For reference, “Japan English” refers to the common English used and/or taught specifically in the country of Japan. “Japanese” refers to the common variety of Japanese most widely spoken in Japan (in other words, “standard” Japanese).
For example, I often see/hear “kindergarten” shortened to “kindy” or “kinder” in Japan English. After a Google search, I was surprised to find that these two terms are used in informal Australian English after assuming they were Japan-specific.
Obviously, American English dominates this country, so I can imagine how perturbed Brits, Aussies and others might be when they must conform to Americanisms in Japan with others. However, I’m interested to know what sticks out to you guys, as well (i.e. チップス vs. crisps).
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If I understand your kind of heavy setup, by definition, any word that has dialect variations in English would satisfy this as long as the Japanese used katakana for it.
That gets you トラック for truck/lorry; サッカー for soccer/football, etc.
Just find a list of terms that differ between British and American English (or other regional variants) and check them against a Japanese dictionary. I’m sure there are plenty.
The Japanese word for the engine cover of a car is ボンネット, from (UK) bonnet, not (US) hood.
There seems to be a mix when English is involved, but I find the pronunciation is closer to UK English than US English (eg. ウォーターサーバー, the A in “water” is like UK English and there is the absence of the hard R sound).
I wonder if kindy was picked up because Japanese really like to shorten words like Australians do.
Wikipedia has a list of [gairaigo and wasi-eigo.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms). It’s missing some common ones like コスパ
Not your question exactly but I always giggle when I hear the word クラクション.
I mean, let me get my driving gloves and bowler hat.
(Not throwing shade, I seriously love the word and I had never heard it before coming to Japan. That giggle is a gleeful one)
Edit: I’m American and I’ve never driven a model T.
>perturbed Brits, Aussies and others might be when they must conform to Americanisms in Japan
One of those “‘dialectal’ English words” that drives me up the wall at my work in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is:
**”Bush”/ブッシュ is shrubbery** not the engine part which is a **bushing**.
I used to scream about finding shrubbery in my English parts catalogs, manuals, etc., until I found out watching UK car shows like Wheeler Dealers that Brits all call the part a “bush” and not bushing.
Now I have the find out the whacko who taught the Japanese that a steering wheel is called a Handle/ンドル (*handoru*) in English.
Not English but German (btw. Kindergarten is German as well):
* Gas cylinders are called ボンベ, from German “Bombe” which means bomb. I will never stop cringing while using that word in Japanese.
* Backpacks are called リュック, a shortened version of the original German term “Rucksack” which is never shortened, and even if it would be shortened, we would say “Sack” and not “Ruck”. This one feels weird as Japanese tends to shorten words to the first part while German would usually shorten it the last part.
* A part-time job is called バイト, shortened version of “Arbeit” which just means work and is never used shortened in German. So in Germany, technically every job is バイト. This is also a counter-example to the point I made above as this one shortens the word to the last part. Sadly “Arbeit” is not a compound word so shortening it makes no sense no matter how you do it.
* Ski slopes are called ゲレンデ, from German “Gelände” which just means terrain. What Japanese people call ゲレンデ would be called “Piste” or “Loipe” in German depending on whether it is a hillside or flat.
* Crampons are called アイゼン, shortened from German “Steigeisen” which is the top-tier example of doing it right as the meaning, use case, and way of shortening it to “Eisen” (en. iron) is identical.