When does Japan use the word ジャパン?

This is mainly for people that live in or have lived in Japan but others are welcome.

In what instances have you seen the word ジャパン being used instead of 日本? Is there any specific reasoning or pattern that you have noticed or been told of. I guess this question can be expanded any common loanwords that you see people using.

Of the top of my head, I can imagine people using オ-ルジャパン instead of 全日本 or 全国. It makes it sound “cooler”?

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I see it all the time when I pass by here. :stuck_out_tongue: image

Now I’m curious if any other country has a chain that’s literally the countries’ name in another language.

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I remember watching this TV show during my study abroad

https://www6.nhk.or.jp/cooljapan/en/

(EDIT: this link below is actually talking about the concept of Cool Japan rather than the show, my bad)

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Branches of international corporations often use it in their company name, maybe 日本 sounds too official?

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Kind of like how in America we have a bunch of companies that have American in their names but I can’t think of one that has The United States…

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A brief check of the BCCWJ shows it appearing mostly in: company names, slogans, catch phrases, set phrases, etc.

I couldn’t find an example of it just being used alone to mean the country of Japan.

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Whats BCCWJ?

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The balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese

I made a video introducing how you can use it for some simple things

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Some names of places, shops etc. that have the word “Japan” in them are just put into katakana. One of the instances I think of is ユニバーサル・スタジオ・ジャパン (Universal Studios Japan).

In anime / manga / video games / etc., it’s often used by characters that are foreigners, in order to represent how they say “Japan” in their native language (which is usually English) or to help give the impression that they have a foreign accent.

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The national baseball team’s nickname is 侍ジャパン too… it may be perceived as “cooler” or more modern? Kanji may seem old fashioned

It might be used to by organizations to appeal more internationally.

These are all guesses, I don’t know for sure.

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