Tag: engrish

I saw an interesting thread on Japan's ubiquitous BBS 2ch entitled, "Things Japanese people do abroad that mark them as ...

There are some things you say when you live in Japan that you'd certainly never utter back home. For example, ...

The other day I was riding my bicycle past a steakhouse, and I noticed a sign that promised "Steak & ...

No matter how many years I spend in Japan, every new day brings with it the potential for new linguistic ...

Japan is famous as the home of hilarious "Engrish," the mistaken English signs or T-shirts you often see on the ...

It's time for another installment of Wacky Japanese You Already Know, featuring Japanese words that happen to have the same ...

The word "salaryman" is a wasei-eigo (lit. "made-in-Japan English") term referring to a salaried male employee of a company. The ...

The other day I reached for some saltine crackers and found myself smirking at the name on the package: "Mornin' ...

Last time I wrote about the concept of "bottle keep," which is when you pre-purchase a bottle of liquor for ...

One concept in Japan I like a lot is shinrai (SHEEN-rye), which just means "trust," although as is usually the ...

"I hate it when someone smorks in my face." For whatever reason, the English word "smoke" is often rendered as ...

One of the good things about teaching ESL in Japan was learning my own language. Languages are based on rules ...

Like many other English speaking gaijin, I came to Japan as a teacher of ESL, imparting my native language to ...

When I first got to Japan, I was extremely motivated to learn Japanese, which was a good thing since the ...

My son continues his juken studies, preparing for the difficult high school entrance exams he'll be taking early next year. ...

I see that some of Japan's manga publishers are finally taking action against websites that allow large-scale downloading of their ...

Japan can be such a funny place. You could be going along, minding your own business when suddenly, bam, the ...

My son is in juken jigoku or "test hell" this year, as he prepares for his high school entrance exam ...

"How are you?" If you've ever taught English as a Second Language in Japan then you know the correct answer ...

My daughter is pretty smart. The other day I was getting on her case for watching too much YouTube at ...

The Japanese use a great number of English words in their daily speech, often changing their nuances to fit a ...

When I arrived in Japan, I had to get used to many new things, like being the only gaijin at ...

I've written before about how people who are bilingual actually develop separate personalities for each language, and it's interesting to ...

The Japanese are extremely creative when it comes to language, and often invent new English words to describe the things ...