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English sounding words in Japanese

Arthur68

先輩
5 Aug 2008
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I was kind of curious to why some Japanese words in Japanese language books have a more English pronunciation to them when there are already Japanese words that describe the same thing.

For example ; You might find that a word like "email address" is translated to "emeeruadoresu" which sounds very familiar to email address.

However, there is already Japanese words that would translate this in traditional Japanese.
Even though "email address" is a relatively new term, electronic, mail and address are not.
e-mail, electronic mail - wouldn't that be denshi yuubin or d-yuubin, which translates to electronic mail?
Since "address" in Japanese is "juusho" , then shouldn't "e-mail address" actually be "denshi yuubin juusho" or "d-yuubin juusho" instead of having a new word like "emeeruadoresu" made up to sound English?

Now, I'm not sure actually how Japanese people translate a word like "email address", I am only going by what I see translated in books and online.
 
Actually, there's already a word 電子メール (denshi meeru/electric mail) but much less commonly used than Eメール (ii meeru) or メール (meeru).
These days more and more foreign language including English are just transcribed, not translated.
Even the titles of films - in the literature world Lords of the Rings is 指輪物語 (yubiwa monogatari/story of ring(s)) but the film is introduced ロードオブザリング (roodo obu za ringu - somehow the last "s" is omitted).
Maybe it is easier to say (in case of ii meeru i/o denshi meeru) or people find it cool to use foreign words.

郵便 (yuubin) has broader meaning and is generally used to refer to the post/postal services and is not be used for "mail". When "imported", the words tend to have narrower/specific meanings than it originally had in the original language.
Good example is カルテ (German) and カルタ (Portuguese).
They are all means "card" in the original language, but カルテ means the cards medical charts/medical history as many German words were introduced with medicine, カルタ means playing cards as it was brought with the playing cards by the Portuguese.
 
I was kind of curious to why some Japanese words in Japanese language books have a more English pronunciation to them when there are already Japanese words that describe the same thing.
For example ; You might find that a word like "email address" is translated to "emeeruadoresu" which sounds very familiar to email address.
However, there is already Japanese words that would translate this in traditional Japanese.
Even though "email address" is a relatively new term, electronic, mail and address are not.
e-mail, electronic mail - wouldn't that be denshi yuubin or d-yuubin, which translates to electronic mail?
Since "address" in Japanese is "juusho" , then shouldn't "e-mail address" actually be "denshi yuubin juusho" or "d-yuubin juusho" instead of having a new word like "emeeruadoresu" made up to sound English?
Now, I'm not sure actually how Japanese people translate a word like "email address", I am only going by what I see translated in books and online.

Reasons?
1)People like new, foreign sounding words.
One of the reasons we find reading pleasurable is because it stimulate our brain: "finding some new words." is one.

2)Words have different connotations and feel to it
He woke up
He awakened

Also, words are like music, people like some combination of words or sounds over others.
 
I was kind of curious to why some Japanese words in Japanese language books have a more English pronunciation to them when there are already Japanese words that describe the same thing.
For example ; You might find that a word like "email address" is translated to "emeeruadoresu" which sounds very familiar to email address.
Just to add irrelevant information, email addresses are often referred to as メール, as in "メールを教えてください". There's also another word メルアド.
However, there is already Japanese words that would translate this in traditional Japanese.
Even though "email address" is a relatively new term, electronic, mail and address are not.
e-mail, electronic mail - wouldn't that be denshi yuubin or d-yuubin, which translates to electronic mail?
Since "address" in Japanese is "juusho" , then shouldn't "e-mail address" actually be "denshi yuubin juusho" or "d-yuubin juusho" instead of having a new word like "emeeruadoresu" made up to sound English?
It's just a fashion I think. When you're talking about the various parts of a car, I don't think there are any things in a car (maybe one or two but not many) which are named other than with katakana words. This even goes as far as using fake words like フロントグラス ("front glass") for the windshield, or using バッテリー for the battery, even though batteries of other kinds are called 電池 (denchi).
 
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