2016-07-11 04:59 Homophone words
Y (Kuma's owner)
Long ago, my friend took a job interview in Tokyo. She said the company she had visited was creating new names for new products. What an interesting job! I had never thought that there's a company that creates new names. There are lots of companies that produce products and they have to name their products but it's not easy. They cannot use the same name that another company has already used. Therefore, some of them ask the company that my friend visited to create a new name. I heard that they find a name which has no bad meaning. There are so many kinds of language in the world and I think it would be so hard to find suitable words.
I sometimes notice that there are the same pronunciation words all over the world. One day, I was told that my twitter account name "Kuma" has a bad meaning in Swahili. A man who can understand Swahili told me that but it's too late to change my account name, so I still use the same name. In Japanese, Kuma means a bear.
There's an almost same pronunciation word between Aussie English and Japanese as well. It's "bugger". I sometimes hear my Aussie friends say "Bugger!" when they make mistakes or when things don't go as they expected.
The first time I heard "Bugger!" , I was surprised because this sounded almost the same as "Stupid!" in Japanese. I turned around and looked at my friend. He said "No, no. it's not you, I'm saying it to myself."
I think we should be careful with words that come out from our mouths unintentionally or instantly. If you have a habitual saying of "Bugger!" and you have a chance to go to Japan, you have be careful. I'm sure that Japanese who heard you saying "Bugger!" would misunderstand you.
There is also a partially common word between English, German and Japanese. It's the word "so". I don't think it's 100% the same but on some occasion it's used with nearly the same meaning.
Isn't it interesting? The world is so huge but people from different countries use the same pronunciation word.