An ESL lesson: Japlish and ESL plus International Japanese Words

Japlish is like Konglish (Korean English). People are very interested in the distorted or hybrid English words for different reasons but mainly because the words are funny and they show the ways that learners adapt a foreign word to their own alphabet. This is linguistically very telling and helps teachers and students. Comical words are a great starting point in ESL classes for young adults.

Even in Korea there is intense interest in Japlish as most Koreans learn some Japanese in High School and there is now great cultural interchange.

I will start the list with:

telebee - television

bukas - bucket

doncas - A word in Korea for breaded pork cutlet like weinerschnittzle but reported to have come from Japan.

biki - This may be Japanese slang for the pickys or young men who try to entice evening(s) pedestrians into expensive nightclubs. It is used in Korea too.

arbeit - Thought by many Koreans to be English but actually a rare German word adopted into Japanese and later transfered to Korea. It means part-time job.

Mac-oo-ru-donald - Macdonalds restaurant. Japanese (and Koreans) break many English words up into many syllables. They use blended sounds less frequently. It comes from the characteristics of their writing system.

O-deng - This word was adopted into Korean. It is like synthetic soya meat but made of flour and fish powder, then cooked in salted water on a bamboo stick. A very popular, non-sugar and cheap snack for kids after school. I love it.

Karaoke - Comes from kara meaning imitation and oke or orchestra, so it is also a hybrid word (Japlish).

Oma-rice - A contraction of omelet-rice, a popular dish (adopted in Korea as well).

To this list we might just attach the purely Japanese words that have entered both the Korean and English vocabulary and the international realm, words like:

Kimono

Karaoke (Koreans say it with a hard g not a k)

Sashimi (raw fish); Sushi (raw fish - Koreans do not use the 'h'). Why are these two words for raw fish in Japan? Comments?.

Ramyun (spicy noodles)

Wa-sa-be (hot green sauce with raw fish)

Origami (paper folding art)

Sumo (wrestling)

Hari-kari (suicide)

Geisha (female host)

Si-o-na-ra (good-bye)

Shabu-shabu (a Japanese dish like Mongolian Hot Pot. Koreans adopted this name too.)

Karate

Ninja

Sen-say

Kabokie theater

Noh theater

Samurai

Appeal for Contribution

You are welcome to send us more words to add to this list. Contributors will have their name after their contributed words.

Addendum, by Bryony Keleher:

Here are useful Japlish and Japanese comments received from Bryony Keleher, Australian Academy of Martial Arts info@aama.au

* terebii = television (Japanese don't have an 'l' in their "alphabet" (pron. teh-reh-bee)
* I'm not sure if 'arbeit' is the Korean word; however, in Japanese it is "Arubaito" (pron. ah-roo-buy-toh)
* Makudonarudo is how the Japanese would break Mcdonalds up into syllables
* Karaoke (even though this isn't a correction.. just a bit of trivia) is pronounced 'car-rah-oh-keh' rather than 'keh-ree-oh-key' - the way Westerner's pronounce it
* I'm not sure about Ramyun. however the noodles I know about in Japan is 'Ramen' (rah-men)
* Sayoonara (sometimes written as 'Sayounara' or just shortened to 'Sayonara'; however, 'there is a long 'ohh' sound in the pronounciation after the 'y'
* Another bit of trivia. Shabu shabu apparently came about by the sound you make when you 'swish' the food (specific meat and specific vegetables) around in the water
* Sensei is the correct spelling of 'teacher' and this word is used VERY generally in Japan now days (There are HEAPS of sights speaking of what a 'sensei' is because the term 'sensei'/teacher has become very vague now. For example: A teenage boy may call another teenage boy 'sensei' in a slang sense because he has 'mastered' how to pick up girls :-)
* Kabuki is the correct spelling of the theatre art
* Purikura (poo-ree-koo-rah) is what they call the little photo stickers you get in the booths. They shortened and joined two English words "print colour"
* Sashimi = raw fish
* Sushi = boiled rice with seaweed wrapped around it and own choice of filling in the rice. It just happens that raw fish (sashimi) could be a choice and is a popular choice as a filling in the sushi. Sushi can also have rice on the outside with the seaweed coiled in with it as well as the filling (sometimes and popularly sashimi). It is a misconception and wrongly translated word (sushi) from Japanese to English :-)

Robin Tim Day and Bryony Keleher