I work in a restaurant and recently heard the word バッシング. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what this meant and my supervisor just told me to “バッシングを早めにお願いします”
It means clear the table.
So my question is, have you had a 和製英語 experience that was confusing? Or any general 和製英語 that you think is funny/confusing/interesting?
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バッシング in the restaurant context is “bussing”, which is an English word with the same meaning and not wasei eigo.
トラシュー
Because troubleshooting is too long lol
I’ll never forget the ???? expression I made the first time my coworker said 後でブレストしよう to me
I thought that was “bashing”, as in “criticising heavily”.
Anyway, I remember coming across ハイテンション when I first got here and wondering why everyone thought it was a positive attribute.
I also recently came across ロケハン for “location hunting” (presumably to shoot a movie, etc.)
I like ドメドメ. It’s like a 和製英語 that people in foreign companies use to somewhat mockingly describe a company or person who is very typically Japanese in nature (Domestic Domestic)
コンセント still stands firmly in my brain as giving me the biggest ??? moment.
The problem is when a difficult to understand in katakana word/phrase is further butchered so that it can be just 4 katakana symbols. This seems to be standard practice.
So, セックシュアルハラッスメント becomes セクハラ。
I used to have trouble with the endless “my” plus…. phrases. Like ”ノーマイカーデイ！”
And people asking me, “do you have マイカー? And I would think, “no, I don’t have your car. I have mine” and wonder if theirs had been stolen.
My latest FML moments have been
デイケア is day care but that means elder care and like rehabilitation
テナント means tenant but only for commercial tenants
フットワーク is one I’ve being seeing a ton recently that I couldn’t wrap my head around for a bit.
Just got out of a restaurant and instantly experienced a Wasei Eigo when I read the menu:
ジャストサイズ
My mind instantly went, “??????” and it didn’t help a single bit when I read the romaji/alphabetic text that was simply, “JUST SIZE”, which made my mind “¿¿¿???”.
Anyway I decided not to get that because I saw the portion is a bit smaller, and I am a person with big appetite.
“Bussing” is definitely not 和製英語
It’s used exactly the same way as in English
You’ve never heard the term bussing tables? or the Japanification had you confused? Because “bussing” is widely used.
In my restaurant, they use phrase
“フリードリンク” Free drink
As All you can drink
It confused me the hell a lot till today
I did a one-off show with a band a few years ago. A couple of the guys said they were going to do リーゼント for the show.
Took me a while to figure it out. Hint: we did Stray Cats covers.
エール = Yell = Cheer of Support…
This doesn’t apply but the katakana version of ‘strawberry’ is a terrorist-maker. Just say 苺 ffs.
Reminded me of a friend went on trip to the UK and visited a nice hotel at tea time to try authentic English scones. She was a university student at the time and was on a budget and thought it be better to splurge in the afternoon rather the more expensive evening menu. The waiter told her they have a salad service and my friend’s face promptly lit up and double checked by asking “it’s サービス?” The waiter confirmed yes. She was totally dismayed when she found out she was charged a nice price for the salad and learned that “service” in English doesn’t mean it’s free.
I HAVE NO idea why it took me so long to understand these as they are so simple, but
マイカーand カーシェアリング
I kept reading マイカー as “Ma-ikaa” as in “whatever” it took me like 2 weeks before I realized it meant “my car”.
I thought I understood what カーシェアリング as it’s obvious this was “Car Sharing”. But it’s not Car Pooling, it’s actually the sharing of a single car between multiple people, kind of like a time share of a house.
I never in a million years would have figured out コネ if someone hadn’t explained it to me. It’s an abbreviation of “connection” as in networking
アベノミクスwas a good one.
I recently learned ワンオペ and it comes from “one operation”. Meaning when you are parenting alone for a few days (while partner is on a business trip let’s say)
I have just recently learned that フレー is katakana for “hooray”, even though I’ve seen and understood the word for years.
Who still remembers チョベリバ or am I too old lol it’s ちょう very bad, basically “very very bad”. There is a Japanese word in it, but that was a big culture shock in the 90s to me 😂
ブラピfor Brad Pitt…
Also, プラスアルファ for something extra
I also did part time work as a waiter, and i heard オードブル and never would have figured out that it means hors d’oeuvre (appetiser) if I hadn’t looked it up.
I think you are probably referring more to words that are indecipherable, but since I just ran across this again today, I’ll share it anyway.
At first, it was weird for me to see ソフトドリンク referring to tea, coffee, and juice. In the US at least, soft drinks usually refer to carbonated beverages, and would never be used to describe hot tea.
However, what has really thrown me are the restaurants that call all non-alcoholic beverages ジュース。 I just got out of a ramen place with a ジュースサーバー dispensing green tea and 麦茶. And I’ve definitely been to a few 喫茶店 and order my coffee from the “juice” menu.
For me it’s スマート, プラスアルファ, and テンション上がる
It took me a long time to understand” that “ツーショット” meant a picture with two people, not taking two pictures
スキンシップ is a very weird one for me. Apparently it comes from Skin and Friendship but it means any affectionate physical contact (as in cuddling, hugging, holding hands, etc). It sounds so wrong.
I get most of these we must be レベチ
Ojisans at my office love to use プラスアルファ
Does ガラス & グラス count? They both mean glass but one is a window/material & the other is a cup
サムズアップ。I thought it meant sums up. /confused face
Googled it and facepalmed.
Thumbs up……..
スクショ for screenshot
アズイズツービーcaught me off guard
ナイスガイ! Has nothing to do with personality
White.
ホワイト。
Waito is literally ALREADY THERE, WHY DID YOU ADD ‘HO’ TO MAKE IT HOWAITO
Today i asked my team leader to call and he said lets move to the ハドル and i was like ok ill wait for him to call me …? And it was a lil voice chat room in Slack apparently
リスキリング! It took me forever to figure out that she wasn’t talking about killing squirrels.
Even after the explanation, I still had no idea because I don’t think this word existed way back when.
The very first time I heard it, I could not figure out what a biking restaurant was.
I also thought for years that puchi was just a Japanese word for ‘cute’
(Viking (smorgasbord) and petit)
For a long time I wondered why they would use a girl’s name for a male talent agency. Then one day I told my wife, she laughed herself silly at me and explained to me it’s Johnny’s, not Janice
It took me the longest time to understand that スタンプラリー was Stamp Rally. I understood the meaning but didn’t know the rarii part was for rally.
ベース・アップ
パイップ・カット
バージン・ロード
ミス・コンテスト
クランクアップ
“Crank up”, which refers to the end of principal photography on a movie or TV show. Absolutely incomprehensible.
ユーモア…..
I remember being confused by コンクール (which means ‘competition’), but that’s because it comes from French and not English.
I also thought タッチ (‘touch’ – to tap your IC card to pay) was cute too.
Recently came across ワンオペ, or One-Op which is shorthand for One Operation, which is in turn short for One-man operation? Think “One man show”.
It’s used frequently for single parenting/solo child raising, but also in working if there’s only one staff on shift, apparently.
ホーム at train stations. I thought it was the train’s “home” at the station, which sounded cute. But no, it’s short for プラットホーム (“platform”) and uses ホ instead of フォ because it was borrowed a long time ago.
I’ve got two.
ジレンマ means dilemma, my driving instructor said that and when I didn’t understand he looked at me like “bruh it’s friggin eigo”
プラスアルファ means “something extra”
My client company once mentioned “plus alpha” when describing a feature. We were fairly new to the project, so we were scratching our heads wondering what framework is that 😂 Googling didn’t help either. So finally after wasting a few hours I mustered up the courage to ask what he meant by plus alpha. 🤣