I’ve always found the differences between the Japanese language and other languages to be particularly fascinating. I’ve touched on this before when I discussed “Literal Vs Adaptive Translation: Which Is Better?” and brought up the fact that English and Japanese are from two completely differently language families, meaning that many Japanese sentences can be translated in multiple ways and still be “correct”. However, something that I’ve wanted to discuss for a while are Japanese words that are used surprisingly differently in other languages.
The first word I would like to take a look at is a word that I’m sure many of you are intimately familiar with, anime. Written as アニメ in Japanese, notably in katakana to denote that it’s a foreign word, the word anime is an abbreviation of the Japanese word for animation, アニメーション, which in and of itself is a loanword from English. However, what I find quite interesting is the difference in the use of the word anime between Japanese and other languages. Outside of Japan, the term anime is used specifically to refer to animation that is produced in Japan, albeit with some entities trying to change that definition, while in Japan, the term anime actually refers to any and all forms of animation. I’ve noticed that some people struggle with this concept, the idea of anime referring to anything animated probably seems preposterous, but that doesn’t change the fact that that is what the word means in Japan.
Another interesting example is the word “Hentai”. Written as 変態, I originally knew the term hentai as only referring to pornography that featured characters in an anime art style in the form of anime, manga, video games etc. However, I can remember watching a show in Japanese with a female character referring to a male character as “hentai” with the subtitles translating it as “pervert”. After doing some quick research, I discovered that the word hentai acts as an abbreviation of “Hentai Seiyoku”, a term which means “Sexual Perversion”.
I also came across a fascinating video from YouTuber “That Japanese Man Yuta” in which he interviewed Japanese people on the street and asked them if they knew what the word hentai referred to. They immediately knew that the word referred to a pervert but struggled to figure out what it could mean in English with one Japanese man amusingly thinking the word perhaps referred to “a cool guy”. They were quite surprised when they learned that it referred to a genre of pornography with anime/manga characters.
Another interesting word that is used differently between Japanese and English is the word “Otaku”. While in English, the word otaku specifically refers to someone who is enthusiastic about anime and/or manga, the usage of otaku in Japanese is more similar to the English words “Nerd” or “Geek” in that they refer to anyone who has a particular obsession with a subject. For instance, someone could be a sports otaku or a gun otaku who is very knowledgeable and fascinated by those topics.
This is by no means restricted to the topics of anime or manga and there are plenty of Japanese words that have entered English with different meanings to their Japanese origin with such examples including the topics of sports, food, general terms etc. However, I find the terms “Anime”, “Hentai” and “Otaku” particularly fascinating as these words are more easily traceable as they were exported along with anime and manga relatively recently.
It’s always important to be aware that a word’s meaning in one language can be quite different in another language. Japanese and English are no exception and there are so many words that we take for granted without learning the original meaning behind it. Let me know your thoughts on Japanese words that are used surprisingly differently in other languages, if you knew about these differences before this article, other examples of Japanese words that are used differently in English and other languages, your thoughts on why these changes happen and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!