I remember a youtuber telling a story of ordering a milk tea in japan by translating both words, only to have the server correct them by going “oh, miruku tea”
Another streamer told of his Japan trip and how he tried to order sprite at a restaurant, sadly the waiter didn't understand so he had to hit him with "sprite-ru" just for the waiter to reply in the same way "aahhh, sprite-ru"
Ive seen alot of Americans who moved to Japan for various reasons say that if you want to fit in at all you have to get really comfortable sounding borderline racist.
Yeah, it's a few seasons old by now, but there's a whole episode centered around Mr. Kim.
At the climax of the episode, it's revealed that Mr. Kim doesn't actually exist, and is an alter ego of South Park's therapist, William Janus, who himself has multiple personality disorder. No one really cares, because he's the one who runs the town's only chinese restaurant.
If I remember right, the Janus personality actually dies, leaving Mr. Kim in permanent control of the body.
A plot was that butters parents started to think he had multiple personality disorder, the joke being they mistook a child playing make believe as MPD. They take him to see the therapist Dr Janice.
B Plot was that a new Japanese restaurant opened near the chinese one so the Chinese restaurant owner (Lu Kim) goes on a tirade to get rid of him.
Episode climax is that Dr Janice was the one with multiple personality disorder and his strongest personality was Lu Kim. Once the town founds out they just let him stay as Lu Kim because "does the world really need another therapist, City Wok is now the only Chinese restaurant left in town".
Wow. I am screaming at this. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are so hysterically unhinged… Like they sit down and come up with these stories for a living omg LMAO
Yeah, they've had fucking banger retcons and backstories added over the years. My favorite is Token being actually named "Tolkien" the entire time to the point that they even refer to him as "Tolkien" in every episode from there on out and if you look up "Token Black South Park" it won't pop up anymore lol.
It’s a super weird greeting/acknowledgement of being a foreigner while also being polite and welcoming. I won’t pretend to totally understand it but it’s a weird cultural thing that developed.
I found it interesting that to want or to like something are viewed not as verbs like they are in english, but adjectives... it's weird because they're like super common words but it's like the only two words this is true for lol.
You don't want/like a sandwich. A sandwich is wantable/likeable to you. Interesting to get used to.
Reminds me of Spanish, although it still uses a verb. You dont like things in Spanish, those things give you pleasure (gustar). Which is hard to get used to because it means you conjugate it differently.
Gustar is like, placer is pleasure. You use them the same way in both Spanish and English. "I like beer","me gusta la cerveza"; "it's a pleasure to meet you", "es UN placer conocerte".
Indeed things like this as so interesting. In Dutch, for example, you can't just like something, you find it nice. You can't love something either, you literally 'hold of' it.
What do you mean? 我喜欢米饭 - Wo xihuan mifan. I like rice. To like is 喜欢, no? My Chinese teacher taught us to SVO (just like English) subject verb object. I guess you could translate it as "I to like rice" but the point of translation isn't to be literal but to translate meaning.
I know the teacher is good because she was sent as a language teacher to my university by a different Chinese mainland university for double-degree students.
Who the hell are you to tell me I don't want a sandwich?
Jokes aside, all the differences in grammar between languages are interesting. Subjectively, it feels like such a violation of a basic concept as a native English speaker, but objectively, there's no reason it has to be this way, obviously.
Reminds me of when i tried to teach my US friends how to say something in german. Nobody got the pronouncation right so i suggested talking angry. Everybody was like "noo thats sutch a steriotype! I cant do that!" But it actually helps 😅
But that's for speaking in chinese. The thing here is that if you want to be understood in english by the japanese you basically have to mimick a heavy japanese accent for it.
Oh for sure, when i lived in north east China once i started copying the countryside accent i got on better for example: Not Mei shi r, May shaaaaaaaar
It's not pronounced in a weird way though? If you know how to pronounce bug 虫 chóng then you know how to pronounce the first character and it's nothing like the racist-sounding 'chong'
You're not going to get your tones right regardless. You're a tourist and going to have a heavy accent. Asian tourists trying to do a yeehaw accent aren't going to sound like native english speakers
I am reminded of the PS2 game Lifeline, which is controlled by voice commands. Being developed in Japan, it naturally recognizes spoken English best if you say it in a very heavy Japanese accent that borders on racism
I am reminded of a substory in the newer Like a Dragon games where Ichiban encounters a guy who wants him to do some pictures or videos or something(been a while, dont remember exactly) but he keeps getting him to dress or act as a racist caricature. The best ending is funnily enough to play along so he's happy.
I was talking university classes here andmy gave asked me to help with the computer. She had a blue screen of death and I told her she had a computer error. She looked at me compiler dumbfounded.
Then another Thai student came in and said "OHH com Pew TUH Air WUH" even the teacher said it the same way.
I then realized the English borrowed words have a very heavy almost racist accent that they will not understand if you use it.
One thing to keep in mind is that loan words are entirely new words in the other language. You're not going back to speaking English for 2 words, you are using a foreign word with its own grammar, pronunciation, and meaning (half the time the exact meaning will change as it becomes a loan word, not the case for this example but it happens).
It happens to sound somewhat similar to an English word or phrase, and it originates in English, but it is still a unique word.
Just to add to this, imagine a French person talking to an American who only speaks English and knows nothing about French. If the French person talks about hor d'oeuvres or New Orleans and pronounces them 'correctly,' they'll be way harder to understand than if they say them with an American accent, as "or durrvs" and "new Orleenz."
lol that reminds me of going to the Philippines. If I speak English normally they didn’t understand me, but if I spoke English with an exaggerated Filipino accent it was no problem
Almost as if racist stereotypes are based on real observations (and then applied in unfair way). Seriously, the aversion of stereotypes and cliches made people forget why they're a thing in the first place.
I live in japan, and absolutely, this is 100% true. Correct english will often miss, but if you try sounding like a racist caricature of a japanese person speaking english, it'll go much better.
Sometimes people view exaggerating a foreign accent as racist, and it certainly can be done in a racist way. If that's your only prior context for seeing people speak in an exaggerated foreign accent you're going to feel awkward trying to order a burger (ba-ga) in Japanese.
Most Americans are more familiar with racist caricatures than they are with actually spoken Japanese. They know what the first sounds like, but not the second.
So in the corner cases where the two are similar, they sometimes have trouble committing to the proper spoken Japanese, specifically because it is similar to the more familiar racist caricature.
I don't really understand how saying a word that was borrowed from your native language, in the pronunciation of the borrowing language, is racist.
If a Mexican immigrates to USA and pronounces "burrito" with a California accent, is he being racist?
My partner's first language is Japanese, but she lives in USA now, and when she says "ramen" in an English sentence, she pronounces it exactly like we do. Is she being racist?
This "OMG we sound racist" thing is 100% imagined in the heads of the Americans themselves. We are way too sensitive about it.
Sounds like you get most of it. But "OMG we sound racist" isnt just made up from nowhere, its how actually racist people mock foreigners for their race.
A lot of English speakers view English as the default. And accents, especially to those who have American accents, are seen as stereotypical. So if you have a 'neutral' accent, it may seem weird to put on a different one.
This is seen as particularly bad when it comes to Asian accents. Their English is seen as 'worse' because of the difficulty regarding words that include sounds not in their own language.
So an American copying a Chinese or Japanese accent may be seen as somewhat insulting by some because it is 'talking down' to them, even if they're using a loanword.
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u/Strange_Ad_9658 9h ago
I remember a youtuber telling a story of ordering a milk tea in japan by translating both words, only to have the server correct them by going “oh, miruku tea”