Deciphering menus - one word at a time. Today, let’s go to Japan for...

[grocerytrekker]

...tonkotsu, the word which caught my attention this evening.

I hope to contribute linguistically whenever I find a fascinating topic, my dictionaries at hand. I'd be eating a lot better armed with all this knowledge.

I don’t know too much about ramen, but I find the language interesting. So here is a list of words for tonkotsu. I’ve indicated original Japanese words (not borrowed from Chinese) as J.

ton – pig (J: buta) Same Chinese character is tun in Mandarin, don in Korean.
kotsu – bone (same character is gu in Mandarin, gol in Korean)
KATSU– English “cut” (“cutlet”). I capitalized it since it’s originally a foreign word, sort of like karaOKE “empty orchestra” or orchestra with no lyrics.
gyu – beef (J: ushi) and there IS such a thing as “gyukotsu” ramen. Same character is niu in Mandarin, u or oo in Korean.
cho – (J: tori) – bird (chicken). Same character is niao in Mandarin, jo in Korean.
gara – a pure Japanese word meaning leftovers or skeletal remains, so torigara soup would be poultry bone-based or chicken bone-based.

Just a few applications:
butaniku or tonniku is pork
tonshi is lard
gyuniku is beef
gyunyu is milk
choniku, toriniku is poultry
torimeshi is chicken and rice

Next time you see words based on these characters, please feel free to add them here.

[Leonardo]

Niuniu in Mandarin is milk but also slang for breast, also nickname for a little girl.
Saw a sign in China restaurant advertising "warm hearted breast". I hope they meant steamed milk.

[Cattus]

Wow, was the sign for "warm hearted breast" in English? !

But, are you thinking of the word "nai" rather than "niu"? "nai" is milk, "nai" is also breast, "niunai" is milk from a cow, and "nainiu" is a milk cow! But nai is a different character than niu..."nainai" can also refer to grandmother on the paternal side or to a young woman.

[grocerytrekker]

So the character for both "milk" and "breast"

Mandarin - nai
Cantonese - naai
(character not found in Korean or Japanese)

Another character meaning "milk"

Mandarin - ru
Cantonese - yu
Korean - yu
Japanese - nyu (actually as chichi this character does mean breast)

[Cattus]

Yeah, and "ru" also refers to "breast" (rufang).

Dairy products are called "ru zhipin" but I've also heard them refered to in Mandarin as "nai zhipin"

[tokyorosa]

often in japan, you'll see "chi-kin" for chicken, "mi-ru-ku" for milk, "bi-fu" for beef, etc. (See also: han-ba-ga, su-pa-ge-ti, pa-su-ta, coo-ki, ke-ki, su-te-ki, a-pe-ru, ba-na-na, o-ren-gi...)

[grocerytrekker]

Dear cha-u-ha-u-n-do,

appuru and orenji, yes.

It's getting easier and easier for English speakers :)

[shindiganna]

i saw fu-ren-chi fu-rai

[OCAnn]

I once ordered "fu-ren-chi fu-rai" at a hamburger place (Mos burger?) and they didn't understand me. Someone behind me said, "po-ta-to fu-rai" for them to understand my order.

[MeAndroo]

But don't confuse hanbaagaa for hanbaagu. The first is the kind you eat with two hands in a bun, and the second is the kind they serve on a plate with mashed potatoes.

[ben61820]

haha, i forgot about that! thats right, one of them is more like a big wierd meatball thing with 'brown' sauce, right? yknow, in the five years living there, i dont think i ever actually ate one. kind of like a meatload flavor thing, no/?

[Silverjay]

No, they aren't meatloaf flavor. More like salsbury steak. And the sauce isn't gravy, but closer to au jus. I've never seen it served with mashed potatos in Japan. Usually mushrooms, carrots, a couple of slice potatos, and a side of rice.

[MeAndroo]

Now that you mention it Silverjay, serving it with potatoes may have been a host mom thing. Rice does make more sense when it's served in a restaurant.

[E Eto]

Also, the Japanese hambagu seems more closely related to the french hamburger steak, like the one served at La Bonne Soupe in NYC. Here: http://www.labonnesoupe.com/LesHambur...
In fact, I bring Japanese friends here who are looking to have a taste of yoshoku dishes like hambagu, and they're pretty happy with it.

And depending where you go, that weird brown sauce might be demi glace.

[Silverjay]

There's been some nice "Dotchi" battles with hambagu over the years, haven't there?

[grocerytrekker]

hanba-ga- = hamburger
hanba-gu = Hamburg steak.

[ny_expat]

Since the original poster seems to be compiling a glossary, allow me to note some minor problems in orthography. Keeping your convention of using hyphens for indicating separations between syllables, they are:

"bi-fu" for beef ==> "bii-fu" for beef
"pa-su-ta" for pasta ==> "paa-su-ta" for pasta
"coo-ki" for cookie (Was 'cookie' what was meant?) ==> "kuu-ki" for cookie
"ke-ki" for cake ==> "kee-ki" for cake
"su-tee-ki" for steak ==> "su-tee-ki" for steak
"a-pe-ru" for apple (Was 'apple' what was meant?) ==> "ap-pu-ru" for apple
"o-ren-gi" for orange (Was 'orange' what was meant?) ==> "o-ren-ji" for orange
"han-ba-ga" for hamburger ==> "han-baa-gaa" for hamburger

And to add one of my own:

"han-baa-gu" for something which is not a sandwich but served as a small hamburger steak.

[augustiner]

can anyone out there confirm the korean examples above? i just did a cursory look through my dictionary, because the above examples seemed a little off. my korean is horrible, but for example, the word "gyu" given as beef above in japanese...of the small modest handful of chinese characters that i can recognize, this is one of them ( go figure. mouth-stomach memory). this character is the same as the korean for "yook," not "u or oo." my dictionary confirmed this. the same dictionary did confirm "ton" for pork, but in this case coupled with the "yook" i just mentioned, signifying "pig meat." i'm too tired to research the other words.

i'm just curious because i'm used to the more common korean terms for meats, like dwaeji gogi for pork, so gogi for beef, and tak gogi for chicken. but i know there are chinese derived words for these things, too. i just wonder if grocerytrekker's source was all that accurate for the korean ones. thanks.

[grocerytrekker]

The character you are thinking of is "meat".

In Japanese, it's niku, which is "yook" in Korean. In Mandarin, the same character is "rou". BTW, instead of "beef", "gyu" should have been "cow" or "ox", to be precise.

[Das Ubergeek]

And, interestingly, 肉 is pronounced identically in Korean and Cantonese ("yuk"), with the exception that Korean is not a tonal language. Another one is 粥, which is "juk" in both Korean and Cantonese, but "zhou" in Mandarin and "kayu" in Japanese.

[ben61820]

just a general note about the japanese here - be careful not to mess up 'tonkotsu' and 'tonkatsu'. tonkots does indeed refer the ramen broth made with pork bones as a base. tonkatsu, however, is a breaded and fried pork cutlet. just different things altogether that only happen to be pronounced somewhat similarly. can lead to misunderstandings. think if a japanese person wanted to get to "new york" and ended up getting to "newark" (in new jersey - not a nice place) instead becuase of mispronunciation. hehe.

[Louise]

Absolutely. That's one of the pitfalls of Japanese for English speakers. English will accomodate incredible pronunciation variation, Japanese won't. You could easily find yourself saying something perfectly reasonable and intelligible and completely different from what you actually intended.

[ben61820]

and thats why i love it:)

[Silverjay]

Japanese is more or less, a phonetic language and probably one of the world's easiest to pronounce. The issue you raised is less to do with the nature of Japanese and more to do with "user error" or ignorance.

[Louise]

Absolutely. It's been twenty years, but I still remember the teacher struggling to not laugh as we mispronounced shujin for shuujin.

Husband and prisoner, for those who Nihongo shiran.

[grocerytrekker]

Tofu is another good one.

bean – Mandarin: dou Korean: du (kong) Japanese: tou (mame)
to rot, turn sour, addle – Mandarin: fu Korean: bu Japanese: fu

Therefore, doufu, dubu, toufu

[Das Ubergeek]

So here's a question: everyone from Shanghai I know says "xiao hong dou" for the little sweet red beans that go into baozi... and everyone from Taiwan says "hong xiao dou".

Which is it?

[justagthing]

two different dialects? so both can be correct