Would it sound weird if you used the pronunciation of カタカナ words from the country they were derived from?

Well, ロープ sounds closer to “world” than ワールド does. :wink:

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Erm… not to me :sweat_smile:

The アニメ example gets super weird when Germans pronounce it the english way, thinking that’s correct, while the German way of saying it, is similar to the actual Japanese.

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Not just an apartment building, but a tall one with many floors. アパート also means apartment building but is typically 2-3 stories tall at most. It’s important to be able to differentiate the two!

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A good exemple of 英製仏語 indeed… in French it is “double sens” (and interestingly the nuances are different, in the French the two-way meaning is just a characteristic of the word or expression so qualified. The English word, by the use of the verb “entendre” - to hear/understand - introduced a notion of intentionality)

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There are some cases though where the correct pronunciation is to pronounce the word more English-y. The ones that I’ve specifically been corrected on are タブレット (tablet) and ヒートテック (Heat Tech). I pronounced them with the katakana pronunciation and my Japanese teacher corrected me, saying it was more correct to pronounce the words in a more English-y way.

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Next time I see yet another TikTok on how difficult it is to order Starbucks because the staff assume a person who doesn’t look Japanese is speaking English, I’ll try to share it here.

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I’m instantly skeptical of your teacher if they literally said to pronounce it in a more English manner. Tablet usually sounds more like tabretto and heat tech I haven’t heard lately enough to transcribe, but dropping the u sound in words isn’t to make them sound more like English, it’s just a common Japanese thing in general. Just take です for example.

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I live in a 3-storey “manshon”.

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Height isn’t the only factor. But an アパート is usually not tall.

A building with modern construction and style would probably be a マンション even if it’s short.

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Is 1978 modern enough? Probably in Kyoto.

It depends on the word and person listening. If you ask for an “ice cream” アイスクリーム, then the English pronunciation is usually good enough in my experience. If you are at a 7-11 and ask for mustard マスタード for your fired chicken, English pronunciation doesn’t work and even Japanese pronunciation leaves the clerk unsure. Or maybe my pronunciation is just that bad :joy:.

Or maybe that’s just an absurd thing to ask for. Mustard on your fried chicken? Why? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Maybe the uncertainty is because mustard usually comes in a combo with ketchup?? I’ve never seen solo mustard packets, but it’s not my go-to and I honestly don’t eat out much to begin with

Maybe the uncertainty is because mustard usually comes in a combo with ketchup??

Maybe, but the confusion I get when I do ask is a lot. Chinese restaurants have lots of little mustard packets, so I grab those as needed.

Because the Japanese mustard is really a Chinese mustard, and adds some kick to the chicken. The ketchup works well in combo too.

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I mean she’s a native speaker and she literally said “pronounce it more like you would in English.”

I think in this instance, an Aussie accent speaking those words would be a bit easier for a Japanese person to understand … one reason being we don’t have the round sound on the 'r’s (our r’s are flat!) so when a word ends in ‘er’ it usually ends up sounding like ‘aa’ for us anyway!
So when he was saying ‘Twitterrrrr’ we would just say ‘Twidda’. XD

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Maybe your Japanese pronunciation was just that bad. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Just saying… After all, “tablet” and タブレット don’t sound all that similar.

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If it’s Chinese mustard you want, maybe they’re expecting you to ask for からし?

Been trying to Google what the most popular condiments are for convenience store fried chicken, but I think my search fu is a bit weak…

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Maybe my local conbini just know me too well now, but I don’t think it’s common to get condiments for fried chicken here. It usually comes in a flavor to start with. Like I got 明太(めんたい)マヨネーズ karaage for lunch. There are the big pieces too. They come in less flavors, but I think the same logic might apply. I’ve only been offered ketchup-mustard for corndogs as far as I recall.