Katakana Research (10/6)

Katakana in the Japanese language has a number of purposes: to indicate animal or plants names, onomatopoeia, or foreign language words. I believe that the reasons these phrases are written in Katakana is so that Japanese speakers can properly pronounce them despite the words’ foreign origins. Writing words in Katakana may also make reading and writing far smoother.

Here are some Katakana expressions I found from two sites. 

1) This first list I found contains loan words from the English language. Some of these Katakana words do not sound exactly like their English version, so it’s interesting to see how the Japanese language “twisted” some English words around a bit. 
ダストボックス          This one means “dust box” or trashcan
パイナップル              Pineapple 
コインランドリー      This is pronounced as “coin laundry” and means laundromat
ハンバーグ                 This translates to Salisbury steak but is pronounced almost as “hamburger”

2) Another website showed me a list of Katakana words that represent loan words from languages other than English! 
アルバイト              This word is “Arubaito” in Romaji and comes from the German word “Arbeit” meaning part-time job 

レントゲン               This word is “Rentogen” in Romaji and comes from the German word “Röntgen” meaning X-ray 

 パン                         This word is “pan” in Romaji and comes from the Portuguese word “Pão” meaning bread. 

ピエロ                       This word is “piero” in Romaji and comes from the French word “Pierrot” meaning clown.