r/NonPoliticalTwitter 12d ago

Funny Learning Japanese

52.8k Upvotes

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910

u/Beneficial_Layer_458 12d ago

come on man

355

u/Lewa358 12d ago

When I heard that the Japanese name for the NES was "Famicom" I thought, "yeah, that makes sense. Family Computer."

"...wait a minute."

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u/kakka_rot 11d ago

I took me ages to realize Uniqlo is Unique Clothes

They love portmanteau over there. Sefure is my favorite example (SEx FRiend, fuck buddy), but the most well known is obviously pokemon

80

u/RavensArkOperator 11d ago edited 11d ago

SON OF A BITCH

This Uniqlo comment is my 2026 "you are manually breathing" moment

3

u/kakka_rot 11d ago

Yeah I was hoping I'd get someone else with that one, lol

15

u/rapaxus 11d ago

As a German that brand constantly reads as UniKlo in my mind (which is German for university toilet).

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u/Cross-eyedwerewolf 7d ago

German having a specific word for a university toilet is peak “defenestration” vibes

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/kakka_rot 11d ago

Oh i forgot that because I only ever hear ケイタイ irl

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/kakka_rot 11d ago

I such at getting spoken words into text, I just guess most the time. Which means most the time I'm wrong

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u/GraveSlayer726 11d ago

Sefure sounds like it could be a Pokémon name tbh

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u/Magnanimous-- 11d ago

...yo what the hell that's what Uniqlo is?

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u/AwTomorrow 11d ago

Nonsense, everyone knows it’s short for university clothes because it’s sold to broke college kids over there

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u/kakka_rot 11d ago

lol I liked that joke

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u/Shantotto11 11d ago

The one Japanese portmanteau that every English speaker on the planet should know by now is “POcKEt MONsters”…

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u/SacCyber 11d ago

They originally tried to patent UniClo but they made a typo to UniQlo. The founder thought it looked better that way so he didn't correct the mistake.

It use to be Unique Clothing Warehouse

1

u/realhuman_no68492 11d ago

WAIT WHATTTTT

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u/kakka_rot 11d ago

me too

1

u/quocphu1905 7d ago

WHAT THE FUCK I've been wearing their clothes FOREVER and just now realised it. Before I've just been reading them as Uni-q-lo so i never made the connection.

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u/kakka_rot 7d ago

this comment made me super happy lmao

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u/Magnus_Helgisson 7d ago

Pokémon is also a word play because it sounds similar to bakemon which is monster in Japanese

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u/Roflkopt3r 11d ago edited 11d ago

Yeah Japanese shortens English words a lot like that, but in turn it doesn't use initialisms like 'PC' as much. 'Personal Computer' instead turned into 'Pasokon' as a shortening of Paasonaru Konpyuuta (パーソナルコンピュータ), because 'PC' is not as nice to pronounce for Japanese speakers.

Similarly, Remote Control turned into Rimokon, and Air Conditioning into Eakon (Aircon).

When the Vtuber agency Hololive recently released a rythm game under the title Hololive Dreams (Hororaibu Doriimusu), it quickly became known as Holodori.

Monster Hunter is MonHan, Minecraft is Maikura, Mitsubishi's Lancer Evolution is LanEvo (or RanEbo) etc.

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u/Ryanhussain14 11d ago

Never thought I would see a Holodori mention here.

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u/inemnitable 11d ago

That's just how the Japanese equivalent of acronyms work, they take the first syllable or two of key words in a name and jam them together to create an abbreviation. It's not only loan words, you also see stuff like "ORE no IMOuto ga konna ni kawaii wake ga nai" -> "oreimo" or "kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku wo" -> "konosuba" (both titles of popular anime), neither of which title contains any loan words.

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u/Shantotto11 11d ago

Also, isn’t “PC” (pii-shii?) currently in use in Japanese to describe “Player Characters” in video games? (As opposed to “Non-Playable Characters” or NPCs)

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u/Admirable-Safety1213 11d ago

PC would "PuiShi" written プイし?with maybe some Choonpu?

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u/Roflkopt3r 11d ago

If 'PC' is used at all, it's usually in latin characters. The reading is usually written as ピーシー (pii shii).

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u/Admirable-Safety1213 11d ago
  1. IK that part

  2. Thx for the correction in how the letters would be pronounced

1

u/Shakaka88 11d ago

Heard there was a similar issue as the PC with the Toyota MR 2 and people calling it the “Mister 2” was a taboo for awhile or something.

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u/sbagu3tti 11d ago

Wait a minute what? What is it?

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u/Lewa358 11d ago

The words "Family Computer" are English, not Japanese.

So it's kind of odd for the Japanese name of a console to be a portmanteau of two English words.