Toujin No Negoto　★　唐人の寝言

I guess everyone had those times when they don't know a word in Japanese, so they just japanify an English word. It works great for some words, ドラマ dorama (drama), コンピューター konpyuutaa (computer), カメラ kamera (camera). There are a lot of these English words in Japanese today, some have even overtaken their original coutnerparts in many situtaions, like 苺 ichigo, which is often replaced with ストロベリー sutoroberii (strawberry).

These borrowed words are called 外来語 gairaigo, quite literally 'words that come from outside.' Chinese words written in Kanji generally don't count as gairaigo, though I guess technically they are. A large proportion of gairaigo are made up of English words, as seen above, but some do come from other languages:

★　ギプス gipusu - a medical cast (German)
★　カッパ kappa - raincoat (Portuguese)
★　コップ koppu - cup (Dutch)
★　ノルマ noruma - quota (Russian)
★　ズボン zubon - pants (French)

Some words even have kanji! Though, to be fair they are usually written in katakana:

★　倶楽部 kurabu - club or society (English)
★　珈琲 koohii - coffee (Dutch)
★　麺麭 pan - bread (Spanish)
★　煙草 tabako - tobacco/cigarette (Portuguese)

But how about if I asked you what a コンセント konsento was? The logical conclusion would be "Oooh, it must mean 'consent'," but you'd be shot for being wrong. Consento (which actually means a power-point/power outlet) is one of the made-in-Japan-English (和製英語 wasei eigo) that have sprung up over the years. Often these come in the form of catch phrases or shortenings of longer, real English words (for example, consento comes from concentric plug, I think).

Some mean something obvious, some may baffle you:

★　アッポ appo - appointment
★　ベビーカー bebiikaa - a stroller,pram
★　デパート depaato - a department store
★　フロントガラス furonto garasu - windsheild/windscreen on a car
★　ゲーセン geesen - video arcade (from game centre)
★　カンニング kan'ningu - cheating (on a test etc.)
★　マンション manshon - a modern concrete apartment building

Many of them are quite logical right? That makes them a little easier for English speakers. For a fuller list, check out Wikipedia's page on it.