Quoting tas314:

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In English you may see Shojo (DVD covers etc.) because like anime and manga it has become an English word. In English it no longer has the meaning of Girl, it's only used as the manga/anime genre. Just like the way Japanese borrow English words and change the meaning along the way (Manshon is Japanese for a large western style apartment/condo building for example).

Manshon is just Japanese bastardized pronunciation of mansion which still means a large western style home.

Quoting tas314:

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Quoting xradman:

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Quoting tas314:

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In English you may see Shojo (DVD covers etc.) because like anime and manga it has become an English word. In English it no longer has the meaning of Girl, it's only used as the manga/anime genre. Just like the way Japanese borrow English words and change the meaning along the way (Manshon is Japanese for a large western style apartment/condo building for example).

Manshon is just Japanese bastardized pronunciation of mansion which still means a large western style home.

Loan words often start out as "bastardized pronunciation" of a foreign word but over time they become part of the language. There are a LOT of English words that were borrowed from other languages.

Both my Kodansha and Random House Japanese - English Dictionaries translate Manshon as Apartment or condominium building. Not a large single dwelling home as in English.  Also  here http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict
manshon*
    (n) large apartment (from mansion); apartment house;

Except it's written in katakana.  I disagree with bastardized romanization of borrowed western words unless it's commonly written that way in alphabetical forms.  If you asked a Japanese who knows English to write "manshon", what do you think is most likely?  That he would write "manshon" or "mansion".  They say and write "manshon" in katakana because they can't pronounce "mansion" in Japanese.

I searched for "manshon" in katakana and what do I see for most commonly returned items on google.

mansion.home-plaza.jp/
www.e-mansion.co.jp/
www.nomu.com/mansion/
sumai.nikkei.co.jp/mansion/
mansion.home4u.jp/

Quoting W0m6at:

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Quoting xradman:

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I disagree with bastardized romanization of borrowed western words unless it's commonly written that way in alphabetical forms.

If you mean things like Appurushîdo instead of Appleseed, then I'm in total agreeance with you!

That's exactly what I mean.  I think there was similar thread with Desu noto in place of Death Note.

Comments on issues specific to Asian DVD profiles???

Quoting xradman:

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Let me also start another discussion on an issue that has been troubling me for some time.

Romanization of western words in Asian titles.

For those of you that may not be familiar with this topic, there are frequently western words (typically English) used in Asian titles. For the local audience, the words may be left in western alphabet or more often phonetically converted to the local language.

Examples: (titles are in original western alphabet followed by romanized version of phonetically written Korean in parentesis, I can't enter native characters into this version the board)

Korean movies

Classic (Keulaesik)
Blue (Buru)
Natural City (Naetyeoral Siti)

Japanese movies

Ring (Ringu)
Macross (Makurosu)
Love Letter (Rabuleta)

Does anyone find this strange? If you ask any Korean or Japanese to write the titles of these movies using western alphabets, almost no one would write the romanized version. The romanized version of the title is bastardized because, the western words cannot be pronounced or phonetic representation written down accurately using their language.  So why should we romanize western words that they badly attempted to phonetically represent?  There are some exception to this concept. There are some western words that have entered into main stream language similar to how Greek and Roman based words are now part of English.  An easy example is Korean word for bread which is bbang taken from French "pain" or word for bus which is bbus. But these are easy to find. They are in Korean and Japanese dictionary as adopted words.

Quoting W0m6at:

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"You are not authorized to view this page." when I click that link.

It's probably because it's in the Contribution Rules Committee forum.

Quoting xradman:

Except it's written in katakana.  I disagree with bastardized romanization of borrowed western words unless it's commonly written that way in alphabetical forms.  If you asked a Japanese who knows English to write "manshon", what do you think is most likely?  That he would write "manshon" or "mansion".  They say and write "manshon" in katakana because they can't pronounce "mansion" in Japanese.

I searched for "manshon" in katakana and what do I see for most commonly returned items on google.

mansion.home-plaza.jp/
www.e-mansion.co.jp/
www.nomu.com/mansion/
sumai.nikkei.co.jp/mansion/
mansion.home4u.jp/

And what are ALL the pictures of here... http://mansion.home-plaza.jp/special/sp_090304/01.html?cid=sm-pc-01 ?

If the buildings were in Canada or the US this would be called Home Plaza Condominiums

Did you look at your links? They are all high-rise condo ads, not single family homes... 

"If you asked a Japanese who knows English" Forget that ask a native Japanese speaker what a manson is and they will point to the nearest apartment block. Point to a mansion and ask what it is and they will say something like goutei or daiteitaku but not manson.

For examples of Anime where the word manson is used in normal dialogue to describe an apartment or condo building see...
Here is Greenwood (1993), Suzuka (2005), Toradora (2008)

"Except it's written in katakana"
So what? There are LOTS of katakana words in Japanese, like pan (bread) pantsu (under pants) all words that are used every day in normal Japanese. Not someone trying to be cool by sticking broken Engrish into their speech.

Quoting xradman:

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pan came from French for bread (pain)
pantsu as you say is how they shortened underpants.

There are words in English that have changed meaning over the years (such as gay), so you can't expect that words don't change when used in a foreign language.  But Japanese distinguish these western words in their own writing system by using a separate alphabet system from their native words.  If they continue to segregate these words as foreign, why Japanize them when writing them out in ASCII?

I hope you don't take offense, but just to correct a little thing: the majority of linguists seem to agree that the Japanese word PAN came from the Spanish word PAN, also meaning bread. It was imported as a loanword into Japan most likely somewhere in the pre-Tokugawa era, when the Spanish were one of the major foreign traders with Japan.

Not entirely sure what you mean with your last paragraph. Do you mean that by continuing to write foreign loanwords in katakana, they keep (or should keep) their original meaning?
I don't believe that to be correct. The moment they are first used in the language, they are indeed written in katakana because they are foreign but once they get a life of their own as a Japanese loan word, there is no need to switch to kanji. In fact, what kanji would you use then? You would have to find a kanji combination with the exact same pronunciation as well as a logical combination of the meaning(s) of those kanji, like the word densha (train) comes from den (electric) + sha (car, vehicle, carriage). Basically, I think from a Japanese perspective, it makes sense to keep using katakana, even if the meaning of the word has changed over time.

Quoting Danae Cassandra:

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Quoting Taro:

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Quoting xradman:

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pan came from French for bread (pain)
pantsu as you say is how they shortened underpants.

There are words in English that have changed meaning over the years (such as gay), so you can't expect that words don't change when used in a foreign language.  But Japanese distinguish these western words in their own writing system by using a separate alphabet system from their native words.  If they continue to segregate these words as foreign, why Japanize them when writing them out in ASCII?

I hope you don't take offense, but just to correct a little thing: the majority of linguists seem to agree that the Japanese word PAN came from the Spanish word PAN, also meaning bread. It was imported as a loanword into Japan most likely somewhere in the pre-Tokugawa era, when the Spanish were one of the major foreign traders with Japan.

Not entirely sure what you mean with your last paragraph. Do you mean that by continuing to write foreign loanwords in katakana, they keep (or should keep) their original meaning?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think is being referred to is writing titles like Appurushîdo rather than Appleseed.

Oh yeah, in that case it definitely needs to be 'Appleseed', especially since that word isn't even a loanword (appurushiido is not part of standard Japanese).

Erm... people... the title is "Romanization of Japanese actors & crew", not "Romanization of Japanese titles and words".