German words in the Japanese language??

16 years ago
Posts: 11
So um, I was just watching the anime Darker than Black with english subs and encountered something that left me wondering.
The conversation was like:
Landlady: Off, to school?
Main Character: No, to work.
well, I don't know japanese but I'm pretty sure that what he said was something like:
Iie, **arubaito **desu.
**Arbeit **(japanese would write it kinda like arubaito, I guess ^^) is the German word for "work" soo, I was wondering, do the Japanese use German words?? I know there are a lot of English ones, but German? Hope you can help me ^_^ 😕
No. It's just a coincidence, in this case.
Many European languages have similar (sounding) words, but that's because of hundreds of years of meshing languages, borrowing words from one another and etc.
But the Japanese language is its own, and 'work' is a fundamental word of any language. Sure they have borrowed Latin/Greek terminology (medical terminology?) and English terminology (scientific terms and cultural references?) but that's a different matter.
With the Earth developing as a global village there will soon be Japanese words integrated into European languages too I am sure. Maybe there already is such terminology. Perhaps in robotics? I know there was a few physics phenomena named after Japanese physicists for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayashi_limit
Edit: It would appear I was wrong 🙁 as pointed out by Mams.
Who would've thought they borrowed so many words! Is 'shigoto' (work) also borrowed?
Arubaito is a gairaigo (foreign loanword) rather than a native Japanese term. It is derived from the German word for work, arbeit. Arubaito refers mostly to traditional part-time labor, but it can also refer to moonlighting, or even working as a “temp” when more stable employment is not available.
Many germanic languages do have almost the
same word for work like
Swedish - arbete
Norwegian - arbeid
Danish - arbejde
etc.

16 years ago
Posts: 963
i wouldn't be suprised
there language is so modified with english influence now,
so i wouldnt be suprised if its got more out ther than that,
i know there is a japanese band i used to listen to
and all of there song where german or russian, i forgot, yet they were specifically in the japanese rock scene, all of them were japanese (i know cuz there names)... so i thought that was cool.
why because i am the president of the student council of course
[img]http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww73/chewy_bubble2004/2d360793.gif[/img]
Of course. Japanese has a lot of loan words,
mainly from English, Dutch and Portuguese.
kōhī is one of my favorites - it comes from koffie in Dutch. 😮
Here, have the wiki list.
source: animenewsnetwork
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16 years ago
Posts: 89
Haha, in Japanese class if someone doesn't know how to say something they'll end up trying to sound out the English word in katakana. The sad thing is that half the time its actually correct.. XD

16 years ago
Posts: 833
Japanese is still Japanese. English on the other hand is just a mix of other languages with modifications and illogical pronouncing.
Mostly it's some moderns things that are loan words in Japanese. Unlike in most of the other languages where if there's a loan word, it's because there's no original word for it, and it's easier to use the loan word, but in Japanase in many cases the loan word is more popular even though there is a original Japanese word.
Far-off places with sweet sounding names.

16 years ago
Posts: 165
There are lots of loanwords in Japanese, just like there are in many other languages. Nothing special in that. ^^
I'll hug your problems away.