Monday, October 13, 2008

What Happens If Your Belly Rumbles

Image image

The use of katakana poses many problems for people who want to learn Japanese. My readers already know without doubt that these characters are used in Japanese to write words of foreign origin in a more or less arbitrary. I speak of one problem today, the words that should be logically identical, but whose meanings, or rather the jobs will vary curiously Japanese.
I quote the word "image" as an example. I am not concerned for the moment the intellectual laziness of the first Japanese who did not bother to translate it into Japanese. He has transcribed phonetically in English as a word that meant the psychological picture. The word in katakana is イメージ ( i-me-ji ) in this case. But curiously, very unfortunately, some Japanese Francophiles have started using another word イマージュ ( i-ma-ju ), when they were writing about French poetry. But what is the semantic difference between these two words, and イメージ イマージュ? We can say that it is only used in the arts, poetry and cinema In particular, while this one is intended for general use. In a word, the word is a word イマージュ scholar, who is underused by people who did not graduate studies at the college of letters. Therefore, the difference between these two words is less than social semantics.
I give another example of a different register: coconut. As the commodity, the result is called ココ椰子 (ここやし) koko-Yasha . The word Yashi is the overall name for the group of palms. But if the fruit is used for the use industrial, it is called ココナツ (ko-ko -na-tsu ), came the English word coconuts. Thus, ココナツ オイル ( ko-ko-tsu-na-ru-oi ) Is coconut oil. Since the 80s, the Japanese began to use another word ナタデココ ( na-ta-ko-ko-de ), of English origin ( nata de coco), when there is a food ingredient . It seems that the Japanese use this word for the soft material in the nuts. She was called before with the same name " coconuts" but this is the campaign that wanted a different name for the same material, which promulgated the English name that was to be chic for a new dessert, while the word "coconut" was already looking a little nerdy.
For coffee, it's a little similar. The image of the French was once fashionable, but the name カフェオレ ( ka-fe-o-re ) quickly became commonplace. That is why there are a lot of institutions offering the drink カフェラテ ( ka-ra-fe-ty ) since the 80s. The word comes from Italian (caffè latte ). Well sure they do not say it was the same as the coffee カフェオレ with a different name. It would have been bad publicity. They said by cons: No, this is not the same thing, a new product to fashion, caffe latte is coffee with milk in Italian! But in truth, there is not any difference between these two things, what they claim. Nevertheless, there are always people who ask the question in vain, because no one has ever been clear on this subject. The existence of people who do not " coconuts" and " nata de coco "not surprised at all because the snobs affirm their difference based on nothing. They are different simply because the difference is inexplicable.
Thus the words in katakana are often marked by the snobbery of more empty and futile.

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