... and what's the deal with airline peanuts?

[nutzoid]

I was just pondering some Japanese words.

I was looking at the Japanese titles for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest... which are Finairu Fantaji and Doragon Kuesuto.

Did the Japanese not have these words before meeting the West, or are they just writing English titles and "Japanizing" them?

WTF?!

Comments

[icehawk101]

The Japanese seem to think that using English words is cool. When they try to use English words, they need to be written in Hiragana, so it makes them a little odd. Japan has 3 languages. Hiragana and Katagana are phonetic languages (like English, each symbol has an associated sound) and Kanji, which is like Chinese letters (each symbol represents an idea). Since English and Japanese have different speech patterns, they tend to "Japanize" (I don't think this is the right term) English as we Romanize Japanese (we pronounce stuff differently. For example, we pronounce Tokyo like Toh-kee-yoh whereas it is actually pronounced Toh-k-yoh). Ask Chris about this, he can probably explain it better.

[nutzoid]

Well, I don't know about you but I pronounce Tokyo in two syllables.

Also, we say ramen. Well, ra myun, chajang myun, udong, etc.

But my point is that when we get a game from Japan called Fukiwara Sakimukaworimoto or something, we usually change it to something english like "gun blasters" or somesuch. They just seem to use the same words.