Reborrowed words and borrowed wasei eigo

Japanese Language Questions
1

I’ve been interested in borrowed words given how many interesting gairaigo words I am learning in with WaniKani and in other study sources, and started thinking about how many words have been reborrowed back into English from Japanese.

Wikipedia lists four examples: anime, waifu, katsu, and puoresu. I’ve never heard that last one but I’m not big into wrestling.

Related, I’m really curious about any wasei-eigo words that have been borrowed into English usage. I just learned about wasei-eigo and really enjoyed the Tofugu article. I think I know at least one?

The best candidate example I have is “level up” which is from レベルアップ which I never really thought about as having a Japanese origin at all growing up playing video games. It seemed pretty natural to me.

Then there is karaoke from カラオケ which is arguably only a half wasei-eigo chimera since it is from 空 and オーケストラ. Not sure if it counts here.

Finally, in my household at least we’ve all been making and talking about “taco rice” from タコライス since we found out about it two months ago. How did we not know about this? I don’t understand how this isn’t already in common usage over here, it’s delicious and easy to make.

So, anyone know any other interesting reborrowed words or borrowed wasei-eigo being used in English?

2

Neat i didn’t know the origin was 空 and オーケストラ! I say count it. I can’t think of any but I’m going to start paying attention… this is a fun topic :glowing_star:

3

There’s “petty knife”, which in English usage means “a small Japanese style knife for kitchen use”, and comes from ペティ‐ナイフ (borrowed from French ‘petit’ + English ‘knife’), which according to Daijisen means 小形の洋包丁, i.e. a small Western style kitchen knife. It amuses me that in English we think of this as a Japanese style knife and in Japanese they think of it as a Western style knife :slight_smile:

4

ブレストする is to brainstorm (ブレーンストーミング) and not what I initially thought it was XD

5

Omg :exploding_head::exploding_head:
And I was thinking all the time that granted, it’s small, but it’s really a bit harsh to call it „petty“ :rofl:

6

I think “sando” might be one of the most recent words that fits this topic. Almost exactly like how “anime” is used to refer to Japanese animation, “sando” has become the English word for Japanese style sandwiches.

Ironically, in Japanese, you’ll almost never hear the word サンド on it’s own to mean sandwich, possibly because it’s also used for “sand”. Most people say サンドウィッチ when referring to generic sandwiches and サンド is saved for compound words like イチゴサンド or ホットサンド. And of course, it’s not limited to Japanese style sandwiches.

Kind of reminds me of how “panini” got turned into meaning hot Italian sandwiches in English.