French, for instance, doesn’t have as much as foreign words originated from English as in Japan, considering the 10.000 most common words in order of their frequency in France. I am not sure about the situation in Canada where French is widely or more or less spoken by a considerable number of people. I am aware that 10.000 is a small amount to talk about, but still a data I have seen some months ago.

In the most 10000 common words in Japanese language, there are too much English origin words which I understand when it comes to certain field such as chemistry, biology and some medical terms among others. However, they do have some words originated there (native Japanese) or perhaps from Chinese origin (from Old and Middle Chinese) that might be used, instead. If you already have a word, why do they need to change it into a more “fashionable word”?

Where is the creativeness, considering that there exist about 50.000 ideograms in Japan? You can make your own combination of ideograms in order to create new words or expressions.

I gave an example in the comment above. In Chinese (mainland), they use “电脑”( Diànnǎo) meaning computer. Literally speaking, “电”it is related to the electricity and “脑”it is related to the brain. This is one thing I like about Chinese language more. They create new combination of words or they simply use phonetics system “withour caring much about its meaning”. Another example: 可乐 (Kělè). The pronunciation sounds similar to “cola” (coke) of English, according to Chinese people.
In Japanese, they use a lot of Katakana words all the time, especially in the fields related to technology, business (it is increasing), sports, medicine, and science in general.
Well, Japanese language is alive and this is the reality. I rather prefer speaking in English because katakana words sound very unnatural for me.

Japanese learner’s, what do you think about this one (I have just seen it): イントロダクション?

Caroline, I agree with your opinion, concerning Japan being open to another culture; however, making a room to another language has already happened mainly due to the influence of Chinese language and its culture. For instance, in the most 123.000 common words in order of frequency in Japanese language (considering written language), about 50% of the words can be considered 漢語（かんご、Kango, meaning “Sino-Japanese words”）. The other words in Japanese are originally native Japanese (Yamato-kotoba) and the rest can be considered “gairaigo” or whatever Japanese people may call it. I mean, the third group is considered borrowed words from other languages such as Korean and later from Western countries. Obviously the cultural exchange happened in both ways and sometimes it is pretty hard to determine whether one word is really originated from Old or Middle Chinese or Korean (Middle Korean?), for example.

One culture can be open to another one without losing part of its main tradition (i.e Kanji or ideograms). Ideograms, for instance, has been used for hundred years and it is part of the local culture. I wonder whether Japanese people still study calligraphy at school, for example. If so, it is probably not that popular nowadays anymore.

どうして日本語には夥しい外来語が流入しているんでしょう。それは日本語で表せないのは仕方ないにしても、列記とした日本語があるのにわざわざ外来語を使うのは何故でしょう？

一つは日本はアメリカに戦争に負けた影響も一つでしょう。老人と話した際、戦前はそんなに外来語は確かになかったと言われました。戦争に負けてから、日本はアメリカの植民地みたいになりました。

本来の日本語にあるものは、なるべく外来語でなく、在来の言葉を使うようにとなればいいと思いますが、日本語全体が外来語への依存度（使用率）を高めているのも事実です。私はまだまだ未熟ですが、中国語も勉強している影響かもしれませんが、はやり漢字の方が好きですね。一つ一つ覚えてみにつけるためにけっこう時間がかかりますが、漢字はとても便利だと思います。読み方、つまり発音を忘れても、意味を想像することができます。例えば、部首の意味が分かっていれば、結構習った漢字は思い出しやすいです。日本語の場合、訓読みや音読みもありますから、ときどき発音を忘れても、読んだ文章を理解することができます。

個人的には外来語はいい面は特にないと思います。逆に、音だけでは元の意味が推測できないし、在来の言葉とどのように違うか分かりにくいし、意味もあいまいになりますし、音が長くなり発音しにくいし色々欠点があると思います。私はNHKをときとき見たりします。朝日新聞や読売新聞もときどき暇なとき読みます。テレビの場合は視聴者として、意味が的確に伝わらない場合があります。あと数年間したら、漢字検定試験は私みたいに漢字が大好きで、書道を学習する人だけになるかもしれません。

“What are radio, pen and dessert in Japanese? I can explain what they are, but if you say to translate it into one word, nothing comes to my mind, or it will sound very unnatural even though I can do it”.

確かにそうですが、例えばコンピュータまたはパソコンは漢字で表せばいいのではないですか。当て字でも良いし、電腦とか腦電にすればいいのではないでしょうか。中国語では「電腦」です。

グーグルで調べてみたんですが、日本では漢字が５万くらいあるようです。日本人の知的創造性は一体どこに行ったんでしょう。

片仮名の外来語は読むも書くも意味も難しい気がします。頑張ります。