Japanese games and English in them.....

To Yakumo: Aysss... I haven't told that using English in Japanese games are only for exportation purposes. You've got just the last idea about which I've talked and I don't think that's correct. Since the begining of this thread I've commented that is mainly because of this: "it's just something related to the Japanese culture". I've some magazines and other kind of stuff from the "old Japan" and it's full of English words. And it would be stupid to think that they did this thinking in selling that "impossible" products outside. I only wanted to clarify that...

About differences between the same language in different countries: It's just the result of natural changes and the mixture of different cultures. For example, in Spain, we've Castellano, which is what you know as Spanish (we also call it Spanish), but also up to 4 different languages, located in concrete "states", but which come from the same origin. After years and years, some of them, like Vasco or Euskera, have changed so much, that it's almost impossible to understand this in other parts of Spain (well, its origin is much more complicated in this case...) This is even causing coflicts.

With this example, I only wanted to show how much a language can change since its origin. In the case of English, fortunely for that people whose main language isn't English, like me, changes aren't too serious .

About using words in other languages because they sound cool: Another example which is becoming more common is the usage of Spanish words, mixed with English. From "amigo" to "salsa" or "cabrón", althought I've to accept that many of them come from the influence of countries of South America, not from Spain directly. Sometimes, this makes some people use stupid words in unapropiated contexts... And it also happens whe we talk about some Spanish clothes which show stupid texts in English like "American Extreme" or that kind of sentences without any sense . .

Salutes .

 

To make "American Extreme" American, just drop the "E" in "Extreme." Theres nothing we like more than stuff to the Xtreme. I'll bet the reason Japanese adopted American English is probably because our vernacular is just so off-the-hook-ill. It's always evolving (not always for the worse) Shizzle mah nizzle fo rizzle, skee skee, pootie tang pootie tang lol.

 

That's right about Color,the americans spell it that way because it's the way it sounds when they speak it,at least that is what I was told when I grew up in the States.When I came back to the Uk for High school I spelt several words differently,the most memorable being MOM which I took a real slagging for.But sound out Mom in a US accent and then in English and you will see the obvious differences and why they spell the words as they sound just as we do.The crazy thing is after all these years I still spell the American way,must be built into my brain or something,either that or it's the drugs I've taken :toimonster:

 

ive never lived in america but my friend drilled into me when i talk to her on aol that it should be mom and ever since i just use that! :smt043

 

Well, it's "mother" in England English right? I can see "mum" if it were "muther."

 

I'm getting a bit off topic here but here it goes. In American English there seems to be problems pronouncing sounds such as "U" which comes across as "A" most of the time and then the letter "A" can sometimes have a long vowel sound as in the word "Pacman" The "A" in "man" is pronounced much longer or stressed more than what it would be in British English. And then there's the letter "T" which is omitted in double "T" words or sometimes also in words with one "T". So the word "little" sounds like "Li il" in American English or "water" sounds like Wa er". I've also heard a few of my American friends call my Japanese friend Yuda when his name is pronounced Yuta. Of course you than have all the different accents to contend with and British English has probably got the widest range.

Yakumo

 

Not by a long shot... ever been to the projects?

 

Ah, here in the U.S. theres different types of english, regular, slang, valley, surfer,the list goes on. It funny how we speak the same language as britian and the uk do, yet due to the culture, it is difficult for us to understand old english half the time. Lock stock and two smoking barrels is a perfect example.

 

It's funny that you should say that sayin999. most British people can understand all the types of English you mentioned. Maybe it's because of movies and so on?

Yakumo

 

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I have few Irish friends and about half of time don't have a clue what they're on about, especially when they got excited. Compared to that Scottish accent is much easier to understand...

on the same token our little neighbour NZ uses bit of Irish accent which comes in handy to pick up who's from NZ and all..

cheers

 

I watched the movie Friday with an English mate and Irish mate of mine. We laughed our balls off, but most of the time in the midst of the laughter, one would say, "I have no clue what that means."

I understand most English people, but the majority of my friends were when I moved here either English or Irish, with a few Aussies thrown in.

 

The same way canadian french isnt the same as france french.

The problem is cultural exposition. For example, here in Argentina we have one of the weirdest types of spanish. We use a lot of words that have its origins in italian. To be more especific, we usually say grosso to mean something is cool, but italians nowadays use the world to mean that something is big

The accent is pretty diferent too. This doesnt mean we cant speak with other spanish ppl, but it leads to a lot of misunderstandings. For example, in spanish (as in spain) currar is a slang for work, but in argentinian is like cheat/cheating. So a spaniard here may end up in a police station for saying that he was working :smt082

And theres the modified/created words, like the phrase "mato mil" means literally "kill a thousand" doesnt make sense, but when pronounced fast sounds cool. The general mean is, once again, cool

To conclude, well, lets say we argentinians are something apart the rest, and that may sound cool, but its a pain in the ass, cuz everything that comes from the outside looks weird to our way of life :smt082

 

Never heard that EVER. I think thats more of a British thing.

 

Yeah, a lot of English people seem to have serious "t" pronouncing issues, and some of them even have problems with "th" sounds and other things, e.g. "nothing" often becomes "noffink".

I used to live in the UK, and I also lived in Saudi for a few years (with mainly British people, but there were some Canadians in my school too), my mother's family is from Ireland and my dad's from South Africa, so I've had to put up with *a lot* of different accents and dialects. Even my own accent has changed since I moved here. Hiberno-English (what's spoken in Ireland) doesn't really differ that much from British English, but accents are quite different and there are some influences from the Irish language - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English lists some properties of it, though judging from that I'm not very good at it (e.g. when say "herd", "bird", or "curd" I use the same vowel sound). Even in Ireland there's many distinct accents - some of them quite annoying. It took me about 8 years to learn to understand what the hell one of my uncles says...

 

Difficult for us the understand Old English? It's difficult for anyone to understand old English, as it isn't even spoken anymore. Here is an example of Old English, if you don't know what it looks like:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice.

If anyone can read that, I would be surprised.

GSL already explained it, but the "double T" makes a "D" sound.

 

I love 1 year old threads.

 

ah memories, i wonder if my beta pics thread is still around.................