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A habit that I have is replacing certain words with how I'd say them in English. For instance I'd write something like this: 私はイングランド人。 私はイーストアングリアに住んでいます, but say something like this: 私はEngland人。 私はEast Angliaに住んでいます。

Is this a necessarily bad habit I should break from, or does it not matter that much?

BJCUAI
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degetl
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  • why are you doing this though? have you not seen those japanese shows where like, japanese people have no idea what the english person is saying until it's said with the japanese katakana pronunciation – minseong Feb 05 '19 at 13:21
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    I'd like to add an opinion from a minority. I'm a native speaker of Japanese, and I strongly prefer your style for writing proper nouns. Because transcribing into Kana loses too much information, well-defined usages such as イングランド being exception. – Yosh Feb 05 '19 at 14:22
  • @Yosh Maybe you should post that as an answer. I think it could be valuable. – Ringil Feb 05 '19 at 15:27
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    If you're writing in an environment which supports it, remember that furigana can play a role here: [Ｅａｓｔ　Ａｎｇｌｉａ]{イースト・アングリア} – Lazar Ljubenović Feb 05 '19 at 18:29
  • @LazarLjubenović I completely forgot about writing furigana! – degetl Feb 06 '19 at 21:50
  • @theonlygusti Most of those are comedies. That's probably where my confusion stemmed from in the first place tbh. – degetl Feb 06 '19 at 21:51
  • @Yosh I think Lazar's furigana solution would give us the best of both worlds in the written world (though maybe flipping e.g. East Anglia ^ イースト・アングリア (I'm trying to say Kana over Latin Characters. Noob at StackExchange and Google isn't helping... sorry!) – degetl Feb 06 '19 at 21:56

1 Answers1

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I think it matters a lot and that it's best to break from the habit if you intend to speak Japanese long-term. I think for place names it's somewhat understandable because the Kana is obviously there mimicking the native place name, sort of like how a French person (no offense) might say they are from "Paris".

However, many people will not understand an English-derived Kana word in native pronunciation and there are many Japanese words that could nominally be considered English that get chopped up and placed in other words, like...

  • エアコン ("air-con" for air-conditioner)
  • リモコン ("remo-con" for remote control)

... or words that just sound too different due to Japanese phonology, like

  • ラジオ (radio)
  • ツナ (tuna)

...or even words that we may have an anglicized pronunciation for, but the Japanese went a different way, like

  • キシリトール (xylitol)
  • ワクチン (vaccine)

In short, if you pronounce "English" Kana words natively many people will understand you much of the time, but many people will not understand you much of the time.

Just imagine that a native speaker of French or Greek spoke English fluently, but decided it was OK to pronounce all of the French or Greek-derived words in English as he would in his native area. If you're OK with being that guy then I guess it's cool, but if not...

sazarando
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    +1 for the "that guy" comment. :) – Eiríkr Útlendi Feb 04 '19 at 23:25
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    The "that guy" thing makes sense, but I would say it's significantly stranger to use foreign pronunciation in Japanese than in English. It's unusual in both languages, but I think in Japanese it's probably more likely to result in a failure to communicate, and it's probably a stronger violation of listener expectations. –  Feb 05 '19 at 00:30
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    I agree with you. After all, French and Greek are not as phonetically dissimilar to English as English is to Japanese. It might be more accurate to imagine someone using native-language pronunciation for Chinese-derived words as they speak English. Sichuan cuisine anyone? – sazarando Feb 05 '19 at 00:48
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    And just to point out the blindingly obvious: Not all loan words mean what they mean in their original language, so you could extend the example to the imaginary speaker talking to a person also fluent in that native language going "wait, that doesn't make sense" because they've processed meaning of the Greek pronounced word as the Greek word rather than the meaning that's made it's way in to English. – Kaithar Feb 05 '19 at 06:43
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    Honestly I would say it's always unacceptable to intentionally break with the expected phonemes like this, and would remove "if you intend to speak Japanese long-term" from the first sentence. The undertone of doing will be taken as either disrespectful laziness or know-it-all arrogance ("I can't be bothered to adjust" or "Look at me pronouncing it the true way, uneducated swine"). – FvD Feb 05 '19 at 07:10
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    The OP was about proper names, but @sazarando's answer focuses on common ones. The case is certainly stronger in the latter case than in the former. – Mathieu Bouville Feb 05 '19 at 09:03
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    'Radio' and 'vaccine' are used in English and a lot of other languages, both come from Latin. And the American (or British) pronunciation is not the right pronunciation of these words, just a pronunciation. ラジオ and ワクチン are merely different pronunciations. – Mathieu Bouville Feb 05 '19 at 09:08
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    @Kaithar Having done beginners Japanese, our teacher gave us a great example of this. Japanese uses the loan word "guriin" for anything painted or dyed green artificially. The Japanese word "midori" means a natural green, which is what you'd use to describe leaves. (Although after that you get onto what's green or blue, and things get confusing...) – Graham Feb 05 '19 at 09:10
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    @Graham Ooh, I like that one. Actually, one of Tae Kim's examples is even more troubling: カンニング "kanningu" to mean cheating on an exam. – Kaithar Feb 06 '19 at 16:47
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    Point taken. Breaking the habit. – degetl Feb 06 '19 at 21:59