Name: 5 Words You Didn't Know were Japanese 外国人が知らない日本語由来の英語
Uploaded: 2020-03-24T04:02:18.000Z
Duration: 6 min 1 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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R: We are friends and have done videos before. G: So many videos!

R: Today I have a list of 5 English words

that you probably don't know actually were originally Japanese.

R: The first word I know you know- G: Okay.

R: -because you've been talking about it a lot, and Ryosuke has talked about it a lot.

R: Like have you ever thought about where the word rickshaw came from?

G: I've been saying like "jinrikisha" and then "rickshaw" the whole time, and I didn't realize it.

G: My husband is recently looking to get a part time job being a jinrikisha,

or a rickshaw driver, because that was his dream when he was a kid.

And so we've been talking about rickshaws this whole time, and like...

G: OMG R: You learned something new today!!

R: Okay, so the Japanese word is "jinrikisha,"

R: which comes from the kanji for "person" G: [incredulous moaning]

R: And then the kanji for "power" or "strength" for "riki."

And then "sha" is the kanji for "automobile" or "vehicle."

It's literally like a "man-powered vehicle."

And we just got rid of "jin" and then switched "rikisha" to "rickshaw."

Because... America G: [exaggerated southern accent] Rickshaw.

R: Like "Roller Coaster Tycoon." G: Yeah.

And then the kanji for "kimi" which can just mean like a "lord."

R: So it actually means like "Great Lord." G: Wow.

G: Wow... R: Yeah, so Roller Coaster Tycoon...

The next one is a very, very common Japanese word.

And it's actually a really common English word, too.

This won't be surprising as soon as you hear it.

G: Oh, yeah! Okay. No, that one definitely makes sense!

R: That one definitely makes sense. G: That one doesn't surprise me.

R: They're actually slightly different in Japanese and in English.

And in Japanese, well, it's futon [pronounced hoo-tohn].

A futon in Japanese is like a bedding, or

if you don't sleep on the floor with the whole thick bedding/mattresses,

in common usage on a normal bed, it's actually like a really thick blanket

For our Japanese viewers who don't know, a futon in English is

a type of really thin, foldable, unfoldable couch kinda thing.

R: You can unfold it and make it into a bed.

R: It's like... G: Like a couch that comes out.

and I told my family, "Oh yeah, we just use a futon to sleep under at night."

My family was like. "...You sleep UNDER a futon???"

This is actually the one I was most surprised by.

You probably haven't heard of it UNLESS you're allergic to poison ivy.

R: Okay, well if you're allergic to poison ivy and you've had it in like the past 15 years,

and you've had internet, you've probably looked up on the internet

"What the heck am I supposed to do with this poison ivy?!"

and just kind of Wikipedia'd poison ivy stuff.

R: Which means you've probably read this word a lot,

So I've seen this word so many times over the past 15 years searching on the internet,

and then I found out it was actually a Japanese word.

R: Like, do they even have poison ivy in Japan?

[Annotation: They have a plant in the same genus, Toxicodendron.]

[Annotation: All Toxicodendron plants produce urushiol.]

R: The word "urushi" actually means "lacquer" in Japanese.

[Annotation: Urushiol causes allergic reactions, but it can also be used to make lacquer.]

[Annotation: ...Which is why the word "urushi" in Japanese means lacquer.]

R: Or it can be the sap of a certain kind of tree here.

[Annotation: The Toxicodendron plant in Japan is the Japanese lacquer tree.]

Subtitles ListPlay Video

5 Words You Didn't Know were Japanese 外国人が知らない日本語由来の英語

obvious

apparently

accent

exaggerate