English strike is one syllable. In Japanese it is sutoraiki — five. Nothing was added arbitrarily. Japanese phonology does not permit the consonant clusters English allows, so vowels are inserted to break them up, and the result is exactly what the rules predict.
Japanese rebuilds syllables
| English | Japanese | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| strike | sutoraiki | vowels break str- and final -k |
| Christmas | kurisumasu | clusters broken, final s given a vowel |
| McDonald's | makudonarudo | same, plus l → r |
| ice cream | aisukurīmu | same pattern |
| building | biru | clipped as well as adapted |
Two rules do most of the work. Japanese has no l, so English l becomes r. And Japanese syllables end in a vowel or n, so any other final consonant receives a vowel — usually u, or o after t and d.
The insertion is not random. Japanese uses u by default but o after t and d, because tu and du would be pronounced tsu and dzu. Hence sutoraiki, not sutsuraiki — the rule avoids a sound change the language would otherwise force.
Every language does its own version
| English word | Language | Adapted as | Rule applied |
|---|---|---|---|
| sport | Spanish | deporte / esport | Spanish adds e- before initial s + consonant |
| school | Turkish | okul-type reshaping | Turkish breaks initial clusters |
| film | Turkish | filim (colloquially) | vowel inserted in the final cluster |
| strike | Spanish | estrike | prothetic e- |
| club | Korean | keulleop 클럽 | vowels inserted, l doubled |
Spanish speakers saying "I like esports" are applying a rule their language has had since Latin: initial s plus a consonant takes a supporting vowel. It is why Latin schola became Spanish escuela and French école.
Sounds that do not exist get substituted
| English sound | Becomes | In |
|---|---|---|
| th as in think | t, s or f | many languages |
| l | r | Japanese, Korean |
| v | b | Spanish, Japanese |
| p | f or b | Arabic |
| r | l | some Chinese varieties |
Arabic has no p, so Pepsi is commonly rendered with a b. Persian, which uses the Arabic script, added a letter specifically because Persian does have p — a case where the writing system was extended to fit the language.
Meanings shift on arrival
| Word | Language | Means |
|---|---|---|
| manshon | Japanese | apartment block, not mansion |
| handy | German | mobile phone |
| smoking | French, Italian | dinner jacket |
| baikingu | Japanese | buffet — from "Viking" |
| hunting | Korean | approaching someone socially |
These are sometimes called pseudo-anglicisms. They are built from English material by speakers of the borrowing language, for their own purposes, and are not errors — Handy is simply the German word for a mobile phone.
Why this is useful to know
Recognising the rules turns a large amount of vocabulary into free words. A learner of Japanese who internalises the adaptation pattern can decode most katakana loanwords on sight, and that is thousands of items in modern Japanese.
It works in reverse too. If you need a word you do not know, applying the borrowing rules to the English term produces something that is often right — and when it is wrong, it is wrong in a way native speakers immediately understand and correct. That is a considerably better position than silence.
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Open the dictionary appFrequently asked questions
Why do Japanese loanwords have extra vowels?
Because Japanese syllables are almost always a consonant followed by a vowel, with no consonant clusters. Every consonant in a borrowed word that would otherwise cluster gets a vowel inserted after it, which is why strike becomes sutoraiki — five syllables instead of one.
Are loanwords a sign a language is weak?
No. Borrowing is what languages do when speakers encounter new things, and the languages that borrow most are often the most widely used. English is roughly 60 percent borrowed vocabulary and has not suffered for it.
Why do some borrowed words change meaning?
Because a word is borrowed for a specific use, not for its full range. Japanese manshon means an apartment block, not a mansion, because it was borrowed as a marketing term. The narrowing or shifting happens at the moment of borrowing and then develops independently.