Curiosity about Japanese and Japanese Language

derick78b · 27 Dec 2011

Hello guys,

I was wondering some things about Japanese Language and Japanese People. I was really curious about them.

How does it work the addition of English word - or any other language - in dictionary? Who selects the "most similar" phonetics?

About older people: How do they know English words and their meanings?*

Can they create new kanji for new words which only existed in English, for example?

*Here in Brazil, less than 10% of the population knows how to write/speak/read English Language.

Thank you all.

Toritoribe · 27 Dec 2011

To transliterate how it sounds would be one of the answer.

example
Your name in Japanese | Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

example about the difficulty of the transliteration into Japanese
https://jref.com/forum/learning-japanese-64/%88%EA%93%FA%88%EA%8Bl%8E%96-47384/#post684974
一日一記事 | Japan Forum

derick78b said:
About older people: How do they know English words and their meanings?*
Can they create new kanji for new words which only existed in English, for example?

Yes. In Meiji period, scholars struggled to translate foreign words into Japanese, whose concepts hadn't existed in Japanese language until then. For instance, quite common words just like 政治, 行政, 思想, 哲学, 法律, 経済, 資本, 会社, 演説, 討論, 競争,,,, were made in this era.

derick78b · 28 Dec 2011

Toritoribe said:
Yes. In Meiji period, scholars struggled to translate foreign words into Japanese, whose concepts hadn't existed in Japanese language until then. For instance, quite common words just like 政治, 行政, 思想, 哲学, 法律, 経済, 資本, 会社, 演説, 討論, 競争,,,, were made in this era.

Interesting!

One more question:
One more question:
If I know how to spell correctly a word, for example, "special", should I use "スペシャル" or "special"? I was looking for some videos and I saw one game about naruto. I don't remember the name exactly but I remember there was Naruto Shippuden.... Special and they read as katakana, so that raised my question.
And, for foreigner, should they use the katakana version or the english version?

Thank you very much!

Toritoribe · 28 Dec 2011

derick78b said:
If I know how to spell correctly a word, for example, "special", should I use "スペシャル" or "special"?

Depending on the context. Since the English word "special" is enough common in Japan, 「ナルト疾風伝 Special!」 could be acceptable as a title. But これは special なプレゼントです looks odd to me.

derick78b said:
And, for foreigner, should they use the katakana version or the english version?

Definitely カタカナ is more appropriate. You need to check if the common transliteration of the word exists or not, though. (e.g. "Radio" is ラジオ and not レイディオ.)

derick78b · 30 Dec 2011

Thank you very much.

Curiosity about Japanese and Japanese Language

derick78b

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

derick78b

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

derick78b

先輩

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