Hi 
This is a question to satisfy my curiousity more than anything because I just learned the word for diet (as in the national diet of Japan) 議会. In New Zealand we have a parliament and while Jisho and Wanikani both suggest 議会 is used for both diet and parliament, is this the case in actual speech/writing? As it seems a bit confusing to use the same word for diet, congress, parliament etc. I don’t really understand the difference between a diet and a parliament and google searches are just confusing me more, so if anybody has any knowledge on this admittedly niche question I would love to hear your wisdom
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The Japanese Diet came from Prussia, the concept was imported during the Meiji period, I believe.
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Is it? The English word “legislature” covers pretty much any deliberative government body that passes laws, and 議会 seems to be pretty much the same thing – a relatively broadly defined term that you can use regardless of whether the specific institution calls itself a parliament, a congress, a diet, a council, or whatever, and whether it’s a national institution or a bit of local government like a town council. If you want to be more specific then you can be, but sometimes less specific words are useful too.
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I think it seems strange to you because the number of speaking countries who have chosen their own English language names for this concept that you have been exposed to. And yes, the House of Congress, the British Parliament and the Japanese Diet all work a little bit different. But then so do the Dáil, the Bundestag and the Rada, but since those are unfamiliar words to most English speakers, these will all get caveated in English media as “the Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament)” etc…
If more countries were interested in picking their own official Japanese names for their legislatures, I’m sure Japanese would have more words for it too.
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I’m so used to Japanese people talking about Japanese food that I absolutely thought you meant diet as in what you eat. Of course Japan has a national diet, I’ve heard so much about it, but it is strange that it would use those kanji 
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Wait, everyone’s required to eat the same things?
Also, don’t eat the Japanese parliament. 
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Only if it’s Parliament veg diet or something.
It seems that 議会 spoken for national things would be Diet, while for international things (like World News) might not be Diet, especially if that country doesn’t have one in the first place.
Metoo and I am not an English speaker.
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The Oxford English Dictionary’s entry for “diet” has a helpful note:
Since the end of the 16th cent., the word diet has been used as the English name for many specific political assemblies outside the English-speaking world. In particular it has served as the name for the diaetae imperiales of the Holy Roman Empire, the Bundestag of the German Confederation, the Reichstags of the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires, and for the national assemblies of Switzerland, Poland, and Hungary, as well as for various local, princely, and provincial assemblies throughout central and eastern Europe. Since the mid 20th cent., its use has become largely historical, except as the English name for the Kokkai, the national legislature of Japan.
In other words, in English these days “diet” is just “the name for the Japanese parliament”, or ”the English name of historical foreign legislature XYZ", and has no other or wider meaning.
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My favouite one is the Diet of Worms.
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Thank you all for your responses! What I’m gathering is that while on the technical level congresses and diets and parliaments etc. obviously function differently, 議会 is a broad term that you can use for political assemblies which might be switched out with a more specific term if the situation calls for it.
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Diet Funkadelic is George Clinton’s new band
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Is diet some type of “get rich quick scam”? 
(sorry)