When I was learning Japanese, I came across a sentence along the lines of “lets buy stuff at the <shoppingumouru>”, I could understand most of it fine, but didn’t recognize bracketed word, which was conveniently written in a script that denotes loan words (and I have trancscribed phonetically above). I probably spent at least half an hour trying to look up “shoppingumouru” simce I couldn’t find it in my dictionary. Eventually, I turned to Google translate and immediately facepalmed when I saw the answer.
Yes! Japanese is a phonetic language and loan words are just phonetisized versions using the syllables (sounds) they have in their alphabet. The katakana version of their alphabet is for just for loan words, onomatopoeias (moo, meow, woof), and other things that are not words. Katakana symbols just represent sounds, not meanings.
I studied Malayalam (the language of Kerala state in India) a few years ago. I learned the script quickly and one day walking through the capital of Thiruvananthapuram I saw a van with the word “POLICE” and then the Malayalam word underneath it. I was all excited to learn a new Malayalam word without needing my tutor, until I sounded it out and realized it was just “POLICE” written with the Malayalam script.
Fun fact: Malayalam is the only language whose named is a palindrome. Its English name, at least - in the Malayalam script it’s not.
When learning Spanish I read in a book that skateboarding was montar en monopatin. In college I spoke that in oral exam. My professor was like what the fuck is that?
When I was learning Japanese, I came across a sentence along the lines of “lets buy stuff at the <shoppingumouru>”, I could understand most of it fine, but didn’t recognize bracketed word, which was conveniently written in a script that denotes loan words (and I have trancscribed phonetically above). I probably spent at least half an hour trying to look up “shoppingumouru” simce I couldn’t find it in my dictionary. Eventually, I turned to Google translate and immediately facepalmed when I saw the answer.
Is it shopping mall?
Yes! Japanese is a phonetic language and loan words are just phonetisized versions using the syllables (sounds) they have in their alphabet. The katakana version of their alphabet is for just for loan words, onomatopoeias (moo, meow, woof), and other things that are not words. Katakana symbols just represent sounds, not meanings.
I studied Malayalam (the language of Kerala state in India) a few years ago. I learned the script quickly and one day walking through the capital of Thiruvananthapuram I saw a van with the word “POLICE” and then the Malayalam word underneath it. I was all excited to learn a new Malayalam word without needing my tutor, until I sounded it out and realized it was just “POLICE” written with the Malayalam script.
Fun fact: Malayalam is the only language whose named is a palindrome. Its English name, at least - in the Malayalam script it’s not.
When learning Spanish I read in a book that skateboarding was montar en monopatin. In college I spoke that in oral exam. My professor was like what the fuck is that?