Globilization.... english

Although it is probably rather cliche... I am choosing to look at Japan's unique and strange use of the English Language.

I have begun to notice that, when talking to my host mother or my speaking partner, English words begin to be slipped into conversation, words that have a Japanese equivalent, and are relatively elementary, in my opinion.

I once received a text from my speaking partner in which everything was in Japanese, except from the word "lunch." Lunch is not a very difficult Japanese word, but for some reason, among the Kanji and other words in the text, my speaking partner chose to spell out "lunch" in English.I suppose I find it interesting, because I have seen so many signs that Japan's language is applying more and more of the west's influence to itself. Since quiz shows are so popular here, I have seen many shows where english-influenced words are the topics of various quizzes. In one game, the shortened version of a longer english-turned-katakana-word was being questioned about (since the Japanese also seem to really enjoy shortening their words as much as possible).

Also, there are many shows in which kanji are the main topic of conversation. It is baffling to see people struggle when using their own language, because these ancient characters (taken from China in the first place) are so difficult and there are so many to learn. There has even been a test created, where kanji readings and recognition make up the entire test.

All in all, I wanted to point out something I have been noticing that goes a little further than silly engrish on t-shirts and miss-spelled store front signs. I think that there is something else going on in the Japanese language, and the way that it is evolving and changing as the world gets ever smaller.
On a slightly related note, I found this wikipedia article about "Franponais" to be rather interesting as well... although not as wide-scale as Engrish.