Katakana Loanwords and Wasei-eigo

A Tenth of the Language

Open any Japanese newspaper, menu, or app and you will find katakana words on every line: テレビ, パソコン, コンビニ, スマホ, バス, ホテル, ニュース. These are 外来語(がいらいご), words borrowed from other languages, and they make up roughly a tenth of the vocabulary in a modern dictionary and a larger share of everyday speech. Most come from English, but the older layer tells the history of Japan's contacts with the outside world:

• Portuguese (16th century): パン (bread), ボタン (button), カステラ (sponge cake), 合羽(かっぱ) (raincoat)
• Dutch (17th–19th centuries): コーヒー, ガラス, ゴム, ビール, コップ (a drinking glass)
• German (medicine, science, mountaineering): アルバイト (part-time job), カルテ (medical chart), エネルギー, テーマ, ゲレンデ (ski slope)
• French: ズボン (trousers), アンケート (questionnaire), ピエロ (clown)
• Russian, Korean, and Chinese: イクラ (salmon roe), ノルマ (quota), キムチ, ラーメン, チャーハン, ウーロン茶(ちゃ)

The first thing this list shows is that a katakana word is not necessarily an English word. If アルバイト or アンケート makes no sense as English, that is because it is not.

How the Sounds Change

Japanese syllables end in a vowel (or ん), so borrowed words are rebuilt to fit. Knowing the patterns lets you recognize a word you have never seen and, just as important, pronounce it so that Japanese listeners understand.

• Vowels are inserted between consonants: ストライク (strike), クリスマス (Christmas), テスト (test).
• L becomes R: ライス (rice), レベル (level), ルール (rule).
• V becomes B: ビデオ (video), バイオリン (violin), レベル (level).
• Word-final -er, -or, -ar become a long vowel: コンピューター (computer), エレベーター (elevator), プリンター (printer).
• A stressed short vowel often produces a doubled consonant: バッグ (bag), カット (cut), ベッド (bed).
• Stress disappears and every syllable gets roughly equal length, which is why an English word spoken with English stress is often not understood.

Two marks deserve special care: the long-vowel bar ー and the small ッ. They distinguish words: ビル (building) and ビール (beer), コップ (drinking glass) and カップ (cup), バック (back) and バッグ (bag).

Shortened Forms

Long borrowings are routinely clipped, usually to the first two beats of each element, and the clipped form becomes the normal word:

• パソコン (from personal computer), エアコン (air conditioner), リモコン (remote control)
• コンビニ (convenience store), デパート (department store), スーパー (supermarket)
• スマホ (smartphone), アニメ (animation), テレビ (television)
• バイト (アルバイト), プレゼン (presentation), アポ (appointment), ゼミ (seminar)
• デジカメ (digital camera), ファミレス (family restaurant), ゲーセン (game center)
• インフレ (inflation), インフラ (infrastructure), リストラ (restructuring, in practice layoffs)
• パワハラ (power harassment), セクハラ (sexual harassment), コスパ (cost performance, value for money)

The full forms are rarely used in conversation; a learner who says アルバイト is understood, but a learner who understands バイト is keeping up.

Meaning Shifts: False Friends

A word's meaning changes as it settles into its new language, and English speakers are especially exposed, because a familiar-looking word may mean something quite different.

Wasei-eigo: Made in Japan

和製英語(わせいえいご) are words built in Japan from English parts. They look like English, sound like English, and mean nothing to English speakers.

• サラリーマン (salary + man): a male office worker; OL (office lady) is the female counterpart
• ペーパードライバー (paper driver): someone with a license who never drives
• ベビーカー (baby car): a stroller
• ガソリンスタンド (gasoline stand): a gas station
• キーホルダー (key holder): a key ring
• ワイシャツ (from white shirt): a dress shirt, in any color
• ボールペン (ball pen): a ballpoint pen
• ジェットコースター (jet coaster): a roller coaster
• スキンシップ (skin + ship): physical closeness, such as hugging a child
• マイペース (my pace): doing things at one's own pace, regardless of others
• マイカー, マイホーム (my car, my home): a privately owned car or house
• フリーター (free + Arbeiter): a young person living on part-time jobs
• ノートパソコン (notebook + personal computer): a laptop
• ゴールデンウィーク (golden week): the string of holidays in late April and early May

Some everyday words are brand names that became generic: ホッチキス (stapler, from the Hotchkiss company) and シャープペンシル (mechanical pencil, from an early product name).

Loanwords in Japanese Grammar

Once borrowed, a word behaves like any other Japanese word. Nouns take する to become verbs: コピーする (to copy), ドライブする (to go for a drive), カンニングする (to cheat), ゲットする (to get hold of). A few have been turned into ordinary godan verbs with る: サボる (to skip, from sabotage), ググる (to google), メモる (to jot down), ダブる (to overlap; to repeat a year). Adjective-like words take な: スマートな, シンプルな, ユニークな, ハードな. And loanwords count with the same counters as native words: ビールを二本(にほん) (two bottles of beer), パソコン一台(いちだい) (one computer) — see Japanese Counters and Classifiers.

Katakana Without Borrowing

Not every katakana word is a loanword. Katakana also writes onomatopoeia (ガタガタ, ワイワイ), the scientific names of animals and plants, foreign personal and place names, and native words a writer wants to stress or make look casual, as when やばい becomes ヤバい in a comic. So a katakana word you cannot place may be Japanese after all; when English does not explain it, try the dictionary.

Tips for Learners

1. Do not trust the English. Check a loanword's meaning the first time you meet it; マンション, スマート, and クレーム will otherwise mislead you.
2. Learn the clipped forms. コンビニ, スマホ, バイト, and エアコン are the words people actually say.
3. Respect ー and ッ. They are letters, not decoration; ビル and ビール are different words.
4. Say it the Japanese way. Pronounce every syllable evenly and with a Japanese vowel; English stress and English vowels make コーヒー unrecognizable.
5. When it makes no sense as English, it probably is not English. Think German, Portuguese, or French — or a Japanese coinage.