Current Events > TIL the Japanese word for lemon is, remon >_>

(+) Yeah! (+)

comeon man...
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I'm dying

Funny, but not surprising.

Japanese literally doesn't have an "L" sound. The "r/l" thing isn't a racist stereotype, but an actualy quirk of the language.
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AlisLandale posted...

Funny, but not surprising.

Japanese literally doesn't have an "L" sound. The "r/l" thing isn't a racist stereotype, but an actualy quirk of the language.

Sure but thats when they're speaking English. You'd think it would be a completely different sounding word such as car is pronounced Kuruma, not just remon...
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I remember reading that the Japanese for sun lotion is basically "sun rotion".
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It's not really "remon" because the sound isn't really the same as "re" in English, that's one of the reasons nobody recommends a Japanese learner to stick with romanization for too long. But yeah.

In case anyone would like to read more about it >_>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_of_English_/r/_and_/l/_by_Japanese_speakers
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iClockwork posted...

Sure but thats when they're speaking English. You'd think it would be a completely different sounding word such as car is pronounced Kuruma, not just remon...

Japanese has plenty of words with English origins. Just like a lot of other language.

iClockwork posted...

AlisLandale posted...

Funny, but not surprising.

Japanese literally doesn't have an "L" sound. The "r/l" thing isn't a racist stereotype, but an actualy quirk of the language.

Sure but thats when they're speaking English. You'd think it would be a completely different sounding word such as car is pronounced Kuruma, not just remon...

Why would it be? Lemon is not even a native English word.


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women like remon ramen
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It's just what languages do these days, most modern words are the same in every language but with their own spelling. Look at all the translations of kilogram and you'll see what I mean.
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I don't think the lemon natively grew in Japan, so it'd make sense for its name to either be similar-sounding or a straight up loanword.
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Yomi posted...

Why would it be? Lemon is not even a native English word.

Yes but English and French are both Indo-European languages where Japanese is considered an Altaic language.
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japan has a lot of loanwords

as for (kuruma) mentioned earlier, that word is derived from "kuru" (to come) and "ma" (devil/demon, )

in older documents you can see it written as
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@iClockwork posted...

Yomi posted...

Why would it be? Lemon is not even a native English word.

Yes but English and French are both Indo-European languages where Japanese is considered an Altaic language.

The inclusion of Japanese and Korean to the Altaic languages has had severe criticism ever since it was first brought up, nowadays I don't think anybody mentions Japanese as an Altaic language. Most linguists just consider it a Japonic language and that's all.

And yes, English and French are both Indo-European languages but Arabic is not and the word originates from there. My point is that language families don't really matter when it comes exclusively to loanwords. This happens in literally every modern language, English and Japanese are not related at all but pretty much every major language uses the word tsunami and/or origami, which come directly from Japanese.

Here's a bunch of English words of Japanese origin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Japanese_origin

Here's a bunch of Japanese words of foreign origin (not just English):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms
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Its an English loanword. Get over it.

Yomi posted...

And yes, English and French are both Indo-European languages but Arabic is not and the word originates from there. My point is that language families don't really matter when it comes exclusively to loanwords. This happens in literally every modern language, English and Japanese are not related at all but pretty much every major language uses the word tsunami and/or origami, which come directly from Japanese.

Then why not just bring up this point instead instead of the original smug remark?
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iClockwork posted...

Yomi posted...

And yes, English and French are both Indo-European languages but Arabic is not and the word originates from there. My point is that language families don't really matter when it comes exclusively to loanwords. This happens in literally every modern language, English and Japanese are not related at all but pretty much every major language uses the word tsunami and/or origami, which come directly from Japanese.

Then why not just bring up this point instead instead of the original smug remark?

It wasn't a smug remark at all, and if it did seem like one, I apologize. I put an image showing the etymology of the word lemon as it clearly shows that the word originates from Arabic. I thought that would have been sufficient.
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Topics like this leave me completely flattened because of all the people that are so genuinely surprised by stuff like this

How incredibly ignorant to not even realize your own language has so many loanwords from not-English
lmfao
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Yomi posted...

It wasn't a smug remark at all, and if it did seem like one, I apologize. I put an image showing the etymology of the word lemon as it clearly shows that the word originates from Arabic. I thought that would have been sufficient.

he only thinks its smug because it makes him wrong or mistaken
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@Nightmare_Luna posted...

japan has a lot of loanwords

as for (kuruma) mentioned earlier, that word is derived from "kuru" (to come) and "ma" (devil/demon, )

in older documents you can see it written as

I don't think so. ( / kuruma) comes from:
(kurukuru) = spinning, rolling around
(ma) is considered to be an alteration of ( / wa) which means wheel or loop.

Yes, is also pronounced but I can't find any source saying it has any relation to the word.

Here's my source btw http://gogen-allguide.com/ku/kuruma.html
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i might be wrong, not actually sure
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Yomi posted...

Yes, is also pronounced but I can't find any source saying it has any relation to the word.

there's one source
it's a blog post with zero sources

<_<

i made a post basically saying what you said except i was a lot meaner so i deleted it
also youre more knowledgeable on what it actually is, not just that using the character for "demons" would make very little sense when there's a perfect character for cars that's also ma (horse)
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That's the Japanese pronunciation. Its not really weird other countries have different ways/accents when pronouncing words. Most Westerners pronounce 'karaoke' as 'kara-okii' which is not the correct Japanese pronunciation. I don't understand why the whole L/R asian accent is so funny to some Americans, it's not only been overplayed but surely they're aware that the world doesn't revolve around your mannerisms.
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iClockwork posted...

original smug remark

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