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FilthyCasual
Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2185
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 Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 12:30 pm
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Because it's cool.
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sourpatchthekid
Joined: 20 Dec 2016
Posts: 64
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 12:40 pm
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| FilthyCasual wrote: | | Because it's cool. |
This is the reason i heard that all of Sailor Moon's attacks are in english. I assume this is wju it's used in a lot of anime/music as well
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Flah
Joined: 18 May 2014
Posts: 25
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 1:33 pm
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| Quote: | | Imagine what America would be like if literally everybody had to take French every year of middle and high school, most of us listened to French music and watched a ton of French movies, but very very few of us knew any French people or ever traveled to a French speaking country. We'd all retain some French, but after a few years of disuse, we'd be pretty bad at speaking it. |
Aside from the French music and movies, you've just described Canada.
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PannenkoekenNL
Joined: 01 Aug 2016
Posts: 28
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 1:38 pm
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It isn't just in Japan. It's the same here (the Netherlands), some commercials are even completely kept in English because it sounds 'cool'. I assume it's like that also in other European countries.
Because of that the German dub of Shin-chan intended for kids recorded a 'cool-sounding' English intro instead of a German one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNX10LanfiA
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Lemonchest
Joined: 18 Mar 2015
Posts: 1771
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 2:06 pm
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Beyond being cool etc, it's often (as in other places) the case that more well known English words are used when the Japanese doesn't have as succinct an equivalent, or often in music because the English rhymes, fits the metre etc when the Japanese equivalent wouldn't. Same reason we say "lets sing Karaoke" instead of "lets sing along to cheesy music with the lyrics projected on a screen."
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Kimiko_0
Joined: 31 Aug 2008
Posts: 1796
Location: Leiden, NL, EU
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 2:07 pm
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Lol. Obviously the person asking is from a country where English is the national language  Everywhere else in the world English is used in these ways. Because it looks cool and no one really cares what it means. Or because people do know what it means but it just sounds more sophisticated/worldly/cool/catchy than your native language. Or because you're talking about a subject where half of your text would be English anyway because your native language hasn't bothered to translate terms for things that used to be techspeak-only but are now mainstream. In ages past other languages were used that way (how do you think English and Dutch got so many French words?), nowadays it's English. Nothing unusual about Japanese using it seemingly randomly.
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Mr. sickVisionz
Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 2173
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 2:49 pm
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| Quote: | | TV ads for DVD and Blu-ray releases use the English phrase "Now On Sale." |
It's always weird to me when a loan word isn't like a proper noun or something invented by that country. Was there really no concept of something being on sale right now prior to a Japanese person having seen an American store with a sale going on and borrowing the idea?
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 2:56 pm
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| Kimiko_0 wrote: | | In ages past other languages were used that way (how do you think English and Dutch got so many French words?). |
Actually, the reason English has so many French words in it (and so many spellings Americans find weird), is because France basically ruled England for around 300 years (starting with William the Conqueror). It's not because English people were playing around with French: the nobles mostly spoke French and the commoners spoke English (often very poorly). English is just really good at absorbing stuff from other languages, which is why it has such a huge amount of loanwords in it. French (as a language) probably *could* be good at it, but isn't because the people who speak it hate allowing other languages to blemish the purity of the French language. 
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whiskeyii
Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2245
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 3:10 pm
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| PannenkoekenNL wrote: | | It isn't just in Japan. It's the same here (the Netherlands), some commercials are even completely kept in English because it sounds 'cool'. I assume it's like that also in other European countries. |
Honestly, I thought it was more because the US occupied Japan for so long; I mean, we still have military bases there. Without getting too bogged down in politics, I kind of thought the incorporation of language was just the result of prolonged exposure to American culture.
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TheValkyrieAsh
Joined: 11 Jan 2016
Posts: 25
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 3:58 pm
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Obviously it's because The US won the cultural victory in Civilization. (Civ 5/Civ 6 joke)
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DerekL1963
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Joined: 14 Jan 2015
Posts: 1113
Location: Puget Sound
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 4:35 pm
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| Tuor_of_Gondolin wrote: |
| Kimiko_0 wrote: | | In ages past other languages were used that way (how do you think English and Dutch got so many French words?). |
Actually, the reason English has so many French words in it (and so many spellings Americans find weird), is because France basically ruled England for around 300 years (starting with William the Conqueror). It's not because English people were playing around with French: the nobles mostly spoke French and the commoners spoke English (often very poorly). |
More than that... French and Latin were 'official' languages for formal and legal document for almost 700 years (until the early 1700's). For almost as long, French was also the language of the learned and the elite.
Though it's more complex than that... William the Conqueror actually spoke Norman (not French, which didn't exist yet), and the language that emerged among the English nobility (until it was replaced with (IIRC) Middle English) was Anglo-Norman (as opposed Law French, the language of the documents I mention above).
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mrakai
Joined: 30 Oct 2003
Posts: 40
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 5:14 pm
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My favorite bit of Japanese English you see quite a bit in the anime world is "Now Printing" which is used on image placeholders for shopping sites/etc before the final product images are ready.
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Zin5ki
Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 5:24 pm
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| Flah wrote: |
| Quote: | | Imagine what America would be like if literally everybody had to take French every year of middle and high school, most of us listened to French music and watched a ton of French movies, but very very few of us knew any French people or ever traveled to a French speaking country. We'd all retain some French, but after a few years of disuse, we'd be pretty bad at speaking it. |
Aside from the French music and movies, you've just described Canada. |
Or indeed what the UK aspires to achieve during its less supercilious periods! (Quite a rarity nowadays, I fear.)
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Kadmos1
Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13552
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 5:36 pm
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Bad use of English in the Japanese version can be used to defend against the criticism a dub version may get. Of course, weebs might not take it that way.
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FlowerAiko
Joined: 05 Apr 2017
Posts: 218
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 5:59 pm
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"Because it looks cool and no one really cares what it means."
So like, how Japanese is used in the US?
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