Janglish expressions!

[Tom]

Hello everybody

Could anybody please tell me what Janglish expressions are?

Tom

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

You really need to get acquainted with Ms Google.
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=Janglish&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

"Janglish expressions" (also called Japlish) are expressions that sound like English and are used by the Japanese when speaking Japanese. Janglish consists of English-like words which can not be understood by native speakers of English.

For example, apparently the Japanese say "pocket bell". But in English this is called pager or beeper. A native English speaker would have no idea what a "pocket bell" is.

Since Mr. Mic lives in Japan, I bet he knows further examples.

Amy

[Cooliegirly]

I thought it would be like real English words with Japanese-like pronounciations. A lot of Japanese like to use English words, or Janglish words, in their speech, and it's supposed to be fashionable.

[Yankee]

Hi Cooliegirly

The same sort of thing happens in Germany, but in Germany it's called "Denglisch" (a mix of "Deutsch" + "Englisch") or "Germlish".

Sometimes "English" words are adopted into German but with a completely different meaning. For example, "Oldtimer" is a word that means "classic car" in German. But the English word "old-timer" means an elderly person or a person with considerable experience or tenure.

Sometimes the "Denglisch words" are a mix of English and German. For example, "upgeloadet" is "Denglisch" and means "uploaded".

Amy

[Cooliegirly]

There are also a lot of words in Japanese that were origionally from English and they are still real English words but have a Japanese pronounciation. For example, the color orange, I'm sure there is a real Japanese word for it, or at least there used to be one, but people nowadays just don't use it anymore, instead they say o-len-ji. Here are some other examples, see if you can figure out what English words they come from:

Cho-ko-lee-to

Te-bu-lu

(all of a sudden I just can't think of any now...I will come back and edit this later, I guess)

[Yankee]

[Jamie (K)]

Japlish is the term people have used for decades for the language found in badly translated instruction manuals that come with Japanese products, usually electronic ones.

However, we almost never see Japlish anymore, because the Japanese companies realized a long time ago that they had this problem, and now they get very professional translations done.

Similar languages are Germlish, Czenglish, Chinglish and Arabizi, which is spoken in some neighborhoods in my area.

I have never heard the word Japlish used to mean "English" coinages that the Japanese use themselves. It's usually the language of a bad translation.

By the way, Walkman is one of those Japanese words made of English components, and it was very bizarre and Japanese sounding when it first emerged. Now native English speakers who were born in the 1980s and after don't have any sense that it sounds weird, just as they don't realize that the title Buffy the Vampire Slayer was originally funny.

[Tom]

[Mister Micawber]

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A PRESENTATION at length.
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_________________
Canadian-American native speaker
who teaches English for a living at Mister Micawber's
ESL cafe: Interview with Mr. Micawber

[Jamie (K)]