English-speaking travelers to Japan are now being overwhelmed by a new communications hazard. Rather than a lack of English causing problems, just the opposite is happening. Japan is producing English, and too much of it. Mystifying, home-grown Japanese English.
Like its famous manga and anime, the whole country is awash in Japanese English. It leaps out from fashionable homes and offices, shops, motor cars, package goods and street signs. Yet many of these nods to the West baffle native English speakers.
Written Japanese English is legendary for inscrutability. But, examples can also be heard everywhere as well.
“Orai, Orai”, calls the watchful wife as her husband backs the family car into a tight space. “Naisu!” drone uniformed high school girls endlessly as they drill on the tennis court. “Taimu saabisu!” barks the announcer to shoppers at the supermarket. “Don mai” one friend reassures another.
To Japanese these widespread phrases are pure English, mainly because they’re foreign-sounding. They and hundreds more like them have been conjured into stylish Japanese sayings out of English proper. But can you recognize their intended meanings? (They are: “All right”; “Nice!”; “Time service”; and “Don’t mind”.)
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