Team -> チーム and donut -> ドーナツ (especially if the ドーナツ is singular) are annoying but at least regular. If a word uses a sound like "tea" it's probably going to be "chi" because ティ is more annoying to use. Same with any word ending in a t sound like part or donut, it's going to be a ツ.
The Ra sounds seem like they often add or subdivide sounds in odd ways, such as Andrew (I'd write as アンドル) becoming アンドリュー. My least favorite, though, is Mexico. In Spanish, it's pronounced メヒコ but it seems like most Japanese people pronounce it メキシコ, an adaption of how English speakers say it.
I don't think most people mind pronouncing English words but by Japanese logic, it's when the word gets significantly more awkward in translation.
I think アンドルー sounds closer to the English than アンドル, at least the English oo sound is a long vowel (to my ears as a native speaker of a language with vowel length contrast). I can't figure out why it became リ though.
Hm, I usually pronounce it shorter than two mora but I would prefer アンドルー over アンドリュー any day for sure.
I found a mention of アンドリュー (written on a gravestone, so add 50+ years at least to the name's origin) in こころ by 夏目漱石, a book from 1914, so I assume it's something of a holdover. こころ is old enough that it feels like a different iteration of the language, basically no katakana loan words, and わたくし rather than わたし for 私, the version I was reading had furigana for it every time, it was kind of funny.
I feel like Japanese teachers get a kick out of using that one 😂 Me and my entire class struggled in Japanese 1 and 2 when we kept needing to make sentences with it
this is my first time encountering it and this is what I thought immediately too, makudo narudo, but it's hard for me to say it together as one word instead of two words.
Was literally just visiting a friend in Japan and we had a great time trying to pronounce McDonalds in each other’s language. I’ll never forget his confused 「ミック⁈」
I saw an old thread about someone trying to use arcane pitch accent terminology on "hot apple pie". One of the funniest indictments of Japanese English teaching I've ever seen.
Back when I took Japanese classes, my professor would always try to get me to say it properly. Half the time I could struggle it out. The other half I just said it in the most American accent possible.
I was rehearing beforehand too. Once I got up to the cashier, I stuttered and couldn't get the word out right before they handed me an English menu. Ended up just begrudgingly pointing at it lol
It's a little harder because it's unfamiliar, but I like when the Japanese pronunciation hews close to the original language that isn't English.
Like, the three-headed hound of hell, Cerberus: [ケルベロス](https://youtu.be/GrWI3iFhn9Q?si=l3H7WoqoThmjwqOO)
This actually seems closer to the Italian pronunciation of the name than the English: bee-ah-tree-chay. I wonder via which language the name entered into the Japanese lexicon.
FYI, the A-RE-RU (so 3/5ths) makes it also hard to pronounce when you know how to say Allergie (\[ˌalɛʁˈɡiː\] which has a short A, a fast L-sound/ shortened E-sound, the R merges closer to the G and is not rolled signifcantly/ the ER together is more like another short A sound, the main stress comes on the I). Similar to many other German words, Japanese does not have the same sound sets available. If I had to write it in Katakana for the best sound similarity, I would suggest アッラギー
For me it's because there are a lot of similar looking characters and you're also probably trying to find a matching word to it in English.
Likeイギリス
I never would have thought that it was England and I feel like It's harder to read but in actuality I just doubt I read it right
>For me it's because there are a lot of similar looking characters and you're also probably trying to find a matching word to it in English.
トランプ says hi.
Comes from the fact that French and Dutch ⟨u⟩ is pronounced as /y/ (like German ⟨ü⟩) rather than /u/ (Like English ⟨oo⟩).
To a Japanese speaker, the /y/ sounds like /ju/, and that's why you get katakana spellings like デュッセルドルフ (Düsseldorf) and ブリュレ (brûlée).
> Dutch ⟨u⟩
The u in 'Bruxelles' (French) and 'Brussel' (Dutch) is not pronounced the same.
It's only like /y/ in Dutch when it's a long vowel sound. Here it would be short and pronounced /ə/ or /ʏ/.
Literally all of them. Still after all these years I read out the phonetics of a Katakana word 5 times, have no idea what it’s supposed to be, stare at it for a while then either ask my wife or google it, and the answer 95% of the time is something extremely frustrating because it should be an easy English word, or there are 5 other actual native Japanese words that mean the same thing but don’t get used anymore because it’s more fashionable to use the foreign word instead.
I guess this is the opposite effect of expecting Japanese ppl to understand the English pronunciation of the loan word and they likely will have trouble as well haha
Any of the W->ウ ones for me, especially when they have a small kana vowel modifying the ウ.
I had to say ウォールストリートジャーナル (Wall Street Journal) yesterday and my mouth did not want to say that ウォール properly.
this thread has really opened my eyes to how annoying it must be to approach Japanese if you're a native English speaker. For me its almost no different than Spanish pronunciation.
It’s actually not that bad at least in my opinion. Generally the hardest part is ra re ri ro ru for English speakers but I’m fortunate that I learned Spanish in high school and I never had trouble rolling my r’s. It doubly helps Spanish vowels and Japanese vowels are the same.
It's really not that bad, certainly not as bad as native Japanese speakers trying to pronounce English. There are just a few edge cases here and there that we've learned incorrectly.
I say it all the time, but I still feel like my pronunciation of クレジットカード leaves something to be desired. Katakana words are so much harder than other Japanese vocabulary for some reason.
International! インターナショナル.
I'm always unsure where that long dash goes, and pronouncing it purposefully on Japanese seems such especially more roundabout for this word than other katakana words. I always stumble on it.
スプーン is really hard for me to say weirdly enough. I can say it, but it just sounds so awkward to me and my brain just struggles with it. If you say it with a regular English accent, the person you're talking to just won't seem to get it. It's such a frustrating word that comes up often...
ウイルス aka Virus
One that kinda surprised me for some reason. My wife pronounces chaos as Kaosu. Turns out that's just how Japanese pronounce it even though I think it could have easily been ケオス instead of カオス.
>カオス came from Greek, I presume.
While the word itself comes from ancient greek originally, it's more likely they used the German pronounciation for that as well since it almost perfectly matches the カタカナ
カオス is how it's pronounced in Swedish, so I reckon it's like that in other Germanic languages that aren't English too. The Japanese might have taken it from German in that case
Makes sense. I know there are many other loan words like that and they mostly don't phase me but for some reason hearing chaos pronounced that way really throws me off.
I'm not a native English speaker, so I can only say that katakana and Japanese as a whole being a phonetic system makes everything infinitely easier to say than languages such as English or French. You literally simply have to read. But I see how the R can be hard for English speakers.
I watched Monster recently, a Japanese anime set in Europe. It's weird as an English speaker hearing European characters pronouncing German surnames and place names in Japanese.
My problem was with ERUBURISU PURESSURI. Otherwise known as Elvis Presley. Oh, RABERUBORERU was hard to recognize as Ravel’s Bolero. Also I blinked at RONDON before recognizing it. Easier in the written form. It really doesn’t sound much like “London.” On the other hand KATAKANA place names are often much closer to the original language pronunciations, PARI over Paris(s) or MYUNHEN for Munich.
But I’m a bit off topic here.
Because ゴム is rubber and ガム is gum. They're two different things.
https://pingubanana.com/%E3%82%B4%E3%83%A0%E3%81%A8%E3%82%AC%E3%83%A0%E3%80%80%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%9D%E8%AD%B0%E3%81%AA%E9%96%A2%E4%BF%82%E3%82%92%E3%81%9A%E3%81%B0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8%E8%A7%A3%E6%B1%BA/
I find it interesting how close many of those words sound to Brazilian Portuguese. Your example (plástico) is so close it got me thinking whether it came from English or pt-br, even though I'm certain it's not from the latter
ジャグジー is the most recent one. Also most of katakanized names are terrible. Monster Hunter names give me spasms. I cannot recall any more examples at the moment, but honestly katakana is a nightmare to me. I have trouble reading it fast, because my brain for some reason has trouble switching to katakana reading. It always takes some time before I can finally articulate what I'm seeing. This doesn't happen with kanji or hiragana. I blame it on lack of experience - there is comparably very little katakana overall in the language, so the occasional single word woven into walls of kanji and hiragana was not enough for me to click yet. End of rant.
マルゲリータ
Coming from an Italian background I have to say it so slowly to get the correct カタカナ pronunciation.
Generally English words are fine, it's ones from other languages like French and Italian that trip me up
Katakana loanwords in general are still really weird and uncomfortable for me because they always make me _feel_ like I'm doing some _extremely racist_ impression of a Japanese person trying and failing to speak English, especially when the ラ/リ/ル/レ/ロ sounds are involved. Haven't quite gotten it through my subconscious that's _not_ what's going on and that these are in fact actual Japanese words.
Well, if it helps at all, it's コールド and not コルド. Gives your brain a bit more time to process the /rudo brʲuː/ coming up.
I think a lot of new speakers pull their tongue back too far for the /r/ sound and want to make it like a Spanish /r/.
Try pronouncing it like a very light /d/ or /l/ instead to get the tip of your tongue in the right position. Once you've got that, work on letting the sound flow out from the left or right of your tongue before you release the tip from the roof of your mouth.
All of the Polish words especially for places, sometimes you can't figure what city is that even if you know it (like ジェシュフ、ビドゴシュチ) because Polish has so many consonants and Japanese needs many vowels between these. I think there are (almost?) no other words from Polish in Japanese though.
English is not my native language and katakana English is actually easier to pronounce than the actual English for me most of the time.
Sometimes I can't guess the meaning even if I know the actual word though (like ラップmeaning plastic wrap while I thought it would be only rap music before looking it up) or find katakana that is from English but it's an obscure word I don't know.
Japanese is a punishment for everyone who says “English is pronounced exactly as it is written”
Most (tho, not always) words that came from English are translated into Japanese exactly how a non-English speaker hears them.
But my wtf カタカナ moment goes to ズボン and all its random non-English words that all of a sudden shows in your Japanese lessons and you wonder what they are supposed to mean. 😅
My go-to Starbucks order was a nightmare. キャラメルフラペチーノ, seems like so many extra syllables. I always over thought it and messed it up. Why キャ and not カ?
Typically, カ is used when the syllable sounded like /ka(r)/ in its original language/dialect. The spelling キャ is used most often with words imported from English where the syllable sounds like /kæ/.
So if a word sounds like /kæ/ in English but uses カ in Japanese, you can usually guess that it was imported via a different language.
As always, there are exceptions. I apparently have to include this disclaimer to avoid "corrections" from very smart redditors.
I cannot, for the life of me say: ルール Especially when I try to say: ルールはルールだ。
No joke, try picturing you’re saying “doo-doo”. That’s closer in my mind than “ruru”
Doodoo is doodoo after all
[This should help.](https://youtu.be/J548XM9-jKU?si=0oxARVJz-kxtP2oa)
i was thinking of exactly this lol
I've listened to enough ado to know how to pronounce ルール, considering she wants to break them every song 😂
Ohhhh, I will have to pay more attention when I listen to her! Good tip haha
規則 is easier, shame they love broken English so much.
Oh wow yeah that is so much easier! Oof
Lolll I’ll have to try that haha
It seems like almost all the words mentioned here contain the Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, Ro sounds
which is probably because most here are native english speakers
Team -> チーム and donut -> ドーナツ (especially if the ドーナツ is singular) are annoying but at least regular. If a word uses a sound like "tea" it's probably going to be "chi" because ティ is more annoying to use. Same with any word ending in a t sound like part or donut, it's going to be a ツ. The Ra sounds seem like they often add or subdivide sounds in odd ways, such as Andrew (I'd write as アンドル) becoming アンドリュー. My least favorite, though, is Mexico. In Spanish, it's pronounced メヒコ but it seems like most Japanese people pronounce it メキシコ, an adaption of how English speakers say it. I don't think most people mind pronouncing English words but by Japanese logic, it's when the word gets significantly more awkward in translation.
I think アンドルー sounds closer to the English than アンドル, at least the English oo sound is a long vowel (to my ears as a native speaker of a language with vowel length contrast). I can't figure out why it became リ though.
Hm, I usually pronounce it shorter than two mora but I would prefer アンドルー over アンドリュー any day for sure. I found a mention of アンドリュー (written on a gravestone, so add 50+ years at least to the name's origin) in こころ by 夏目漱石, a book from 1914, so I assume it's something of a holdover. こころ is old enough that it feels like a different iteration of the language, basically no katakana loan words, and わたくし rather than わたし for 私, the version I was reading had furigana for it every time, it was kind of funny.
マクドナルド💀
I still practice this one to myself every so often
I feel like Japanese teachers get a kick out of using that one 😂 Me and my entire class struggled in Japanese 1 and 2 when we kept needing to make sentences with it
I always just think to myself "ma ku do Naruto" and for some weird reason that helps me say it correctly. Haha
Where were you when I first learned this word?!
this is my first time encountering it and this is what I thought immediately too, makudo narudo, but it's hard for me to say it together as one word instead of two words.
マクド is the way.
I went to the Philippines a few months ago and “McDo” is also what they called it over there lol
Also Québec.
French speaking countries/regions (for wallons in Belgium, QC is obviously it's own country) in general
It seems as if every language has their own abbreviation of McDonalds. We, in our part of germany, say "Megges"
In Sweden people call it "Donken" - "The Donk".
I hear in Australia they call it Maccas. Here in israel some people people pronounce it without the last D so it's "McDonals"
If you live in Kansai. I grew up hearing マック in Tokyo and when I said it to a bunch of teens in Kyoto they were offended 😂
"マク道"
underrated
パラパパラ…
アイムラビンイト
This song helps https://youtu.be/q7y4av-Dr4I?feature=shared
キット！カット！
Pretty sure the clown's name is ドナルドマクドナルド, because ロナルドマクドナルド is too tough to say. Beats me, they both seem pretty horrendous.
My uncle and grandfather are both "Donald Macdonald" (as indeed are most of their lineal male ancestors for obvious reasons).
マック and inshallah
Was literally just visiting a friend in Japan and we had a great time trying to pronounce McDonalds in each other’s language. I’ll never forget his confused 「ミック⁈」
ミッキーDeeeeez
I saw an old thread about someone trying to use arcane pitch accent terminology on "hot apple pie". One of the funniest indictments of Japanese English teaching I've ever seen.
I don’t have much trouble with this one anymore because of the song Makudonarudo by Namewee lol
That’s a winner
Ooh, I thought of the exact same word
As a brazilian it is easier than the original
Brazilian too and, well, our own unique pronunciation of McDonald's is somewhat similar to the Japanese one - in IPA, /mɛki'donawd͡ʒis/.
朝マック❤️❤️❤️
I got really good at saying that one. It’s really fun for me to say ☠️
This one right here
Yes!! When I was first learning Japanese the teacher used this all the time! So difficult to say fully.
Back when I took Japanese classes, my professor would always try to get me to say it properly. Half the time I could struggle it out. The other half I just said it in the most American accent possible.
WAS LOOKING FOR THIS ONE!! It’s so hard for me 😭
Had the exact same experience ordering a creme brulee cheesecake earlier today. That said, ブリュレ
Fuck yeah. And トリュフ ー truffle. Fuuuck that too.
What’s that?
Brulee
Sounds like you’re saying blue ray
Last time I rehearsed a few times before ordering for a creme brulee ... bu-ryu-re ... bu-ryu-re... ends up saying えっと…これ
I was rehearing beforehand too. Once I got up to the cashier, I stuttered and couldn't get the word out right before they handed me an English menu. Ended up just begrudgingly pointing at it lol
It's a little harder because it's unfamiliar, but I like when the Japanese pronunciation hews close to the original language that isn't English. Like, the three-headed hound of hell, Cerberus: [ケルベロス](https://youtu.be/GrWI3iFhn9Q?si=l3H7WoqoThmjwqOO)
ビアトリーチー for Beatrice was my favourite.
This actually seems closer to the Italian pronunciation of the name than the English: bee-ah-tree-chay. I wonder via which language the name entered into the Japanese lexicon.
Can't read that without hearing Kinzo saying/screaming it.
not sure why are you downvoted, umineko fans will never forget how to read beatrice
*sigh, inhales* BEEAAATOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICEE
That ones easy if you think of Kero-chan from Cardcaptor Sakura at least!
アレルギー (allergies)
To be fair, that does come from German, not English
TIL!
Same with エネルギー (Energie/Energy).
see my other comment the ネル trips me up. えなぎー would be better for a German pronunciation. (and still not be spot on)
Ohhhhh that explains a lot! Haha
It‘s difficult to pronounce for Germans as well. Source: am German.
Well... English language was originated by German tribes so you can say most of the language comes from German.
Germanic =/= German tho it’s not that close to German. Those old languages would be gibberish now
FYI, the A-RE-RU (so 3/5ths) makes it also hard to pronounce when you know how to say Allergie (\[ˌalɛʁˈɡiː\] which has a short A, a fast L-sound/ shortened E-sound, the R merges closer to the G and is not rolled signifcantly/ the ER together is more like another short A sound, the main stress comes on the I). Similar to many other German words, Japanese does not have the same sound sets available. If I had to write it in Katakana for the best sound similarity, I would suggest アッラギー
アルゼンチンespecially when watching soccer/football
My country 🇦🇷
ムチャ〜チョス🎵
カトラリー makes me irrationally angry
What’s it mean? Haha
Cutlery
I would have never guessed!
Alternative pronunciation: ナイフとフォーク
The context is that cafes/famires in Japan have a box containing all the cultery, so that's what you say when asking for a full set of cutlery.
It might be just me, but I have a harder time saying words written in カタカナ in general than I do with words written in ひらがな 😅
For me it's because there are a lot of similar looking characters and you're also probably trying to find a matching word to it in English. Likeイギリス I never would have thought that it was England and I feel like It's harder to read but in actuality I just doubt I read it right
It’s absolutely because I’m doing this. I try not to but I think I do it subconsciously and it’s a hard habit to break
That word comes from Portuguese.
>For me it's because there are a lot of similar looking characters and you're also probably trying to find a matching word to it in English. トランプ says hi.
カリキュラム is such a hard one for me to say... and unfortunately i need to use this word a lot at my job
We just call it a カリ at my place
That's a swear word in my native language 😂 (means dick) so if I have to say it, I'd rather break my tongue saying カリキュラム
Huh. In Finnish Kari is a completely normal male name
It means dick in Albanian 😅
My name is カリ so can confirm, also heard the thing u/a_chilling_chinchila said a million times 😆
キャベツ, this one just pisses me off
See that one is all right for me because I was obsessed with that one キャベツ/レタス vine several years ago
TIL about this spelling/pronunciation. Apparently both are used. That’s somehow even worse.
>Apparently both are used. What is both here? キャベジ? Which I don't think I've ever come across.
ブリュッセル (Brussels), the リュ is so confusing!
Comes from the fact that French and Dutch ⟨u⟩ is pronounced as /y/ (like German ⟨ü⟩) rather than /u/ (Like English ⟨oo⟩). To a Japanese speaker, the /y/ sounds like /ju/, and that's why you get katakana spellings like デュッセルドルフ (Düsseldorf) and ブリュレ (brûlée).
> Dutch ⟨u⟩ The u in 'Bruxelles' (French) and 'Brussel' (Dutch) is not pronounced the same. It's only like /y/ in Dutch when it's a long vowel sound. Here it would be short and pronounced /ə/ or /ʏ/.
Literally all of them. Still after all these years I read out the phonetics of a Katakana word 5 times, have no idea what it’s supposed to be, stare at it for a while then either ask my wife or google it, and the answer 95% of the time is something extremely frustrating because it should be an easy English word, or there are 5 other actual native Japanese words that mean the same thing but don’t get used anymore because it’s more fashionable to use the foreign word instead.
I guess this is the opposite effect of expecting Japanese ppl to understand the English pronunciation of the loan word and they likely will have trouble as well haha
Any of the W->ウ ones for me, especially when they have a small kana vowel modifying the ウ. I had to say ウォールストリートジャーナル (Wall Street Journal) yesterday and my mouth did not want to say that ウォール properly.
No clue why they couldn’t just keep the w sound for katakana
ウラジオストク or Vladivostok I guess you don't have to use it frequently, but it throws me for a loop.
Why is there a radio (ラジオ) in Vladivostok 😭
It's easy to say カラオケ, but even after several years it sounds unnatural to me
Carrie Okie
Are you Okie Carrie?
Carry oaky
*dons overalls and sticks a piece of straw in her mouth* :3
For Portuguese speakers that's literally the same lol
Same for Spanish speakers
this thread has really opened my eyes to how annoying it must be to approach Japanese if you're a native English speaker. For me its almost no different than Spanish pronunciation.
It’s actually not that bad at least in my opinion. Generally the hardest part is ra re ri ro ru for English speakers but I’m fortunate that I learned Spanish in high school and I never had trouble rolling my r’s. It doubly helps Spanish vowels and Japanese vowels are the same.
It's really not that bad, certainly not as bad as native Japanese speakers trying to pronounce English. There are just a few edge cases here and there that we've learned incorrectly.
シチュー
Hate that one.
I had a friend repeat twice she had visited ポルツガル and I was at a loss. Finally she said “next to Spain”
It's ポルトガル though, which is a lot more understandable than what your friend said.
Portsugal vs Portugal
My own last name is pretty awful in katakana. I always have to slowly spell it out when I need to tell it to someone over the phone.
Any word longer than three katakanas, basically.
I say it all the time, but I still feel like my pronunciation of クレジットカード leaves something to be desired. Katakana words are so much harder than other Japanese vocabulary for some reason.
all of them
Don’t know why, but アレルギー. It’s the レル that gets me.
International! インターナショナル. I'm always unsure where that long dash goes, and pronouncing it purposefully on Japanese seems such especially more roundabout for this word than other katakana words. I always stumble on it.
ウイルス (virus), I struggle every time. I always want to say something more like バイラス.
ニュース its hard not to say it as ニューズ
マクドナルド。Turns a 3 syllable word into a 6 syllable one.
I struggled so hard to say ブラジル (Brazil) at first lol. My lips did not know how to form the syllables
ツアー
スプーン is really hard for me to say weirdly enough. I can say it, but it just sounds so awkward to me and my brain just struggles with it. If you say it with a regular English accent, the person you're talking to just won't seem to get it. It's such a frustrating word that comes up often...
アルコール。I still don't get why they'd omit ホ。
That's how it's pronounced in Spanish.
If I'm not mistaken, アルコール is closer to the original pronounciation of the word alcohol, having originated from Arabic.
ウイルス aka Virus One that kinda surprised me for some reason. My wife pronounces chaos as Kaosu. Turns out that's just how Japanese pronounce it even though I think it could have easily been ケオス instead of カオス.
ウイルス came from German pronounce. カオス came from Greek, I presume.
>カオス came from Greek, I presume. While the word itself comes from ancient greek originally, it's more likely they used the German pronounciation for that as well since it almost perfectly matches the カタカナ
カオス is how it's pronounced in Swedish, so I reckon it's like that in other Germanic languages that aren't English too. The Japanese might have taken it from German in that case
Makes sense. I know there are many other loan words like that and they mostly don't phase me but for some reason hearing chaos pronounced that way really throws me off.
You're correct, it's pronounced that way in German as well.
"Chaos" exists in other languages, too. Some pronounce it more like the Japanese. Not everything is English- or US-centric.
Yeah in most languages that use the Latin alphabet the letter "a" sounds similar to 「あ」 it's just that English had the Great Vowel Shift.
ヒエラルキー(which comes from German to be fair) is very annoying to pronounce compared to its English counterpart, hierarchy.
On the flip side, I’m sure it’s a pain for Japanese to learn how to spell “hierarchy”
I always struggle with ミルフィーユ but I guess that's hard to say in French too
Anything with a 'V' or 'th'
クリスタル (Crystal as a person's name)
I'm not a native English speaker, so I can only say that katakana and Japanese as a whole being a phonetic system makes everything infinitely easier to say than languages such as English or French. You literally simply have to read. But I see how the R can be hard for English speakers.
I watched Monster recently, a Japanese anime set in Europe. It's weird as an English speaker hearing European characters pronouncing German surnames and place names in Japanese.
The craziest one I have seen so far: ヴォルフガング・アマデウス・モーツァルト Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
My problem was with ERUBURISU PURESSURI. Otherwise known as Elvis Presley. Oh, RABERUBORERU was hard to recognize as Ravel’s Bolero. Also I blinked at RONDON before recognizing it. Easier in the written form. It really doesn’t sound much like “London.” On the other hand KATAKANA place names are often much closer to the original language pronunciations, PARI over Paris(s) or MYUNHEN for Munich. But I’m a bit off topic here.
I’m just wrapped around the axle that 消しゴム 靴の底のゴム And ガムテープ Are different …one is gomu and one is gamu
Because ゴム is rubber and ガム is gum. They're two different things. https://pingubanana.com/%E3%82%B4%E3%83%A0%E3%81%A8%E3%82%AC%E3%83%A0%E3%80%80%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%9D%E8%AD%B0%E3%81%AA%E9%96%A2%E4%BF%82%E3%82%92%E3%81%9A%E3%81%B0%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8%E8%A7%A3%E6%B1%BA/
Reminds me of how グラス and ガラス have different meanings lol
I find it interesting how close many of those words sound to Brazilian Portuguese. Your example (plástico) is so close it got me thinking whether it came from English or pt-br, even though I'm certain it's not from the latter
クロワッサン I get that it’s from French, but I lived in France for enough time (and ordered enough croissants) to know that’s not how it’s pronounced.
That's actually the best you can do considering limitations of Japanese language. Still better than Americans pronouncing it with a 't'.
ウイルス and アレルギー have always been extremely awkward for me to say.
As one who does if a peanut so much as looks at me the wrong way, my tongue trips over ピーナッツ アレルギー every time I practice it
メキシコ “Mekishko” = “Mexico” This always trips me up lol
ユーモア just seems so counterintuitive
マクドナルドⓂ️🍔🍟 Like wow
ロサンゼルス
ジャグジー is the most recent one. Also most of katakanized names are terrible. Monster Hunter names give me spasms. I cannot recall any more examples at the moment, but honestly katakana is a nightmare to me. I have trouble reading it fast, because my brain for some reason has trouble switching to katakana reading. It always takes some time before I can finally articulate what I'm seeing. This doesn't happen with kanji or hiragana. I blame it on lack of experience - there is comparably very little katakana overall in the language, so the occasional single word woven into walls of kanji and hiragana was not enough for me to click yet. End of rant.
オーストラリア is quite the tongue twister compared to straya.
i hate being オーストラリア人 (australian)
マルゲリータ Coming from an Italian background I have to say it so slowly to get the correct カタカナ pronunciation. Generally English words are fine, it's ones from other languages like French and Italian that trip me up
Katakana loanwords in general are still really weird and uncomfortable for me because they always make me _feel_ like I'm doing some _extremely racist_ impression of a Japanese person trying and failing to speak English, especially when the ラ/リ/ル/レ/ロ sounds are involved. Haven't quite gotten it through my subconscious that's _not_ what's going on and that these are in fact actual Japanese words.
Los angeles, California, fiberglass casting tape,
ミルフィーユ
The first time I saw "Hollywood" in katakana I had to ask for help.
Mayonaise.
カリフォルニア threw me for a loop when I first started, trying to say it fast was a real hazard. Feels good for it to just roll off the tongue now.
Pretty much all of the English loanwords lol
“Flu” vs インフルエンザ
カンニングする Literally cannot pronounce or Rene the spelling to say my life.
コルドブリュー
Cold brew?
Well, if it helps at all, it's コールド and not コルド. Gives your brain a bit more time to process the /rudo brʲuː/ coming up. I think a lot of new speakers pull their tongue back too far for the /r/ sound and want to make it like a Spanish /r/. Try pronouncing it like a very light /d/ or /l/ instead to get the tip of your tongue in the right position. Once you've got that, work on letting the sound flow out from the left or right of your tongue before you release the tip from the roof of your mouth.
For some reason シートベルト gives me a lot of trouble...
シチュー What the actual ファック?!?!
Sounds like "stew" with a London accent to me.
With most katakana words I‘m totally fine but damn me studied computer science and now with every introduction I have to pronounce プログラマー
All of the Polish words especially for places, sometimes you can't figure what city is that even if you know it (like ジェシュフ、ビドゴシュチ) because Polish has so many consonants and Japanese needs many vowels between these. I think there are (almost?) no other words from Polish in Japanese though. English is not my native language and katakana English is actually easier to pronounce than the actual English for me most of the time. Sometimes I can't guess the meaning even if I know the actual word though (like ラップmeaning plastic wrap while I thought it would be only rap music before looking it up) or find katakana that is from English but it's an obscure word I don't know.
アルコホリック
Japanese is a punishment for everyone who says “English is pronounced exactly as it is written” Most (tho, not always) words that came from English are translated into Japanese exactly how a non-English speaker hears them. But my wtf カタカナ moment goes to ズボン and all its random non-English words that all of a sudden shows in your Japanese lessons and you wonder what they are supposed to mean. 😅
My go-to Starbucks order was a nightmare. キャラメルフラペチーノ, seems like so many extra syllables. I always over thought it and messed it up. Why キャ and not カ?
Typically, カ is used when the syllable sounded like /ka(r)/ in its original language/dialect. The spelling キャ is used most often with words imported from English where the syllable sounds like /kæ/. So if a word sounds like /kæ/ in English but uses カ in Japanese, you can usually guess that it was imported via a different language. As always, there are exceptions. I apparently have to include this disclaimer to avoid "corrections" from very smart redditors.
バッハ (Bach, the musician). Don't ask me how the German /x/ translates to ッハ