Japan Appreciation Thread

Moonlight-Moonlight · Nov 3, 2024

Moonlight-Moonlight · Nov 3, 2024

If you visit Japan and see tendon on the menu, don’t worry; it’s not “connective tissue” that’s being served! Tendon (天丼) is actually a shortened name for a dish called tempura donburi or tempura rice bowl.

Moonlight-Moonlight · Nov 3, 2024

i wonder if "tempura" has its own kanji despite being a loanword (which you'd think would be written in katakana) because it's a relatively old loanword (maybe katakana wasn't as widely-used at the time -- although katakana was invented in the 9th century, whereas tempura was coined in the 16th century, which is quite a significant difference).

Ateji - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ateji as a means of representing loanwords has been largely superseded in modern Japanese by the use of katakana although many ateji coined in earlier eras still linger on.

not sure what counts as an "earlier era"

(sorry that this thread has turned into my personal autism chamber)