Want to know how to fluster a Japanese person? Ask them to pronounce difficult English words, such as “jewelry,” which twists L and R sounds in unnatural ways. Other words the J-List staff reports as being difficult are “McDonald’s” (which takes six syllables to say in Japanese, Makudonarudo), “strawberry daiquiri” and that old standby, “election,” which can have disastrous results if used incorrectly. There are two words for “love” in Japanese, too, and if you want to have some fun ask your Japanese friends what the difference between them is — they’ll stumble as they try to come up with a way to explain the difference. The two words are koi, which describes romantic love, said to be easy to flare up but also easy to cool; and ai, a higher kind of love used for family or anyone who’s very dear to you, as well as the steady, slow-burning love of a marriage. These two words are combined into a compound word to make a general word for all aspects of love, which is ren’ai, a term that’s also used for the eroge and visual novels that we sell, e.g. ren’ai game.
Ah, the many faces of love.
