Hi. I'm an advanced Chinese learner but a beginner in Japanese.
I've noticed how a lot of older technologies tend to have Chinese etymology, like 電話, 自転車, 電車, 電気, 写真. But newer inventions tend to use English-katakana words like エスカレーター, コンピューター, インターネット, ソフトウェア.
Does this have to do with Japan falling under US's sphere of influence after WW2? Or is there also some other factor that makes the Japanese language today prefer using katakana English loan words instead of adopting Chinese words for new concepts like 扶梯(escalator), 電腦(computer), 網絡(internet), 軟件(software)?
I've heard that even some common words like 飲み物 are increasingly becoming replaced byドリンク in many contexts, especially in cafes and restaurant drink menus.
Personally as a Chinese learner, I think Kanjis are very information-dense and easy to read. Katakana is very long, and it doesn't have the logographic/semantic component that makes Kanji useful in the first place.
How do Japanese native speakers and learners feel about the situation? I've heard some people complain that Japanese is becoming more and more anglicized, but I've also heard that it's way more convenient to use katakana, as Kanjis can be pretty difficult to learn and master.
Edit: I'm just surprised by how much English vocab is used in Japanese even for basic things like ドリンク, ホテル, カメラ, ドア. In Chinese and Thai we prefer to use local vocabulary for these things.
I wonder why is there a need to use English words for these basic things.
I'm not trying to debate anyone here, let me know what you think.
by pirapataue