How a Hanseatic City Spelt in Japanglish

Japanglish or Japanese English is omnipresent in Japan. Upon touching down at the country’s international airport last month, I was confronted with a corporate slogan in English that sounded extremely odd due to the total lack of articles before the nouns. My first thought was that adding definite articles or using plural forms would be a good idea for such a bold-sounding claim.

While waiting for a connecting train, I dropped in at a café where the waitress bluntly asked me, “hand or French?”.
“I beg your pardon, hand what?!”, I asked back.
The waitress wearily rephrased her question: “hand drip or French press?”.
 
Excessive abbreviations are another trademark of Japanglish, e.g.
rimo-con for remote controller,
paso-con for personal computer,
raji-kase for radio/cassette player (a bit obsolete, though),
suma-ho for smartphone…

Another Japanglish word I found in the world of gastronomy is Hanbaagu (ハンバーグ) which means “Hamburg steak”, which is simply shortened to Hamburg. It is a national dish loved by all generations in Japan. That’s why it is printed as a decorative element on the entrance sign of a well-known chain restaurant.

While casually casting my eyes over the sign (see above), I noticed something wrong with it.

It proudly says “Humburg”. Having just flown in from Germany, I was not very amused by this, to say the least.
 
If you want to sound smart in English, be smart and have your text proofread by a professional.
 
#english #proofreading #japanglisch