Confusing Japanese is Confusing

Words are complex things, and one of the challenges a person learning a language like Japanese faces is parsing everything properly. Most people know about the -san suffix that’s placed at the end of a person’s name for politeness, e.g. Yamada-san to mean Mr. Yamada. Another san that pops up quite often in normal use is written with the character for “production” meaning “…made in,” so next time a character in an anime asks for Bulgaria-san no marmalade you can figure what she’s saying. It’s used in the kanji name for the Nissan auto company, which literally means “Made in Japan.” Another word that causes confusion is kau, which usually means “to buy” but (when written with a different kanji) means “to keep a pet,” and we poor gaijin always go through a period of confusion about why our Japanese friend is “buying” a dog before we figure it out. The word for “to cut” in Japanese is kiru, but when written with a different kanji character it assumes the more specialized meaning of “to kill with a sword,” which is another concept that’s easy to get wrong.

Tthe name Nissan literally means “made in Japan,” in case you were wondering.