Activity

Japanese Loan Words (外来語)

Warm-up quiz activity about foreign, loan words in Japanese. Students have to guess what the English word is in Japanese.

A simple quiz I made for a warm-up activity, but it lasted a bit longer than I thought. Basically, remind them that a lot of foreign words in modern Japanese came from other languages, and some of them are completely different in English.

I did this in groups. Each group gets a whiteboard and marker. Show the word on the screen, then have the groups write the answer in Katakana. Wait for all the groups to write an answer on the board. Get them to all show their answers at the same time, then reveal the answer on the Powerpoint. Groups with the correct answer gets a point.

You can easily find more words and make additional slides to stretch it out into a full class, really just depends on the students' level of English.

EDIT June 4, 2024 Took out the first slide (I think I had it hidden, but this template I reused it from another lesson so the title slide was still there). Also, I've been told Japanese people just say pancake now, and not hottokeeki, so I took that out too.

Files:
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  • Loan words.pptx (9.62 MB)
  • 58
    Submitted by Stagione June 3, 2024 Estimated time: 20 minutes
    Inspired Wasei Eigo Quiz
    1. ohnoko June 4, 2024

      Cute quiz! May I ask where you downloaded this powerpoint theme??

    2. Stagione June 4, 2024

      I used Canva, so it's one of the default themes there

    3. bonolo123 June 5, 2024

      Actually though piman came from when the Portuguese came to Japan and I read that also when I came in 2007. I see now when you search online it says from the French. Interesting. Thanks for the research

    4. Stagione June 5, 2024

      Some non-English loan words, I made a note on the slide to remind myself to say which language it came from (Prt = Portuguese, Fr = French)

    5. oliverrae June 13, 2024

      Just commenting to say I love that someone else also just leaves the default template slides they didn't use at the end of the presentation lol, I've been thinking about making a loan words presentation so I'm grateful you beat me to it!

    6. Stagione June 14, 2024

      I keep thinking "What if I need it later........"

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