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From: rpw3@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Re: Humorous Translations - (nf)
Message-ID: <1964@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Dec-83 07:02:45 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.1964
Posted: Wed Dec 14 07:02:45 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Dec-83 01:46:37 EST
Sender: notes@fortune.UUCP
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
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#R:rabbit:-226200:fortune:5400059:000:1711
fortune!rpw3    Dec 14 01:21:00 1983

In Japanese, you often whisper or drop entirely the vowels 'u' and 'i'
between unvoiced consonants or at the end of a word after such u/v/c's.
(So sukiyaki is really pronounced s'kyak' by natives.) In the process of
bringing English words into the language, believe it or not, they have
chosen Katakana syllables such that when a native speaker of Japanese
pronounces the word with the usual contractions, it comes really close
to an English speaker. (Now the funny part) Below are some Romanji
(Katakana spelled with Roman letters) samples of words which are in
modern Japanese:

	Romanji			Hint for the slow (remember 'R' ~= 'L')
	-------			---------------------------------------
	takushi			what you take from the airport to the hotel

	basu toweru		for drying off with
	shawa			what you take before using a basu toweru

	bekon & tosuto		common breakfast items
	foku & naifu		what you each them with
	orenji-jusu		what you drink with the tosuto & bekon
	napukin			what you wipe your mouth with, afterwards

	uisuki			cocktails for the Real Man
	retasu			what the salad's made of
	rosuto bifu		dinner food (entree)
	bifuteki		another dinner food from the same animal
	poku choppu		similar item from smaller animal
	gurin pisu		a vegatable

And finally, after all that food,

	aisukurimu		cold, sweet, many flavors

The funny part is, it isn't a joke! (Portions of above Copyright 1974,
1975 by Editions Berlitz, a division of Macmillan SA -- used without per-
mission under "fair use", "review", and "satire" provisions of copyright code)

Rob Warnock

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