History Main / JapaneseRanguage

* ''Film/AChristmasStory'': "Tis the season to be jorry. Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra, ra, ra" May be a {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing, since the old Asian man immediately yells at them, "Not 'ra-ra-ra-ra' -- falalalala!", and gives up when they fail to get it right. And they may have been simply jerking their boss's chain for the Parker family's amusement, as they immediately switch to another L-heavy carol, rather than something else.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': When the Simpson family visits Chinatown, there's a store there called Toys "L" Us.

Closely related to SpellMyNameWithAnS. Often used as part of AsianSpeekeeEngrish or IntentionalEngrishForFunny. And, of course, one must be careful talking about this or invoking it deliberately, as doing so can come across as ''intensely'' racist. (Which it is, fundamentally.)

** [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Given that no two people can seem to agree on the proper spelling of names in Slayers]], this hardly comes as a surprise, and this is far from the only place where this crops up.

* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'': This trope, combined with the Japanese confusion between "B" and "V", led to [[Myth/NorseMythology Verdandi/Verthandi]] becoming Belldandy from the original Japanese to ''English''. Belldandy, or more appropriately, Berudandi, is the closest Japanese can get in regards to a phonetic spelling of the Norn's name in Japanese kana.[[labelnote:*]]Verðandi can be anglicized as [[SpellMyNameWithAnS either]] Verdandi or Verthandi. Throw in the aforementioned lack of distinction for R/L and B/V sounds among Japanese speakers, and it's easy to see how with the former spelling morphed into Belldandy.[[/labelnote]] Considering [[TheEighties when]] the series [[LongRunners first started]], both Fujishima and various translators let the error stand, since that's how fans knew the name. The Scandinavian translations get the various names of the deities correct. It should also be noted that the translators started getting the names correct for new deities and such over the course of the series.

* No one is quite sure if Ling Yao's bodyguard is [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Lan Fan or Ran Fan]] in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist''. Likewise, the city controlled by Father Cornello is called Reole in the English manga, but Liore in ''Brotherhood'' and Lior in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003 the 2003 anime]]. The former is likely the intended spelling, after Réole, a commune in southwestern France. The Ishvalan people are sometimes called Ishbalans.

** This is the cause of the eternal [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Aeris/Aerith]] argument - "th" is not a sound in Japanese, so it gets rendered as "su" in katakana, which was mistranslated as an "s". Square Enix have repeatedly said that it was always meant to be Aerith, since it's supposed to sound like "Earth" (and early promotional artwork of the character was labelled "Erith"). Regardless, there are still people who will vehemently insist that it's Aeris.

* Subbers of ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'' can't seem to decide between "Kilala" and "Kirara". Actors in the dub say "Kilala". Though "Kirara" makes more sense (this ''is'' Feudal Japan we're talking about).

** Arabic k and q are different sounds, but they're pronounced alike from speakers whose languages does not have them in their phoneme inventory. Arabic also has a whole series of "emphatic" consonants differentiated from "plain" ones by a secondary articulation (usually described as pharyngealized, but linguists like to debate this). The pairs are usually transliterated with a dot under them to differentiate from the "plain" consonants: s/ṣ, t/ṭ, d/ḍ, [[OddOneOut|dh/ẓ]], h/ḥ. Non-Arabic-speakers usually can't tell the difference between them--and it shows in many of the languages of the Muslim world, particularly Persian, Turkish, and Urdu, which borrowed words copiously from Arabic but pronounce these "emphatics" the same as they would pronounce the plain consonants.

** Arabic k and q are different sounds, but they're pronounced alike from speakers whose languages does not have them in their phoneme inventory.

* In UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, this was also used as a [[TrustPassword shibboleth]]. If an American unit spotted someone claiming to be Filipino, they would ask him to say "Lollapalooza"; if they said "roraparooza", they were shot.

* ''TheSimpsons'': When the Simpson family visits Chinatown, there's a store there called Toys "L" Us.

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Used in an even more insane and racist and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs insanely racist]] way with Egg Fu and Dr Yes, the Oriental Eggheads who frequently try to capture Franchise/WonderWoman in their Diabolical Moustahce Trap.

* A guy asks a Japanese girl for her phone number. She says, "Sex! Sex! Sex! Free sex tonight!" He says, "Wow!" Then her friend says, "She means 666-3629."

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' has the problem of the translators turning all R's into L's, and all B's into V's. There's a character called Halley - didn't it occur to anyone on the translation team that his name might be Harry?

** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'' did a cross promotion with ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' in which Altair's costume could be unlocked for Snake. The trailer announcing this ended with Creator/HideoKojima saying "Did you rike it?" in a hilariously thick phonetic accent, which [[MemeticMutation the Internet leapt on]] for WebAnimation/{{YouTube Poop}}s and other such injokes. Noticeably averted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes'', in which Kojima's AuthorAvatar says "Snake, what took you so long?" with an accented but still clear 'l'.

The Japanese L/R can also occasionally sound to English-speakers like a D (specifically, the "tap" that replaces unstressed /t/ and /d/ in North American and Australian English), but not much seems to be made of this in media.[[note]]Another thing that doesn't show up much in media is the Japanese tendency to add additional vowels to words. The Japanese language is made up of "mora", each of which consists of either a vowel on it's own ("a"), a consonant followed by a vowel ("wa"), or the letter "n" by itself. An english word like "bet" will come across as "beto" or the like, since "t" can't exist on its own in Japanese. (This incidentally makes the word "Godzilla" impossible, since the "d" sound can't be directly followed by the "z" sound. "Godzilla" also fails because Japanese doesn't have that particular "i" vowel (the romanization of "i" is pronounced like the "i" in "machine"), nor does it have the "uh" sound which is represented here by an "a". The orginal name of the creature is actually "Gojira".) Attempts at Japanese-style mispronunciations are often ''themselves'' a mispronunciation!)[[/note]]

The Japanese L/R can also occasionally sound to English-speakers like a D (specifically, the "tap" that replaces unstressed /t/ and /d/ in North American and Australian English), but not much seems to be made of this in media.

* Some of the Japanese names in ''{{Franchise/Pokemon}}'' are actually supposed to be either foreign words or mashups of them. For example Magnemite is Coil. There was one Pokémon in particular in the 3rd gen that caused a headache for people - Manectric. The Japanese name is Raiboruto, which could be transliterated as Raibolt (which makes sense, given "rai" means thunder). Except the official transliteration is Livolt, completely opposite of what most people were expecting regarding the R/L and B/V issue. At least it still passes as a portmanteau of "Live Volt", [[LuckyTranslation maintaining the "electric creature" theme]].[[note]]Granted, the Volt is a ''measurement'' of electric potential, as opposed to ''actual'' electricity (i.e. a ''B''olt).[[/note]]

* The opening credits of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}} NEXT'' feature a map where the city of Seyruun is spelled "Sailoon".

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' subbers often accidentally put "Dulalala" on the title in the opening sequence.

* In one episode of ''LightNovel/DogAndScissors'', an extended scene featuring Maxi has a US Liberty coin behind her. Unfortunately, it's misspelled as "Riberty".

* The Pioneer translation of ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'' spelled Wilhelmina, an actual Dutch name with historical significance, as Wirhelmina.

*** Also, check the ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}'' example in the Anime/Manga section.

* Hanyu Yuzuru fans had a scare when he was overheard saying "You have future. I don't have future," to another skater. What ''actually'' happened was: that skater, Boyang Jin, asked Hanyu for his ''[=WeChat=]'', a popular Chinese social media, which Hanyu did not have (being Japanese).

* The Helirin Assist Trophy from ''VideoGame/KuruKuruKururin'' is misspelled "Heririn" in the American version of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', but corrected in the European version.

** It's ''also'' supposed to be the onomatopoeia for the sound of a motorcycle ("[[Manga/TheEnigmaOfAmigaraFault Drrrr]]"), so it's basically an untranslatable pun that would be "incorrect" either way.

* ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'': This trope, combined with the Japanese confusion between "B" and "V", led to [[Myth/NorseMythology Verdandi/Verthandi]] becoming Belldandy from the original Japanese to ''English''. Belldandy, or more appropriately, Berudandi, is the closest Japanese can get in regards to a phonetic spelling of the Norn's name in Japanese kana.[[labelnote:*]]Verðandi can be anglicized as [[SpellMyNameWithAnS either]] Verdandi or Verthandi. Throw in the aforementioned lack of distinction for R/L and B/V sounds among Japanese speakers, and it's easy to see how with the former spelling morphed into Belldandy.[[/labelnote]] Considering [[TheEighties when]] the series [[LongRunners first started]], both Fujishima and various translators let the error stand, since that's how fans knew the name. The Scandinavian translations get the various names of the deities correct. It should also be noted that the translators started getting the names correct for new deities and such over the course of the series.