Hi, everyone! I'll be very glad if you correct my essay below. I hope you have a pleasant day.
June 16, Wed, 2021
Thanks to italki, I have encountered several language exchange partners. My native language is Japanese, so I help them learn Japanese while they help me with my English.
Recently I have been impressed by how difficult it is for English speakers to get used to English words in katakana(カタカナ英語). There are so many modern Japanese katakana words which come from English. What often confuses English-speaking learners of Japanese is that the pronunciation of English words in katakana tends to be greatly different from that of the original words.
One example is coffee. In Japanese it is called "コーヒー", which is pronounced "Kōhī". It would be very difficult for Japanese people with little English ability to know that "coffee" is "コーヒー". Therefore English speakers who learn Japanese have to practice the Japanese pronunciation of katakana words in order to make themselves understood.
Therefore, I often help my partners pronounce English words in katakana. It often gives me a strange feeling when I teach English speakers the pronunciation of words which originally came from English. It looks like a kind of reimporting, doesn't it? Doesn't it look like a foreign sushi chef teaching "sushi" to a Japanese chef? (^^;)