Japanese Katakana Words You Already Know: Free Vocabulary for English Speakers

Why you already know hundreds of Japanese words

Loanwords from other languages are called gairaigo, and most of the ones borrowed since the mid twentieth century come from English. They cover exactly the areas where a traveller or new resident needs vocabulary first: eating out, using a phone, buying clothes, watching sport and staying in a hotel. Because they are written in katakana, they are also easy to spot in any text, so you can build a large recognised vocabulary quickly by learning to hear English through Japanese sounds.

The trap is that cognates feel so familiar that learners stop paying attention to the Japanese form. The Japanese word is not the English word with an accent: it has fixed katakana spelling, a fixed pitch, and sometimes a meaning that has narrowed or drifted. Treat each one as a Japanese word that happens to have an English relative and you get the benefit without the mistakes.

How the sounds change

The changes follow a small set of rules, and the table shows the most common ones in action. Learn the rules and you can run them in both directions: from English to Japanese when you want to say a word, and from katakana back to English when you are reading.

Two rules surprise learners most. English r after a vowel usually disappears into a long vowel, so car is kā and party is pātī. And Japanese cuts long words to about four syllables, so convenience store becomes konbini and personal computer becomes pasokon.

Food and drink words

Menus are the richest source of cognates. Drinks are almost entirely loanwords: kōhī, kōra, jūsu, bīru, wain, miruku. So are Western dishes and desserts: sarada, sūpu, pasuta, piza, sandoitchi, kēki, aisu kurīmu, chokorēto. Cooking words appear too: furai, guriru, sōsu, doresshingu. Some borrowed food words have grown Japanese meanings, so remember that pan is bread, from Portuguese, and that a sandoitchi may be filled with strawberries and cream.

Technology and everyday objects

Technology vocabulary is almost all English, often shortened. A smartphone is sumaho, a computer is pasokon, an app is apuri, the internet is intānetto or simply netto, and Wi-Fi is waifai. Charging is chāji, a battery is batterī, a screen is sukurīn or gamen in native Japanese, and a password is pasuwādo. Around the house you have terebi, eakon, rimokon for the remote control, toire, and shawā.

Notice the pattern of shortening compound words to the first two syllables of each half: pasokon, rimokon, eakon, sumaho. Once you see it you can decode many words that look unfamiliar at first.

Clothes and sport

Clothing words are a mix. Shatsu, jaketto, kōto, sukāto, sētā, jīnzu, sunīkā and sandaru are straight loans. Zubon, trousers, came from French long ago, and some shops write pantsu, which in Japan means trousers as well as underwear depending on the shop, so watch the context. Sizes are esu, emu and eru, and fitting room is shichakushitsu, a native word.

Sport is almost entirely katakana: sakkā, tenisu, gorufu, basuketto bōru or basuke for short, bare for volleyball, sukī, sunōbōdo, and jogingu. Baseball is the exception: yakyū is the native word, though the positions and plays inside the game are English loans like pitchā, hōmuran and sutoraiku.

Hotel and travel words

Hotels run on loanwords, which makes a check-in one of the easiest conversations for a beginner. Furonto is the front desk, chekku in and chekku auto are check-in and check-out, a shinguru or daburu is a single or double room, kī or kādo kī is the key, robī is the lobby, and erebētā is the lift. Breakfast is native, chōshoku or asagohan, but the baikingu that many hotels serve is a buffet. Around town you have takushī, basu, chiketto, kōin rokkā and pasupōto.

False friends: words that changed their meaning

Some loanwords drifted after they arrived, and a few were built in Japan from English parts. These are the ones to learn deliberately, because guessing from the English will mislead you.

• Manshon: a flat in a modern concrete block, not a grand house
• Sumāto: slim or slender, not clever
• Kanningu: cheating in an exam, from cunning
• Baikingu: an all-you-can-eat buffet, from Viking
• Sābisu: a free extra or a discount, as in kore wa sābisu desu
• Naību: naive in the sense of pure or sensitive, often a compliment
• Kurēmu: a customer complaint, not an insurance claim
• Tarento: a television personality rather than talent in general
• Pantsu: trousers in fashion, underwear in daily speech; context decides
• Furī: unrestricted or freelance, as in furī saizu, one size fits all

A related trap is the loanword that exists but is not the everyday word. Dokutā appears in titles and clinics' names, but people say isha. Mīto appears in product names, but meat on a menu is niku. When a native word is common, use it.

How to guess new words, and the mistakes to avoid

To decode an unknown katakana word, say it aloud at speed, then remove the vowels that were added to consonant clusters and word endings, swap r for l and b for v where it makes sense, and turn long vowels back into an English r or a stressed vowel. Check whether it is a shortened compound, and use the topic: on a menu it is food, in a phone shop it is technology. Most words resolve within a few seconds.

To make a Japanese word from English, do the opposite, but only for words that are actually used. The commonest mistake is inventing loanwords that do not exist, such as saying basu for a bath or dokutā for a doctor, or using an existing loanword with its English meaning, such as calling a colleague sumāto to mean clever. The second mistake is English pronunciation: stress, a real l or v, and swallowed vowels all make the word unrecognisable. The third is forgetting that the katakana spelling is fixed: kōhī, not kōfī, and terebi, not terebijon in ordinary speech. When in doubt, say the word the Japanese way and watch for a nod.