国語国文　２年
Today’s topic was “Loanword”. In the presentation, Dave said that young people make new words and sometimes old people can’t understand them. But I know the example that old people use new words from English actively. They are politicians. They use loanwords even though they can say the same thing in Japanese. Recently, some of the people can’t understand them. Do politicians use loanwords to avoid saying something clearly? I think that is one of the ways to use loanwords.

歴史文化　２年
Thank you for your presentation. I agree that there are many loanwords in Japan, and it’s clear of the difference between Japanese traditional words and the loanwords used in Japan from their appearance(Katakana, hiragana). However, learning loanwords sometimes makes us confused because each loanword does not always have the same meaning as the origin. So, I think it is important to know the real meaning of loanwords when using them. But in modern society, loanwords are essential for us. I want to know more loanwords and their origin.

フランス　３年
When I was in the UK, I said “スキンシップ(skinship)” so many times because I thought that it is a truly English word! And my friends got confused by that (of course) but it was hard to explain what “スキンシップ” is in English. I think we use a lot of loanwords without consciousness in Japan. They can be helpful or cause misunderstanding or confusion. I personally think that the word which doesn’t exist or easier to use in Japanese would be a loanword in Japan! The meaning of the word isn’t defined in Japanese so we just use them in Katakana.

スペイン　２年
I noticed that I often use loanwords without being conscious of them. There are many loanwords in Japan and we often see these words in the streets. Mr. Dave said, “Your parents don’t speak English at all can, but can understand loanwords”. I agree with this opinion. Loanwords are English but also Japanese so, I thought loanwords are special words. In addition, when we study foreign languages, I feel close to a foreign country, especially English, and it is a little easier to start studying foreign languages. So, I thought loanwords have a role like a bridge between Japanese and English.

スペイン　２年
Thank you for your presentation. I love “5 Seconds of Summer” and they said that English spoken by Australians is different from English spoken by Americans. Is it true? If it is true, I want to know if there are shared loanwords between these two countries. I think they speak “English”, the same language, but Australia is far from America and England, so I think there will be some loanwords. When I go abroad, I want to enjoy the differences in words between two countries. Japanese always say “Don’t ~” but English say “keep ~ing”, I think, in this case, English has more positive expressions than Japanese. I want to know why there are differences between the two countries.

ドイツ　２年
Learning German, I feel English is a language that adapts more quickly to situations than any other language. Japanese though are more accepting of words, but do not adapt them. I think this is because English was made by many cultures through history, but Japanese history was only recently affected by different languages other than Chinese. But, although there are a lot of loanwords that have roots in English, I find there aren’t any related to Korean. Right now, many young people like Korean culture, so maybe in the future there will be more loanwords from Korea.

国際関係　３年
Thank you for your presentation. I couldn’t ask questions in the class, but I have two questions. First, in your student survey, “Loanword is an obstacle to leaning English?” is stated. I think loanwords have both positive and negative effects in Japanese English education. As a positive one, we can have images of English words, and images make it easy to understand English. As negative one, sometimes we use loanwords with different meanings from the real English words. And it can lead to misunderstandings of English. So, I think we have to reduce the negative side of loanwords in education. What is your opinion about it? Second, nowadays I feel the number of loanwords has been increasing, especially in business. I think the increase of loanwords in the business world is due to the influence of globalization. What do you think about it? And are there benefits to Japanese people by using loanwords in business?

情報　１年
Many Japanese use loanwords casually today, and I think many of them don’t pay attention to whether the words are correct English words or not. In addition, I guess that Japanese tend to regard words that can be written by Katakana as English. I think Japanese need opportunities to know about the existence of loanwords and to understand what words are loanwords. But in conclusion, I think that talking with foreign people is the most effective way to learn about loanwords because when we use loanwords when we speak to them, they can’t understand the meaning and then we may realize that the words are not correct expressions.

留学生
Personally, I think there are two sides to the loanwords phenomenon in the Japanese language. On one side, as I knew English before I started learning Japanese, knowing that I could speak a lot of English words with a Japanese accent and people would actually understand what I was saying helped me a lot to communicate in Japanese. On the other hand, became one of the reasons that I chose Japanese as a major is because I wanted a challenge of learning a language that is totally different from my mother tongue, “Katakana” words would sometimes affect my learning of the “actual Japanese”, since learning them is easier and sometimes you just stick with the loanwords and cannot remember the Japanese word which has a similar meaning. But, overall, I think Japanese is just following its natural way of embracing “everything”, like it did with the Chinese writing system and words, and keeping them and adding two more kana systems. And now it’s time for English (and other languages) to get in and add to this amazing language(that I love)

留学生
I really enjoyed and was very inspired by Mr. Bollen’s presentation. Japanese is really a typical representation of a mixed language, as there are so many loanwords from other countries. And now, it has become a trend that there will be more and more loanwords produced in Japanese. In my view, there are more advantages than disadvantages. Not only can it help people. Also, it may be easy to define something new. There is no doubt that when at first loanwords are produced, there are few people who can understand the meanings, but all new things take time to be learned.