Apathy or Contentment

[dfan]

That being said, maybe the reason I felt so strongly about the pronunciation is that I have a hard time believing a serious attempt was made to match literal pronunciation for many words. Then again, maybe it's my American perspective - I can't speak for how things sound to a native British English speaker. It appeared much more feasible that there was some automatic rule based on spelling. Maybe in the early days they just figured out how to translate the "Japanese sound" for a particular foreign word and went with it (maybe from latin or british english, or some other variant of English that sounds unnatural to me).

In my (also parochial) experience, English (and some other Western European languages) tends to import foreign words by keeping their spelling but often changing their pronunciation to match English norms, while non-Western languages tend to import foreign words by roughly keeping their sound, then changing the spelling to match it. When I was in Indonesia I was regularly surprised at the spellings (still in the Latin alphabet!) of imported English words, until I realized that this was what was going on.

[Kirby]

non-Western languages tend to import foreign words by roughly keeping their sound

Sure, I learned that about Japanese in this thread.

But I guess one point is that "keeping their sound" is very ambiguous since language pronunciation changes across geography and time. Apparently the Latin for "virus", in this case, has some remote semblance to the Japanese version of the word, but it'll be totally different for the various variants of English. That's somewhat expected given the many different versions of pronunciations of words, but:

1.) I don't believe it's consistent for katakana - it'll depend on when the word was adopted into Japanese.

2.) There shouldn't be any assumption that an English speaker will pronounce or understand a random "English" word based on pronunciation in katakana. It'd be like me getting frustrated with someone from Mexico when they can't understand my pronunciation of tortilla. Nothing wrong with the word, but I may pronounce it differently than a native speaker of Spanish.

[Bill Spight]

The japanese pronunciation of Mc Donald's sounds "closer" to the UK pronunciation than to the US one.

https://www.angmohdan.com/how-do-you-say-mcdonalds/

When Tamu first met Kyasurin, he thought she was a bakkushaan but after they had a koohii zeri at the makudonarudo he changed his mind and she became his hasto rabu.

Vidi, vici, veni.

[Bill Spight]

English speakers murder Japanese words, too, don't forget. How about hari-kari, karioki (which is half English to start with),

Kara is OK?

ickybahna, Kigh-oto Protocol, wasAHbi, etc.

Don't forget Sue-baroo.

[Bill Spight]

It'd be like me getting frustrated with someone from Mexico when they can't understand my pronunciation of tortilla. Nothing wrong with the word, but I may pronounce it differently than a native speaker of Spanish.

(Emphasis mine.)

Once I overheard a woman telling about her frustration trying to buy some vanilla beans in Mexico. (It had long been difficult to buy the beans in the US.) She couldn't make herself understood to the shopkeeper. She even tried frijoles de vanilla pronouncing vanilla as in English. I didn't have the heart to tell her the he probably would have understood if she had written it down. It's vainilla in Spanish.

[Kirby]

I was lost in Mexico a few years ago, and I know hardly any Spanish. I tried asking where the airport was, and got that it must be air puerto or something. Needless to say, I wasn't communicating. I ended up using my arms to pretend I had wings, and said "woosh"!

Somehow they understood that.

Anyway, this thread has been educational to me. I had mistakenly assumed up until now that katakana for foreign words was based on spelling since the sound doesn't seem familiar to me for any type of English word.

It's cool to know that some attempt is made to match pronunciation of some type - maybe Latin in some cases.

But I guess it's futile in some cases, since some pronunciations just don't sound alike. I guess people should expect these differences, even when they think they know a word in a different language.

If nothing else works, you can always resort to flapping your arms about to make a point, like I did in Mexico. At the very least, you get some good exercise.

[EdLee]

Hi Kirby,

I had mistakenly assumed up until now that katakana for foreign words was based on spelling since the sound doesn't seem familiar to me for any type of English word.

I assume (I could be wrong) you're more proficient in Korean than in Japanese. I also assume (could be wrong) that the Korean language also tends to borrow foreign terms based on the original pronunciation, is it true, in general ?

I'd say I have a sort of opposite experience: that I find many borrowed terms in Japanese that sound very much like the foreign terms (which native language purists would complain about).

[Kirby]

Hi Kirby,

I had mistakenly assumed up until now that katakana for foreign words was based on spelling since the sound doesn't seem familiar to me for any type of English word.

I assume (I could be wrong) you're more proficient in Korean than in Japanese. I also assume (could be wrong) that the Korean language also tends to borrow foreign terms based on the original pronunciation, is it true, in general ?

I'd say I have a sort of opposite experience: that I find many borrowed terms in Japanese that sound very much like the foreign terms (which native language purists would complain about).

Hi Ed,
I'd say that, in total number of hours, I've studied Korean more than Japanese. My kids speak Korean with my wife sometimes, so I get indirect study there, too.

But I studied Japanese first, with much more intensity- I tried a lot harder to learn Japanese than I tried to learn Korean. I also lived in Japan for a year while I was studying like that, which makes things much easier. Max I've been in Korea was about 3 months at a time (but we visit about once a year).

Since I studied Japanese starting from basic level, I have more foundational feeling - I have some more gaps in basics with Korean. But I'm better at conversation in Korean, and know more words.

For both languages, I speak much better when I'm slightly drunk (I care less about making mistakes then).

All that said, I don't really study foreign language at all these days. I have hard enough time being consistent with go. I haven't been serious about Japanese since 2005, and probably not with Korean since before my son was sick in 2016.

Language is still interesting to me, but I have no strong purpose to study right now. I see inlaws once a year, and get to speak Japanese maybe at the US Go Congress. In those cases, it's kind of a novelty, but not that practically useful.

If I do study again, I'd probably want some sort of goal:
1.) JLPT N1 or something? In 2005, there were 4 levels and not 5, but I only made it to 2k. Besides, my wife is 1k and we are a little competitive with one another

2.) A Korean proficiency test, perhaps?

3.) I'm slightly interested in learning Mandarin Chinese, just because it's fun to learn from square one - you're learning a lot of cool stuff when you first start a language... I started looking into this a bit, but I still don't even have pronunciation of pinyin down, yet.

The good thing about #3 is that there are more native Chinese speakers I know that I interact with on a daily basis (2 people on my team where I work now).

But all of this is just talk, really. I e made no effort with language lately, so I'd have to feel inspired to work toward one of these goals.

In the meantime, I'm trying to have some consistency at least with exercise and go... which reminds me, I have to play a game now.

I'll be back in the study journal thread after I play a game, to give a review.

I hope I win.

[EdLee]

For both languages, I speak much better when I'm slightly drunk (I care less about making mistakes then).

Also when you're on live with the BBC, make sure you know the whereabouts of the little ones.

[Kirby]

Hehe, yeah, I saw that video.

Funny stuff!