from Japanese.

[Mulboyne]

[Taro Toporific]

Correction/update: I misunderstood the Japanese grammar. This is a list of Japanese words that Japanese {?traveling overseas?} are surprised that foreigners know.

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That's a strange ranking ....

Words likeもったいない (MOTTAINAI), 蚊取線香 (KATORI-SENKOU) and 残業 (ZANGYO) are ranked higher than well-known than words found in most English dictionaries like karaoke, teriyaki, anime, tsunami, banzai, manga, Nintendo, instant ramen, bonsai, karate, origami, kimono, and ikebana.

[quote="Mulboyne"] here's the list starting from the best-known:

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[Visitor K]

[maraboutslim]

I kind of lost track of this thread somewhere along the way. So I apologize for commenting on an old post. Here goes...

Me too - if you speak Japanese with a half decent accent, the English bastardizations start to grate - even when people say shiBUya rather than SHIbuya...

Toe-key-oh drives me nuts, and of course most English speakers tend to incorrectly accent the second syllable in Japanese words but in the case of Shibuya, I think it's correct. At least that's how the JR lady says it. for example.."kono densh wa yamanote sen soto mawari shiBUya shinjuku houmen yuki desu."

[Dragonette]

Toe-key-oh drives me nuts, and of course most English speakers tend to incorrectly accent the second syllable in Japanese words but in the case of Shibuya, I think it's correct. At least that's how the JR lady says it. for example.."kono densh wa yamanote sen soto mawari shiBUya shinjuku houmen yuki desu."

How could HARAKIRI and SAKE possibly have escaped this list]hairy-kairy (Harry Carey?) [/I]by NYers. which, along with hearing karioka (KARAOKE) and saki for SAKE, makes me nuts! I know Japanese is a bitch to learn, but it's about the easiest language in the world to pronounce - DAMN - just say it the way it's spelled! And then, to add insult to injury, they tell me that I'M wrong (Funny, Dragonette, even the radio announcers say "karioka"...)

[Visitor K]

personally, i always revert to the incorrect saki and kerioki (thats how we pronounce karaoke on the west coast) when im conversing with fellow honkies.