Anne Crescini, the authority on Wasei-Eigo (Japanese words coined from English ones), helps us guess what pandemic related English-y terms will be popping up on this year's Trendy Word List. Will "Host Club Cluster" make the cut? Listen to find out.
Ollie recommends a cruise line that could use some positive feedback.
Bobby sees boats full of dead people.
Topics discussed on this episode range from:
- That place that looks like a really nice cafe but is actually a beauty salon
- Being asked to explain the US election on TV
- How to talk about American politics in Japanese
- Ollie's deteriorating situation with his Japanese roommate
- The people who keep us caffeinated
- The Japanese Ryuukou-go nominee list being announced soon
- What Wasei-eigo words actually are and how they differ from Katakana Eigo
- What is the purpose of Japanese English
- Where wasei-eigo words come from, and how they end up differing from the English words they sound like
- The loan words that popped during the pandemic
- Why Social Distance and Social Distancing are different and why Japan chose the wrong one
- The process by which some Wasei-eigo survives and some doesn't make it
- How the katakana alphabet facilitates the process of taking in loan words
- How Japanese people feel about the influx of loan words when the Japanese exists
- Does National pride affect how your diction? Is Western Diction longer than Japanese diction?
- How sometimes the Japanese version of an foreign language concept is not as easy or natural as just using the foreign version
- The arbitrary nature of how words get codified
- Why "With Corona" sounds really dumb, but is still better than the Japanese option
- How Japanese tries to soften imperative expressions
- Not knowing how to describe the lockdown period in Japan because it wasn't really a lockdown
- How the pandemic also affected the meanings and usage of English words
- What words we expect to see on the popular words of the year list
- Corona Harassment
- How wasei-eigo makes original words by abbreviating, and making adjectives into nouns
"SO MUCH GOOD STUFF IN THE EXTRAS THIS WEEK TOO YOU GUYS." - according to Bobby, because the guest praised him a lot.
Topics discussed on the extras range from:
- ALL KINDS OF BEHIND THE SCENES JAPANESE TV AND TALENT INDUSTRY STUFF
- Anne's kids "idol work"
- How being the best talento in Fukuoka is, as Pete Davidson would say, like "being the world's smartest horse."
- Ollie's rundown of the foreign entertainer scene in Malaysia
- The TRUE story of why Ollie left Japan
- The one thing that he regrets not being able to foresee when he made that choice
- Anne's work as a reporter on a show that was 150 seconds long, and how it became an exercise in learning to "act" as a reporter
- How the expectations placed on foreigners in TV might just be the same ones that they place on anyone in the entertainment industry
- Lots and lots more about BOBBY'S AMAZING ADVICE
- The difficulty of using advanced interview techniques as a foreigner
- Anne's experience with a pseudo-documentary filmed about her bringing Miso to America
- The compromises between being a "foreigner" and being uniquely yourself
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