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Wasei-Eigo: The English-Looking Japanese Words That Aren't English

Wasei-eigo (和製英語, "Japanese-made English") are Japanese expressions built from English words or parts of words. They either do not exist in standard English, or they do not carry the same meaning in English.1 For learners who already read katakana, these words are where the comfortable assumption "katakana equals English" quietly breaks.

Overview​

Wasei-eigo sits inside the larger category of loanwords covered in What Is Gairaigo? A Guide to Loanwords in Japanese. What sets it apart is not how it is written, but how it behaves: the English back-translation fails.1

A word like サラリーマン looks as if it should map onto an English term, yet no English speaker calls an ordinary office worker a "salaryman." This article maps that gap between the English-looking surface and the real English equivalent.

What Wasei-Eigo Is​

Wasei-eigo (和製英語) are Japanese-language expressions based on English words, or on parts of English phrases. They either do not exist in standard English, or they do not mean in Japanese what their English-looking form suggests.1 Linguists call them pseudo-loanwords or pseudo-anglicisms: coinages that use English roots but were never borrowed into English and are used only by speakers of Japanese.2

Wasei-eigo vs. true gairaigo​

Gairaigo simply means loanwords, or words taken from abroad. A true loanword keeps the meaning it had in its source language: テーブル is "table," and it means a table.1 Wasei-eigo is different in kind. It reworks English material into something with a new form or a new meaning, assembled inside Japanese rather than borrowed whole.1

The relationship is one of subset, not opposition. Every wasei-eigo word is gairaigo, written in katakana like any other loanword. What marks it out is that running it back into English does not produce a word an English speaker would use.1 The parent article "What Is Gairaigo? A Guide to Loanwords in Japanese" covers the broader history of borrowing. This article focuses on the English-looking coinages that break on back-translation.

Wasei-eigo is Japanese, not broken English

Wasei-eigo consists of words used in ordinary Japanese conversation. It is not "Engrish," the term for failed attempts to produce English itself.1 サラリーマン is a perfectly correct Japanese word. The trouble starts only when it is carried back into English.

Why it looks like English but isn't​

The trap is the assumption that a katakana word maps one-to-one onto an English word. Wasei-eigo breaks that assumption because the word was assembled or repurposed inside Japanese. It never existed in English with that form or sense.1

The back-translation failure comes in two shapes. In the first, the word is a compound built from English parts in a combination English never uses. An English speaker therefore does not recognize it at all (ガソリン + スタンド).1 In the second, a real English word is borrowed and its meaning drifts. The English speaker recognizes the word, but not what it now means (マンション is not "mansion," カンニング is not "cunning").134

How Wasei-Eigo Is Formed​

The everyday wasei-eigo a learner meets are not random. They cluster into a few repeatable patterns, and recognizing the pattern is faster than memorizing a flat list.1

Clipped compounds (サラリーマン, OL, バックミラー)​

In this pattern, English elements are joined and clipped in combinations English does not use.1 The result looks English at a glance but has no English original.

サラリーマン comes from English "salaried man." It is clipped to fit Japanese sound rules and analyzable as サラリー ("salary") plus マン ("-man"). The natural English equivalent is office worker, company employee, or white-collar employee. The word took hold in the Taishō period and was firmly established by the early Shōwa period.56

彼かれは普通ふつうのサラリーマンだ。7
"He's just an ordinary office worker."

OL is different: an initialism, not a katakana word. Written with the Latin letters O and L but read オーエル, it stands for "office lady." It was coined in Japan in 1963–64 through a reader competition in the women's magazine Josei Jishin, replacing the earlier "BG" ("business girl"). Its natural English equivalent is female office worker. English speakers do not use "OL" or "office lady" this way.8

私わたしはＯＬです。7
"I'm a female office worker."

バックミラー joins "back" and "mirror." The natural English equivalent is rearview mirror. The parts are English, but "back mirror" is not the English term.1

バックミラーがはずれてしまいました。7
"The rearview mirror fell off."

OL is spelled in Latin letters, not katakana

OL is the clearest case in this article of a Japan-coined English abbreviation rather than a katakana loanword. It is written O-L but read オーエル. A learner who expects every English-looking Japanese word to appear in katakana may therefore misfile it.8

Borrowed words with a shifted meaning​

Here an existing English word is adopted whole, and then its meaning drifts inside Japanese.1 The surface is genuine English. The sense is not.

マンション is borrowed from English "mansion," but in Japanese it names a (typically owned) concrete apartment or condominium. It contrasts with アパート, a rented apartment usually in a smaller wooden building. The word gained currency in the latter half of the 1950s, lending an air of luxury to high-density housing. Its natural English equivalent is apartment or condominium, never "mansion."3

カンニング comes from English "cunning," but in Japanese it means cheating on an exam. It is used as a noun or with する as a verb. The natural English equivalent is cheating, not "cunning."4

This pattern is treated briefly here; the deeper drift and displacement cases belong to a dedicated treatment of their own.

Coined products and compounds (ガソリンスタンド, ホットケーキ)​

This pattern coins names for things by joining English words into labels English never settled on.1

ガソリンスタンド joins "gasoline" and "stand" and is attested from at least 1933. Its natural English equivalent is gas station (US) or petrol station (UK). An English speaker would not say "gasoline stand."9

この辺へんにガソリンスタンドはありますか。7
"Is there a gas station around here?"

ホットケーキ joins "hot" and "cake." The everyday English word for the same thing is pancake. "Hotcake" exists in English only marginally, so the natural English equivalent is pancake.17

このホットケーキ美味おいしい。7
"These pancakes are delicious."

The Five Words Every Learner Meets​

These five are the wasei-eigo a learner is almost certain to meet early. The table gives the katakana (or initialism), the romaji, the literal English parse, the actual English equivalent, and a one-line note.

KatakanaRomajiLiteral parseActual EnglishNote
サラリーマンsararīman"salary" + "man"office worker / company employeeThe normal Japanese word; "I'm a salaryman" confuses English listeners.56
OL (オーエル)ōeru"office" + "lady" (initialism)female office workerAn initialism coined in Japan in 1963–64, not a katakana word.8
バックミラーbakku-mirā"back" + "mirror"rearview mirrorEnglish uses "rearview," never "back mirror."1
ガソリンスタンドgasorin sutando"gasoline" + "stand"gas station / petrol stationAttested from 1933; no English speaker says "gasoline stand."9
ホットケーキhotto kēki"hot" + "cake"pancake"Pancake" is the everyday English word.1

Nuance and Usage Contexts​

Whether wasei-eigo is "right" or "wrong" depends entirely on which language you are speaking. The same word can be correct Japanese and unusable English at the same time.

Inside Japanese, these words are simply correct​

Wasei-eigo terms are legitimate, native-feeling Japanese vocabulary, not "bad Japanese." サラリーマン is the normal, unmarked word for a white-collar employee. The "error" appears only when a learner exports the word into English.15

私わたしはしがないサラリーマンです。7
"I'm just a plain old office worker."

トムはマンションに住すんでいます。7
"Tom lives in an apartment."

The English translation quietly does the correcting

In the second example, natural English renders マンション as "apartment," not "mansion." The Japanese uses the word exactly as it should. The English side has to pick the real equivalent.3

The trap runs both directions​

The first direction is comprehension. Guessing a katakana word's meaning from its English look-alike can mislead. マンション looks like "mansion" but means an apartment, and カンニング looks like "cunning" but means exam cheating.34

トムは今日きょうの試験しけんでカンニングした。7
"Tom cheated on today's exam."

The second direction is production. Dropping a wasei-eigo term into actual English can confuse listeners, as with "I am a salaryman" or "we stopped at a gasoline stand."1

There is one edge case in the other direction. A few wasei-eigo terms have re-entered English in Japan-specific contexts. "Salaryman" is used in English precisely to denote the Japanese white-collar office-worker figure, not office workers in general.6

Good to know​

How to spot wasei-eigo before it bites you​

If a katakana word is a compound or an abbreviation, and its back-translation sounds odd to an English ear, suspect wasei-eigo and check a dictionary.1 The two diagnostic shapes are English-part compounds that English never forms (ガソリンスタンド, バックミラー) and single borrowed words whose meaning has drifted (マンション, カンニング).134

Exporting a wasei-eigo term into spoken English​

The most common production error is carrying the Japanese word straight into English, as in "I am a salaryman" or "Let's stop at the gasoline stand." The katakana word is correct Japanese. But its English-looking surface does not map onto a real English term, and English listeners do not recognize the coinage.19 The fix is to reach for the real equivalent: "I'm an office worker," "Let's stop at the gas station."

私わたしは会社員かいしゃいんです。7
"I'm an office worker."

Guessing a katakana word's meaning from its English look-alike​

The mirror-image error is reading the English form back into the Japanese, so that マンション becomes "mansion" (a large luxury house). The correct reading is a usually owned apartment or condominium, in contrast with アパート.3 Semantic-shift wasei-eigo keeps the English form but not the English meaning; カンニング ("cheating," not "cunning") is the same trap.4

サラリーマン is a borderline case​

サラリーマン is usually taught as wasei-eigo. Some references, however, analyze it as a clipped borrowing of the English phrase "salaried man" (attested in English by 1828) rather than a fully Japan-internal coinage. Either way, the modern Japanese form and meaning are Japanese. English speakers do not use "salaryman" for an ordinary office worker.56 It is a useful reminder that the wasei-eigo / loanword boundary is graded, not binary.

OL is an initialism, not a katakana word​

OL (read オーエル) was coined in Japan in 1963–64 through a reader competition in Josei Jishin, replacing the older "BG" ("business girl"). It is the clearest case here of a Japan-coined English abbreviation rather than a borrowed word or a katakana-spelled word.8

Wasei-eigo is standard register inside Japanese​

These are not slang or mistakes. サラリーマン, ホットケーキ, and ガソリンスタンド are the neutral everyday words for what they refer to. They are appropriate in ordinary and most semi-formal Japanese.15 The only place they "fail" is when carried into English.

"Wasei" is bigger than English​

和製 ("made in Japan") also produces wasei-kango (和製漢語), Japanese-coined Sino-Japanese words built from Chinese roots. These are likewise common. Pseudo-loans can also be coined from source languages other than English. This article focuses on the English-derived set.1

Etymology of the term​

和製英語 breaks down as 和 (wa, "Japan / Japanese") + 製 (sei, "made / manufacture") + 英語 (eigo, "English language"). In other words, it means "Japanese-made English." The standard linguistic label is pseudo-anglicism or pseudo-loanword.21

See also​

References​

Footnotes​

  1. "Wasei-eigo." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasei-eigo (definition, linguistic classification, formation, distinction from gairaigo and wasei-kango). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17 ↩18 ↩19 ↩20 ↩21 ↩22 ↩23 ↩24 ↩25 ↩26

  2. Wiktionary contributors. "和製英語." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/和製英語 (etymology and definition section). ↩ ↩2

  3. Wiktionary contributors. "マンション." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/マンション (loanword from English "mansion," 1950s currency, condominium vs. アパート contrast). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. Wiktionary contributors. "カンニング." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/カンニング (wasei-eigo from "cunning," meaning "cheating on an exam"). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. Wiktionary contributors. "サラリーマン." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/サラリーマン (etymology, dating, definition). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. "Salaryman." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman ("white-collar workers in the large bureaucracy of a business firm or government office"; Taishō/early Shōwa establishment; salaryman re-entering English as a Japan-specific term). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Tatoeba Project. Sentence corpus. https://tatoeba.org (individual sentence IDs cited inline; CC BY 2.0 FR). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  8. "Office lady." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_lady (OL coined in Japan 1963–64 via Josei Jishin reader competition replacing "BG / business girl"; female office worker; abbreviation オーエル). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. Wiktionary contributors. "ガソリンスタンド." Wiktionary, the free dictionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ガソリンスタンド (wasei-eigo label, 1933 attestation, gas/petrol station meaning). ↩ ↩2 ↩3