Kitakami Photoblog

Daily photos from Kitakami, a small town in Northern Japan, and its surroundings.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The old r/l-probleme

This pachinko parlor, named "Estadio", created the somewhat surprising, but nicely alliterative slogan "Entertainment, Emotion, Enjoyment and Ecorogy" to attract customers. Ecorogy is meant to be Ecology (no idea where is the connection with gambling machines). In Japanese, there is no distinction between "r" and "l", the corresponding sound is somewhere in-between them, so in foreign words, these letters are often mixed up in a quite funny way.
If you don't know what pachinko is: A highly popular mixture between slotmachine and pinball, played all over Japan in giant, loud and smoky parlors; the best way to lose time and money and get nothing in return. And millions and millions of Japanese go there every day.

2 Comments:

Blogger GMG said...

r/l is usually amazing...
Loved your blog, in particular the post on the rice cooker! I'll try to find one...
Gil

8:57 PM  
Anonymous Glass Doors Midland said...

Thanks, great blog.

7:25 AM  

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