みなさんこんにちは。Welcome to Sakura Neko’s Japanese Study Room, where you can learn Japanese from anime quotes! We normally talk about anime quotes, but today’s article is a bit different from other ones.
I noticed that sometimes my students make errors in Japanese not because of their language skills but because of a lack of their cultural understanding. There are many Japanese words that entered in English vocabulary (e.g. つなみ tsunami, すし sushi, きもの kimono, カラオケ karaoke, にんじゃ ninja etc). However, there are some so-called Japanese expressions that may mean slightly different things from how the original words actually mean in Japanese. In this article, I would like to introduce a few examples.
さようなら – Sayounara
This is an expression often translated to ‘good-bye’ or ‘see you’. Many people believe when Japanese say さようなら that means they don’t see the other person for quite some time. This is not necessarily true since in many Japanese schools, the teacher ends a day with ’みなさん、さようなら’ (minasan, sayounara / good-bye everyone).
It is just that there are other expressions that suggest you see the other person again (such as またこんど mata kondo, またね mata ne, また明日 mata ashita etc) while さようなら doesn’t.
さようなら was originally derived from an old expression 左様ならば, which is a formal way to say そうであるならば (Sou de aru nara ba / If it’s so). So, initially, さようなら might have been like ‘so, if it’s so…then…shall we end end this conversation?’.
照り焼き – Teriyaki
照り焼き is a cooking technique in which foods are broiled or grilled with a glaze of soy sauce, mirin and sugar. However, in the West one may refer to any dish with a teriyaki-like sauce with the word teriyaki.
You could buy a 照り焼きソース in Japan to use for the 照り焼き cooking method, but cooking foods first and pouring on teriyaki sauce afterwards is a non-traditional method of cooking teriyaki.
If you try to explain teriyaki flavour to a Japanese person, he or she may look at you blankly since teriyaki is a method of cooking and not a flavour.
日本の車 – Japanese Cars
It’s quite common for Western people to refer to their cars by the company names: ‘I own a Honda’ or ‘I want a Subaru for my next car’. However, it’s simply not the case in Japan. Japanese people normally say ホンダの車 (honda no kuruma / honda car) or スバルの車 (subaru no kuruma / subaru car) or they use specific model names: ホンダのフィットに乗ってます (Honda no fitto ni notte imasu / I drive a Honda Fit).
As the names of popular Japanese car companies such as Honda, Suzuki, or Toyota could be people’s surnames, if you say ホンダが好きです。(honda ga suki desu / I like a Honda) to a Japanese person, he/she may not understand what you really mean.
まとめ – Summary
To summarise, this article discussed a few expressions Japanese people may not understand in the way you intend. I will write more articles on this topic if I found more 🙂 If you know any expressions on this topic, please leave a comment.
I hope you found this helpful! If you liked this post, make sure you check out other articles as well! You can also find more phrases from my twitter account. じゃあ、みなさん、さようなら！
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