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Englishized Japanese word ?


from_new_world

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I found a interesting word when I was watching MLP TV show.

That word is "skosh".

After googled, I knew that it is a English word from Japanese "少し(sukoshi)".

I'm glad to use a word of my country's origin !

I have two questions.

When are you usually use this word ?

Is this word used in your country ?

I wanna know this interesting thing.

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Ah, I found it. Treehugger said "Could you lower your voice a skosh?" I know the word sukoshi but I never made that connection. It's not super common in English but I have heard it. Like in Japanese it just means a little bit.

 

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As far as I know, it is not a "real" word. Rather, it means a small amount. Like smidge. I think people make up silly sounding words for that kind of purpose.

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6 hours ago, Brony Number 42 said:

As far as I know, it is not a "real" word. Rather, it means a small amount. Like smidge. I think people make up silly sounding words for that kind of purpose.

It definitely sounds like it comes from the Japanese now that I'm thinking about it. The "U"s in Japanese are kind of unvoiced so sukochi sounds a lot like skosh and they have the same meaning.

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10 hours ago, Brony Number 42 said:

As far as I know, it is not a "real" word. Rather, it means a small amount. Like smidge. I think people make up silly sounding words for that kind of purpose.

What's the definition of smidge?  

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For reference, the usage of "少し" in Japan is very sloppy.
If you asked me "少し", I would move as follows.
①砂糖を少し入れてください(Add a little sugar) → about 3gram
少し待ってください(Wait for minutes please) → about 2 to 3 minutes

However, this word is sometimes used as a condescension.
Example: 少し直したほうがいいよ(It would be better to fix it a little.) →Actually, you should fix it a lot.

Similar words include "ちょっと" "少々" "やや" etc. but they are rarely used in strict distinctions.

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Sukoshi means “A little” in Japanese, and Skosh means basically the same thing. Sukoshi is often said like “S’koshi” so I think “Skosh” is taken from it and turned into an English slang word.

I don't know nearly enough Japanese anymore to try using it in a sentence or in context. 

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It's very interesting that the English word Skosh and the Japanese word 少し (Sukoshi) are so similar. :kirin: I always love it when there's a Japanese word that sounds very similar to an English word with a similar meaning, even if it's a gibberish word.
I have no idea if Skosh comes from Japanese or not. I've never even heard it pronounced that way before. I've always heard "scooch"; with an Ooh sound. (スクーチ?). It basically means the same thing.

Not sure if that's because I grew up in the south or if the word got spread around so much that it lost its original pronunciation.

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