Berkeley Diary

Masaki YAMAOKA


 

May/1/2005 My Finds to Word Lag (3) Microwave Oven VS. Denshi Renji

       My doctor in Japan warned me about my diabetes before I left. He advised me that I should lose weight.  And he told me most of American foods are high-calorie, so ordinary people in USA would be tend to consume too many calorie. Then I made a resolve to lose weight and to recover my health during this one year.

     In fact here, I enjoy cooking by myself every day, and seldom eat out alone. I check my weight every morning. And I count my steps by the pedometer. My target is 10,000 steps per day. I will keep this regular life like clockwork in this sabbatical year.

       By the way, my friend here recommended that I buy a microwave oven. She said it is a necessity for a business bachelor like me. But I think the foods for microwave are high-calorie, so I will not buy it for the present. And every house, including apartments, has a conventional oven. My apartment also has a big one in the kitchen. In Japan I have never used it. But now, it gives me pleasure to cook.

       We call a microwave oven by the name of "denshi renji" in Japanese. It means electronic range. But in English we distinguish between oven and range. The "oven" is the equipment for cooking inside a compartment with a door, and the "range" is for cooking on the surface. This distinction is rational. I guess that Japanese people are not as familiar with oven as are American people.

       And I think some Japanese faddists liked to name anything new with the word "denshi". For example, when e-mail appeared in Japan, we called it "denshi meiru" (=electronic mail). But now, e-mail is not new. Neither is microwave oven. I feel the word "denshi" is out-of-date.

 Japanese
5月 1日  言葉の’時差’みつけた(3) マイクロウェイブ・オーブン VS. 電子レンジ


 

To: Soka University HP (English)
To: Department of the Japanese Language and Literature HP
To: Masaki YAMAOKA's HP: Index