We’ve looked at a handful of loanwords that came from English already but not all loan words came from English. There are a fair amount that come from German, Portugese, French, Dutch and other languages. The most interesting thing about these loan words is that most Japanese natives think that they’re actually English words. They may be a bit harder to remember than English loan words but anyone studying Japanese should take note of them.
アルバイト Working your byte (German)
One of the most common non-English loanwords is the word for part time job. The word is Arubaito and comes from German but is often abbreviated to Baito. I cannot count the amount of times I’ve heard Japanese use the word baito and expect an English native to understand.
パン – Pots and Pans (Portuguese)
Another extremely popular word to mistake for English, Pan means bread, not something you cook out of. I’ve met almost native level English speakers in Japan who still mistake this word and it can be really confusing at first if you haven’t studied Spanish or Portuguese.
アンケート – survey (French)
I tried for a long time to figure out which English word this came from but Ankeeto comes from French and means survey. It can be used for casual magazine surveys about your love life or more scientific surverys about how your health and the workings of your brain.
ピエロ – Hey Pierre! (French)
This one always makes me laugh. I imagine a man named Pierre who puts on make up and dresses up as a clown on his days off. There must be someone like that out there who is studying Japanese! If that can’t help you remember the word, I don’t know what can. Piero comes from French and means clown.
ミイラ Looking at the man in the mirror (Portuguese)
It sounds like mirror but if you look into a mirror and see a miira, you’ve been dead for a long, long time. Miira means mummy and apparently comes from Portugese. Once again, if imagining a mummy looking in the mirror isn’t a good memory trick, I don’t know what is.
マロン Those are some small melons (French)
First of all, get your mind out of the gutter. I learned the word “Maron” when I went to a supermarket and asked where the melons were. You could imagine the look on my face when I was shown a bunch of nuts. Maron comes from French and means chestnuts.
コンセント Getting Consent (???)
Contrary to my initial idea, this word has nothing to do with getting approval from someone. It means electrical outlet and I have not been able to figure out where it comes from. It has been bothering me so if anyone knows, please fill me in.
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7:02 pm on February 11th, 2012
Konsento comes from English. Electrical outlets used to be called “consentric outlets” konsento is the Japanese form of consentric.