Japanese Blog

The Japanese language has many examples of words that are contracted or abbreviated for convenience. For example the word デパートis often used to mean ‘department store” in Japanese. However, デパート is a contracted form of デパートメントストア. When you think about it, デパート is much easier to say than デパートメントストア. Some people wrongly assume that Japanese people don’t understand English because they think that words like デパート are the original translations of English words into Japanese. What they don’t realize is that words like デパート are not the original, but the contracted forms of the original word. If you look at the word デパートメントストア, I would say that’s pretty close to the English word for ‘department store’.

It’s not just foreign words that are abbreviated. Japanese people sometimes refer to Tokyo University as とうだい, which is a contracted form of とうきょうだいがく. Words can be further abbreviated by using the initial letters of compound words. For example OL is a contracted form of オーエル, which means ‘office lady’. Only the ‘o’ from ‘office’ and the ‘l’ from ‘lady’ are combined to form this word. Some of these contracted words are so common, people don’t always know the full-length terminology that originated from these contracted words. Take a look at the contracted words below. Do you know the original spellings of these words? In other words, how many of these contracted words can you remember in their original form?

1. テレビ
2. HP
3. アニメ
4. エアコン
5. PV
6. トイレ
7. パソコン
8. スーパ
9. CM
10. スタバ
11. コンビニ
12. リモコン

There is a Japanese lullaby called ‘komoriuta’ (子守歌). Komoriuta means ‘lullaby’ in Japanese. Sometimes the lyrics of children’s songs can be disturbing, but this isn’t the case with komoriuta. It’s a nice and soothing little song that children can sleep to:

ねんねんころりよおころりよ

(Nennen kororiyo okororiyo)

Calming words to make a baby sleep

坊やはよい子だねんねしな

(Boyawa yoikoda nenneshina)

My child, good child, sleeping

坊やのお守りはどこへ行った

(Boyano omoriwa dokoe itta)

Where did the child’s nursemaid go?

あの山こえて里へ行った

(Ano yama koete satoe itta)

Across the mountain she went to her parents’ home

里の土産に何もらった

(Sato no miyage ni nani moratta)

What kind of souvenirs did she receive from her parents’ home?

でんでん太鼓に笙の笛

(Dendendaiko ni sho no fue)

A toy rattle and flute