Don’t forget ハッシュドポテト hasshudo poteto for hash browns!
Although I always hate romaji spellings because people unfamiliar with the pronunciation will absolutely not get the right idea by looking at it. It’s closer to “Hashdo poteito”
I’m trying to remember what language it is where that would actually be a serious insult to call someone. I’ve been too many places and sometimes the words all mash together 😭
When I was a kid, before you could translate stuff on the internet and we were waiting months for the new batch of translated Dragonball Z episodes to hit Toonami (I swear, if I come home from school today and it’s goddamn Radditz again, I’m gonna Destructo Disc my mom’s Camry), I got like a tiny little I guess travel book for translating English to Japanese thinking that maybe I’d start learning.
The only word I remember is “hamburger” because the book showed the Japanese pronunciation as “haam baah gaah” lol
The thing is, the Japanese language has very few sounds compared to most languages, so their loan words have to be forced into the system of sounds they have.
For «hamburger» specifically, they don’t have any of the vowel sounds in the English word. They also lack the rhotic «r» sound, or really any «r» sound at all (edit: that is similar to the languages they loan words from). Their «a» sound is an open sound as in «say aah», so they just ended up using a long version of it to approximate the «ur» and «er» sounds (which are really similar in American English!).
They do have an R if i remember correctly, it’s just that’s very similiar to an L to most learners due to their mother language, that’s also why Italians have it a little bit easier since we do use the same sound to make some words (we still have problems hearing it correctly because they way japanese uses it is very different and our brain gets tricked in to hearing an L instead of an R but we can make the sound with little to no practice compared to French or British people)
You’re right, but they’re pronounced a bit softer than in most European languages for example, and often approach an «L» sound in practice. But yeah, saying they don’t have them might have been a bit too simplistic.
Oh so that’s what rhotic means. But yeah the only consonant sound that Japanese has that isn’t followed by a vowel is ん, which makes an “n” sound (though is often used for any “m” sounds preceding other consonants in loanwords).
Although the “u” sound is often unvoiced, so usually what they do is use the letter in which the necessary consonant is followed by an “u”. For example く, す, つ, ぬ, ふ, む, ゆ, る as well as ぐ, ず, ぶ, and ぷ.
So yeah, “hanbaagaa” is a lot better than “hamuburuguru” which would be the other way it could be written (but isn’t).
It’s also sometimes spelled “hanbaagu”, but this might have a slightly different meaning. I’ve only seen it spelled that way in certain restaurants where it’s basically a patty served on a plate without the bun. They can do some really creative things with it though, depending on what else is on the plate.
You’re spot on - ~ga is with bun, ~gu is without. I’m a fan on the Bikkuri Donki Cheese-in Hamburg (hamburger patty with cheese in the middle, covered with cheese for the 2x cheese version).
i was there with you, waiting for years for some legendary yellow hair
Honestly, I’m very thankful to have grown up with Dragon Ball Z with the Bruce Falconer soundtrack. Trying to go back to it now and listen to it with original Japanese music… It’s kind of awful for me lol Is that terrible to say?
My absolute favourite is
フライドポテト furaido poteto
French fries
They sell delicious sand as well. My favourite is tuna sand.
Don’t forget ハッシュドポテト hasshudo poteto for hash browns!
Although I always hate romaji spellings because people unfamiliar with the pronunciation will absolutely not get the right idea by looking at it. It’s closer to “Hashdo poteito”
My favorite in my one semester of college Japanese was:
Hotto chokareto (hot chocolate)
ホットチョコレート
It’s like the French with Le Weekend
Hotto!
Hotto Mario!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M0LfLk9lLEg
I’m trying to remember what language it is where that would actually be a serious insult to call someone. I’ve been too many places and sometimes the words all mash together 😭
When I was a kid, before you could translate stuff on the internet and we were waiting months for the new batch of translated Dragonball Z episodes to hit Toonami (I swear, if I come home from school today and it’s goddamn Radditz again, I’m gonna Destructo Disc my mom’s Camry), I got like a tiny little I guess travel book for translating English to Japanese thinking that maybe I’d start learning.
The only word I remember is “hamburger” because the book showed the Japanese pronunciation as “haam baah gaah” lol
That’s pretty close, though!
The thing is, the Japanese language has very few sounds compared to most languages, so their loan words have to be forced into the system of sounds they have.
For «hamburger» specifically, they don’t have any of the vowel sounds in the English word. They also lack the rhotic «r» sound, or really any «r» sound at all (edit: that is similar to the languages they loan words from). Their «a» sound is an open sound as in «say aah», so they just ended up using a long version of it to approximate the «ur» and «er» sounds (which are really similar in American English!).
They do have an R if i remember correctly, it’s just that’s very similiar to an L to most learners due to their mother language, that’s also why Italians have it a little bit easier since we do use the same sound to make some words (we still have problems hearing it correctly because they way japanese uses it is very different and our brain gets tricked in to hearing an L instead of an R but we can make the sound with little to no practice compared to French or British people)
Yeah, I should have said that it is different from the «r» sound in most of the languages they use loan words from.
They totally have «r» sounds. らりるれろ or ラリルレロ
「ランチ」、「りょうり」、その他。
You’re right, but they’re pronounced a bit softer than in most European languages for example, and often approach an «L» sound in practice. But yeah, saying they don’t have them might have been a bit too simplistic.
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Oh so that’s what rhotic means. But yeah the only consonant sound that Japanese has that isn’t followed by a vowel is ん, which makes an “n” sound (though is often used for any “m” sounds preceding other consonants in loanwords).
Although the “u” sound is often unvoiced, so usually what they do is use the letter in which the necessary consonant is followed by an “u”. For example く, す, つ, ぬ, ふ, む, ゆ, る as well as ぐ, ず, ぶ, and ぷ.
So yeah, “hanbaagaa” is a lot better than “hamuburuguru” which would be the other way it could be written (but isn’t).
It’s also sometimes spelled “hanbaagu”, but this might have a slightly different meaning. I’ve only seen it spelled that way in certain restaurants where it’s basically a patty served on a plate without the bun. They can do some really creative things with it though, depending on what else is on the plate.
You’re spot on - ~ga is with bun, ~gu is without. I’m a fan on the Bikkuri Donki Cheese-in Hamburg (hamburger patty with cheese in the middle, covered with cheese for the 2x cheese version).
My favorite one is “Urubarin”, for Wolverine! Pretty close, yet so far.
i was there with you, waiting for years for some legendary yellow hair
Honestly, I’m very thankful to have grown up with Dragon Ball Z with the Bruce Falconer soundtrack. Trying to go back to it now and listen to it with original Japanese music… It’s kind of awful for me lol Is that terrible to say?