How To Convert English Phrases to Japanese

Japanese phrases that even essentially the most proficient learners of the language discover the toughest to pronounce may be, paradoxically, those borrowed from their very own native tongue.

My spouse, who’s initially from the US and now’s a fluent speaker of Japanese after dwelling in Japan for 15 years, nonetheless struggles to pronounce one in all her residence nation’s most well-known manufacturers — “McDonald’s,” which in Japanese is マクドナルド (makudonarudo).

Figuring out how katakanization works is a vital sensible talent for native English audio system who examine Japanese.

Phrases of English origin, after they get transformed to katakana, typically throw off native audio system of English. It is because it is exhausting to unlearn their native tongue’s phonology — the sound system with a algorithm that they subconsciously observe since their early childhood — after which modify the unique sound to match the Japanese phonology. I name this course of katakanization as a result of overseas phrases tailored into Japanese are sometimes spelled with katakana characters and are generally known as katakana-go (katakana phrases).

For my part as a local speaker of Japanese and a language lover, realizing how katakanization works is a vital sensible talent for native English audio system who examine Japanese. Not solely can the power to pronounce these phrases assist you to to be extra simply understood by Japanese audio system, it additionally has the additional advantage of increasing your vocabulary, and virtually instantaneously, with out as a lot effort as you would possibly suppose. And as you would possibly already know, we use loads of katakanized loanwords of English origin. Like, so much.

So I’m writing this text with the hope of serving to native-English-speaking Japanese learners who wrestle with one of many largest quirks of the Japanese language — katakana phrases. Later on this article, you’ll study three fundamental guidelines for find out how to katakanize English phrases. I’m hoping they may assist you to to have the ability to katakanize phrases by yourself as a way to pronounce phrases of English origin in a approach that Japanese audio system can simply perceive.

Conditions: To get essentially the most out of this text, you must already know katakana (particularly find out how to pronounce them). If it is advisable to brush up, take a look at our Final Katakana Information.

Why Katakanize?

Earlier than moving into the essential katakanization guidelines, first, let me clarify somewhat extra about why I believe you must study them.

No one Needs That “Oh-No-This-Particular person-Is-Speaking-to-Me-in-English Look,” Proper?

One of the frequent causes I hear some learners (even when their Japanese is fairly superior) keep away from katakanizing English phrases is, “Why cannot I simply pronounce English phrases appropriately?”

The reply is fairly easy. Many Japanese audio system would not have the ability to perceive it until they know the unique English pronunciation of the phrase. Is not “with the ability to talk with Japanese folks” the entire level of learning Japanese (at the very least, for a lot of of you), anyway?

Code-switching to your native tongue compromises intelligibility.

Whereas code-switching to your native tongue could offer you some authenticity because the speaker of the unique language, it compromises intelligibility. You can attempt asking “McDonald’s-tte doko desu ka?” (The place is McDonald’s?) with perfectly-pronounced McDonald’s on the road in Japan. You can additionally attempt asking the place “Seven-Eleven” is with out katakanizing it to sebun irebun (セブンイレブン). In both case, you’ll most definitely get that horrified, oh-no-this-person-is-talking-to-me-in-English look.

Be aware that for katakanized phrases which can be notably lengthy and is usually a little bit trippy, you may often shorten them — in actual fact, many Japanese folks do! Take the earlier instance of マクドナルド; this may be shortened to マック or マクド. Equally, セブンイレブン turns into セブン. So don’t be concerned if you do not have full confidence of pronunciation simply at first.

Japanese Audio system Use English Loanwords, Like A Lot

Japanese folks use 3,000 – 5,000 loanwords in day by day conversations, and 94% of them are of English origin.

Names of restaurant and retailer chains will not be the one English phrases borrowed into the Japanese language. English-derived loanwords have been deeply woven into Japanese, each written and spoken. A examine from the Nineteen Nineties ^{confirmed that over 35% of all vocabulary printed in 70 Japanese magazines had been overseas loanwords, most of them being of English origin. A 2010 ebook about wasei eigo (Japan-made English) additionally indicated that Japanese folks use 3,000 – 5,000 loanwords in day by day conversations, and 94% of them are of English origin. In fact, these research are from years in the past, so we in all probability use much more katakana phrases in Japanese as we speak. The purpose is, it is so exhausting to hold on conversations in Japanese with out Western loanwords that Japan even has a consuming recreation the place you need to take a shot each time you employ one!}

The portion of English loanwords in Japanese is growing with the inflow of recent applied sciences and ideas are evident in software program manuals like: アイコンをダブルクリックしてアプリケーションをインストールします icon-o doubleclick-shite application-o install-shimasu “Doubleclick the icon to put in the appliance.” With this, it is changing into all of the extra helpful to understand how katakanization works. Whereas having to Japanize your native tongue is usually a problem, it could assist you to grow to be extra approachable for individuals who grew up talking Japanese.

Unpronounceable English Sounds

You might also need to ask why Japanese audio system katakanize English phrases within the first place. It is just because many sound patterns in English will not be permitted within the Japanese phonology, similar to the French guttural /r/ is not in English. One of many (many) explanation why English pronunciation is a pure nightmare for Japanese highschool youngsters is that Japanese doesn’t enable any syllables ending with a consonant apart from /n/ (ン). English has 1000’s of phrases ending with consonants like cat, look and ship however they’re merely unpronounceable within the Japanese phonological universe.

There isn’t any alternative apart from to katakanize loanwords to make them pronounceable throughout the Japanese phonology.

Advanced syllables like energy, sixth and garments are much more unpronounceable for Japanese audio system as a result of the Japanese phonology does not allow two or extra consonants to be squeezed collectively. The English /th/ sound is completely impermissible in Japanese — in actual fact, in most human languages ^{— and subsequently must be changed with the closest Japanese sound /s/ as in surī (スリー) “three.” Merely put, there isn’t any alternative apart from to katakanize them to make them pronounceable throughout the Japanese phonology.}

So katakanization does not precisely occur due to the writing system. It is exactly due to the Japanese phonology that governs how phrases are pronounced within the language.

Primary Conversion Guidelines

So how precisely does katakanization work? Though we’ve got some exceptions, there are three fundamental conversion guidelines that native Japanese audio system subconsciously apply.

Be aware: IPA symbols we use on this article are based mostly on American English pronunciations.

Rule #1: Add Vowels

When a consonant will not be instantly adopted by a vowel, you add a vowel.

It is because every sound often includes a vowel in Japanese. The ン (/n/, or /m/) sound is an exception, however apart from that, a unit of Japanese sounds is both a single vowel like ア /a/ – イ /i/ – ウ /u/ – エ /e/ – オ /o/, or a set of consonant and a vowel like カ /ka/ – キ /ki/ – ク /ku/ – ケ /ke/ – コ /ko/. If you know the way katakana works, this in all probability is sensible to you.

Now, what vowel ought to I be including, proper? That’s:

• /o/ after /t/ or /d/
• /i/ after /ch/ or /j/
• Nothing after /n/ and /r/
• /u/ elsewhere.

Let’s use the phrase “danger” for example. First, r is adopted by a vowel i, so that you simply depart it alone. However the remaining, s and ok will not be adopted by a vowel. For s, you add u. For ok, add u. And you will get ri-su-ku — リスク.

Check out one other instance — the phrase “dimension.” While you attempt to parse it, you see two pairs of a consonant and a vowel — si and ze. So it might be… シゼ…? No, not that. Watch out to not get confused with the spelling and the sound. The phrase “dimension” seems like “saiz,” proper? In case you may’t consider the phonetic spelling off the highest of your head, there are converters like this that may come useful for katakanization. Now, going again to the “dimension (saiz)”, z is the one sound that is not adopted by a vowel. So that you add a u there, and now you have acquired sa-i-zu — サイズ. That is the way you write and say “dimension” in Japanese.

Rule #2: Exchange Sounds

Exchange illegitimate sounds with related respectable Japanese sounds.

You would possibly already know this, however the Japanese language has fewer sounds than the sounds English has. Like I discussed earlier, the th /θ/ sound does not actually exist in Japanese, and the closest sound is the s sound. This is the reason “three” turns into surii (スリー) and “thanks” turns into sankyū (サンキュー) in Japanese. Similar to that, for sounds that the Japanese language does not have, you may be changing sounds with the Japanese equivalents. Now let’s take a deeper look.

Vowels

As you might know, Japanese has solely 5 vowel sounds ア, イ, ウ, エ, and オ. That is clearly extra restricted in comparison with English — for instance, English has three “a” sounds (/æ/, /ʌ/, /ə/), however ア replaces all of them.

	IPA	Examples
		US English	Japanese
ア	æ	apple /ˈæpəl/	アップル
	ʌ	umbrella /ʌmˈbɹɛlə/	アンブレラ
	ə	account /əˈkaʊnt/	アカウント
イ	ɪ	east /iːst/	イースト
ウ	ʊ	oops /ʊps/	ウップス
エ	ɛ	on daily basis /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/	エブリデイ
オ	ɔ	on /ɔn/	オン

All examples above begin with vowels for the sake of instance, however after all, this substitute rule applies to a mixture of vowels and consonants.

hat /ˈhæt/	ハット
hut /hʌt/

Phrases “hat” and “hut” — they’ve the completely different “a” sounds, however in Japanese, they each get transformed to ハット as a result of the /æ/ and /ʌ/ sounds each exchange to ア. This implies “cowboy hat” (カウボーイハット) and “Pizza Hut” (ピザハット) — they each use ハット regardless of the distinction within the English sounds.

Additionally, in the case of vowels, take note of the size of the vowel in query. Lengthy, prolonged vowel sounds are represented as “ー,” the hyphen-looking image in Japanese. For instance, “pull” is プル (puru), however “pool” is プール (pūru). An /r/ after a vowel as in automobile, 4 and earth turns into the extension of the vowel as nicely. So, very like in British English, automobile is カー (kā), 4 is フォー (fō) and earth is アース (āsu).

Consonants

Now, onto consonants! Similar to among the vowels, there are a number of English consonant sounds that do not actually exist in Japanese, and thus get changed with the closest sound as an alternative. Listed here are some examples.

	IPA	Examples
		US English	Japanese
s-sounds サシスセソ	s	mouse /ˈmaʊs/	マウス
	θ	mouth /ˈmaʊθ/
b-sounds バビブべボ	b	berry /ˈbɛri/	ベリー
	v	very /ˈvɛri/
r-sounds ラリルレロ	l	lease /ˈliːs/	リース
	r	wreath /ˈriːθ/
jy-sounds ジャジュジョ	dʒ	legion /ˈliʤən/	リージョン
	ʒ	lesion /ˈliʒən/
z-sounds ザジズゼゾ	ð	then /ðɛn/	ゼン
	z	zen /zɛn/

Now, this record, are you able to guess what the phrase “stomach” would seem like in katakana?

Stomach could be ベリー, similar to “berry” and “very.” That is as a result of there is no distinction in sound between “b” and “v” nor “r” and “l” in Japanese. ベリー attention-grabbing (…and doubtlessly ベリー complicated), proper?

There are additionally a couple of consonant + vowel pairs that we pronounce in a different way in English but get represented with the identical katakana character in Japanese. These variations may be extra delicate than those proven above, however for instance, si and shi each grow to be シ. So “sea” and “she” each grow to be シー in katakana. Equally, the voiced variations of those sounds, “zi” and “ji” each grow to be ジ.

Rule #3: Duplicate Consonants

Duplicate the “cease” consonant on the finish of the phrase if it happens after a brief vowel.

Bit, dip, look… What makes these phrases sound so skippy? It’s the fast “pause” between sounds. In romaji to characterize this sort of sound, we use duplicated consonants like bitto, proper? In katakana, we use ッ (the small tsu) as in ビット to characterize these fast pauses. You may be duplicating the “cease” consonants, that are /p/, /b/, /ch/, /j/, /t/, /d/, /ok/ and /g/ — sounds you make by blocking the air movement.

Now, let’s follow katakanizing “dip” and “look” — “dip” turns into ディップ (dippu) and “look” turns into ルック(rukku). Are you getting the gist?

Keep in mind this rule usually applies to the final syllable solely. For instance, picnic turns into pikunikku (ピクニック) as an alternative of pikkunikku (ピックニック). Additionally do not forget this solely occurs to the consonant after a brief vowel versus lengthy vowels, like beat, deep, or Luke.

Congrats, you have simply realized the three fundamental guidelines of katakanization! Though these three guidelines account for many katakanization processes, they will not merely make you a grasp of katakanization. You may nonetheless encounter curve balls and a few difficult ones — for these, you continue to have to make small changes right here and there.

Mixture Katakana

Should you’re hoping to take your katakanization to the subsequent degree, it might be a good suggestion to evaluation mixture katakana. Mixture katakana are katakana characters fabricated from a mixture with a small character like フォ, ティ, or ジュ.

For instance, you would possibly count on “cat” to grow to be katto (カット), however it really must be kyatto (キャット) as a result of the vowel of cat makes the c sound extra just like the Japanese /kya/ sound than the /ka/ sound. Equally, “hole” turns into gyappu (ギャップ) as an alternative of gappu (ガップ). That is too straightforward? These may be comparatively frequent katakana combos, however there are some curveballs you may not be so accustomed to — like トゥ as in トゥモロー (tomorrow), or デュ as in デュエット (duet).

These mixture katakana are the unsung heroes of katakana. They permit us to characterize sounds that we did not have in Japanese — the sounds are even nearer to the unique English pronunciations.

Right now, loanwords tend to use mixture katakana to raised characterize the unique sounds.

Nonetheless, mixture katakana may be much less acquainted and not-so-easy-to-pronounce for Japanese audio system, particularly older people. Right now, loanwords tend to use mixture katakana to raised characterize the unique sounds, however this wasn’t at all times the case. For instance, “thought” was once generally written as アイデア in katakana, however today, アイディア is much extra frequent. And, this results in the subsequent notice: be careful for older loanwords!

Watch Out for Older Loanwords

A few of you will have already seen frequent English loanwords do not actually observe the essential guidelines. Like, kēki (ケーキ) “cake” not being kēku (ケーク), rajio (ラジオ) “radio” not being reidio (レイディオ) and kariforunia (カリフォルニア) “California” nor being kyarifōnia (キャリフォーニア). That’s as a result of these phrases are comparatively outdated borrowings that got here to Japan earlier than the conversion guidelines grew to become constant.

Older loanwords are sometimes the way in which they’re for customary causes — you may want to recollect find out how to spell them in katakana.

As you would possibly’ve seen, part of this purpose is the no-use of mixture katakana. Sounds that we historically did not have or unusual sounds in Japanese had been changed with ones simpler to pronounce and acknowledge for Japanese audio system. So in the event that they had been borrowed as we speak, they’d be katakanized in a different way — like レイディオ. Nonetheless, a lot of them stay the identical regardless of the change as we’re already used to the way in which they’re! Meaning, older loanwords are sometimes the way in which they’re for customary causes — you may want to recollect find out how to spell them in katakana.

Katakanize Like a Professional

Katakanization is usually a problem for native-English-speaking learners, even those that are already fluent in Japanese. Nonetheless, do not forget studying find out how to katakanize won’t solely assist you to higher acclimate to Japanese phonology and enhance your total pronunciation, but in addition make your spoken Japanese extra understandable and approachable. And if you happen to take a look at it from a distinct perspective — being an English speaker can be a bonus in Japanese studying if you know the way katakanization works. While you begin with the ability to convert English phrases to katakana easily, and acknowledge extra katakana phrases that Japanese audio system use, you’ll be shocked what number of phrases already!

I hope the three fundamental guidelines and additional ideas assist you to construct an excellent basis for katakana conversion. It’s a extremely sensible talent and doubtlessly a recreation changer to carry your Japanese to the subsequent degree. So, hold katakanizing and continue learning — Guddo rakku!