Call me Naive

If you’re studying Japanese you will know that there are many Katakana words which are based on words in English.

For example, the Japanese word for “TV” is テレビ(terebi). The word for “Coke” is コカコーラ (coca-cola). The word for truck is トラック(torakku).

Usually these words are close enough in pronunciation that a student of Japanese (or not even) can imagine what the words mean.

However, sometimes this can be misleading.

For example, the word ナイーブ in Japanese means the English world “naive”. However when used to describe a persons personality in Japanese the nuance has an important difference when compared to “naive” in English.

In Japanese the word ナイーブ refers to someone in a positive way. Someone who of good nature, and not polluted by the negative aspects of the real world. The phrase ナイーブ is rarely used in Japanese in a negative sense as it is in English.

On another random note, in Japanese you can say エネルギッシュ (enerugissyu) to refer to someone who is a bundle of energy and rarely gets tired. This word comes from the German word “energisch”.

Cool!

- Harvey