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Writer's pictureRyo Hanazawa

What do Japanese people call beer in Japanese?

There are many imported foreign words in Japan. Those words came mainly from English or Portuguese. Of course, the Japanese Kanji are based on Chinese characters, however I can say the Japanese Kanji is a little brother of Chinese Kanji.


The Japanese language has Katakana which is a type of Japanese character. When you are learning Japanese, you will definitely be confused about Katakana. Because Katakana has a similar shape as Hiragana, as a literature. For example,


Hiragana : か ka

Katakana : カ ka


Hiragana : せ se

Katakana : セ se


If you are a primary learner, you will definitely be confused by these two types of Japanese literature. Okay, let’s see how to spell “beer” in Japanese.


English : beer

Japanese : ビール biilu


“ビール” is a foreign word based on beer in English. But both pronunciations are quite different. So, when I traveled in the US before, I experienced a very interesting “affair”.


On that trip, I went to a food court with my friend. It was in Los Angeles. We were going to have lunch, so I ordered noodles at the fast food shop. After I ordered, my friend ordered, “One noodles and one beer”. He intended to say “beer” but the shop owner understood the word as "beef". “Beer” and “ビール”. Japanese Katakana is very confusing. My friend was surprised to see beef on the noodle to be served.


Take care.


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