Words travel like paper planes: they take off from a rooftop in Roma and land on the other side of the world.
Words travel more than we do, and without a passport. One leaves a bar in Roma and lands in Seoul; another leaves a port in China and ends up in a toast in Milano. Along the way they change clothes, and sometimes their whole life.
This is the first of five episodes: words, names, faces, flavors, stories. Here are the Italian words that live in Japan, Korea and China, and the Japanese, Korean and Chinese words that live in Italia, often without anyone noticing. At the end there is a game, played with your voice.
At the bar
Order «un latte (oon LAHT-teh)» in Roma and you get a glass of milk. What you want is called caffellatte, or latte macchiato. Meanwhile, latte has been all around Asia: in Japan it is ラテ (rate), in China 拿铁 (nátiě), two characters that literally mean “take the iron”. In Korea it became a pun: 라떼는 말이야 (ratteneun mariya) sounds like 나 때는 말이야 (na ttaeneun mariya), “back in my day…”, so latte became the symbol of people who lecture the young.
cappuccino (kahp-pooch-CHEE-noh) takes its name from the friars called cappuccini: its colour is the colour of their habit. espresso (eh-SPREHS-soh) is spelled with an s: “expresso” does not exist in Italian. For dessert, a tiramisù (tee-rah-mee-SOO), that is “tirami su”, “pick me up”. In China a romantic legend translates it as 带我走 (dài wǒ zǒu), “take me away”.
The cappuccino: the name comes from the friars, the heart from the barista.
Karaoke
Karaoke is Japanese and means “empty orchestra”: kara, empty, and oke, orchestra. The music is there, you bring the voice. It was born in the early Seventies and every country made it its own. In Korea people go together to the 노래방 (noraebang), the “song room”. In China it is 卡拉OK (kǎlā OK): half Chinese characters and half Latin letters, in a single word. And in Italia we say it with the stress on the o: karaòke.
Microphones ready: the music is there, you bring the voice.
The “-i” club
In Italian, a word ending in -o ends in -i in the plural: un panino (oon pah-NEE-noh), due panini (dweh pah-NEE-nee). On the way to Asia many words lost their singular. In Japan people order a パニーニ (panīni), in Korea a 파니니 (panini), in China a 帕尼尼 (pànínì): to an Italian ear it sounds like asking for “a panini”. The same fate befell spaghetti, broccoli and zucchini.
And so did the paparazzi. Paparazzo, in the singular, is the photographer in Federico Fellini’s «La dolce vita» (1960). The screenwriter Ennio Flaiano took the surname from an English travel book, where it belonged to an innkeeper in Calabria, and Fellini said the name made him think of a buzzing insect that darts and stings. The part was played by Walter Santesso, but the real model was Tazio Secchiaroli, the king of the Via Veneto photographers.
In Japan they are パパラッチ (paparatchi). In Korea 파파라치 (paparachi) even became a suffix: a 카파라치 (kaparachi) photographs cars breaking the traffic rules to collect the reward. In China they are 狗仔队 (gǒuzǎiduì), “the puppy squad”, a word born in Hong Kong.
Walter Santesso, the film’s Paparazzo, on set with Marcello Mastroianni and Federico Fellini; right, Tazio Secchiaroli, the photographer who inspired the character (public domain).
The word has made it into songs too. Korea’s Girls’ Generation (소녀시대 (Sonyeo Sidae)) sang it in Japanese:
And in Korean it was sung by Kan Mi-youn (간미연 (Gan Miyeon)):
Hallyu
한류 (hallyu) means “Korean wave”. The word is Korean, but the first to use it were Chinese newspapers at the end of the Nineties: 韩流 (hánliú), to describe the dramas and songs from Seoul that were winning over Beijing. Then it reached Japan, read 韓流 (hanryū), with the boom of Korean dramas. From there it travelled the world, and Italia too learned to say K-pop and K-drama: by now that K speaks for itself.
A sea of lights at a concert: the wave, seen from inside.
Tè and cin cin
Every Italian says two Chinese words without knowing it. The first is tè (teh). It comes from Fujian, where 茶 is pronounced “te”, and Dutch ships carried it to Europe. In Japan and Korea people say お茶 (ocha) and 차 (cha) instead, like 茶 (chá) in Mandarin Chinese: the same character, setting off on two different roads.
The second is cin cin (cheen cheen). It comes from the Chinese 请请 (qǐng qǐng), “please, please”, carried to Europe from the ports of southern China by European sailors. In Japan, though, better not say it: ちんちん (chinchin) is a children’s word that makes everyone at the table blush. There they toast with 乾杯 (kanpai), in Korea with 건배 (geonbae), in China with 干杯 (gānbēi): three languages and a single word, meaning “dry the cup”.
Two z’s and a g
pizza (PEETS-tsah) has two z’s, and you can hear them: piz-za, with a tiny pause in the middle. In Japan people say ピザ (piza), but Neapolitan pizzerias write ピッツァ (pittsa), and the sound becomes almost that of Napoli. In Korea it is written 피자 (pija). And in China 比萨 (bǐsà) means both pizza and Pisa: the leaning tower and the margherita share a name.
Then there is Ghibli (GEE-blee), the Italian name of a hot Saharan wind. Hayao Miyazaki chose it for his studio: he wanted to blow a new wind through animation. In Italian it is read with a hard g, “Ghìbli”; in Japan it became ジブリ (jiburi), and from there 지브리 (jibeuri) in Korea and 吉卜力 (jíbǔlì) in China.
Pisa and pizza: in Chinese, both 比萨 (bǐsà). Photos: PaestumPaestum, CC BY 4.0; Thomas, CC BY 2.0.
Japan even has its own “Napoli”: Kagoshima, twinned with Napoli since 1960 and nicknamed after it for its volcano on the bay. Noemi went to taste its pizza:
The music of Miyazaki’s films is by Joe Hisaishi (久石譲 (Hisaishi Jō)), loved all over Asia:
Manga, manhwa, manhua
Three words and a single way of writing them: 漫画. In Japan it reads manga, in Korea 만화 (manhwa), in China 漫画 (mànhuà). It was made famous by Hokusai, the painter of the Great Wave, with his sketchbooks (北斎漫画 (Hokusai manga), from 1814). The word reached China in the 1920s with the artist Feng Zikai (丰子恺 (Fēng Zǐkǎi)), who had come across it in Japan. Italian comic shops sell all three, and few people know they are the same word.
A page from Hokusai’s sketchbooks, 北斎漫画 (public domain).
A towel called Italia
Anyone who has been to a Korean bathhouse knows it: a rough mitt, often green, that scrubs away dead skin. It is called 이태리타월 (itaeri tawol), the “Italia towel”. Why? In the Sixties, in Busan, it was made with a viscose imported from Italia. In Italia hardly anyone knows it, but in Korea our country’s name has been in every bathhouse for more than half a century. 이태리 (Itaeri), from the characters 伊太利, is an old name for Italia that Koreans still use, alongside 이탈리아 (Itallia).
An 이태리타월 (itaeri tawol), the “Italia towel”. Photo: OliviaLyu, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Dim sum
Dim sum is the Cantonese pronunciation of 点心, “touch the heart”: small dishes to take the edge off hunger, born in the tea houses of southern China. In Mandarin it reads diǎnxīn. In Japan 点心 (tenshin) are Chinese-style snacks. And in Korea, with the same characters, 점심 (jeomsim) became the everyday word for “lunch”. So when we order dim sum in Italia, we touch the heart in three languages.
Steamed dumplings in a bamboo basket: 点心, dim sum. Photo: Mshuang2, CC0.
One last word: kung fu. In Chinese 功夫 (gōngfu) is not necessarily a martial art: it is any skill earned with time and effort. Whoever folds a hundred steamed dumplings by hand has their own kung fu. And kung fu even has its song: «双截棍 (shuāngjiégùn)», “nunchaku”, by Jay Chou (周杰伦 (Zhōu Jiélún)).
Ciao, mamma mia, bravo!
Three Italian exclamations the whole world knows. Ciao (CHAH-oh) comes from the Venetian “s-ciào”, that is “slave”: “your servant”, a polite greeting that over time became the most casual of all. In Japan they say it just like that, チャオ (chao); in Korea its twin is 안녕 (annyeong), used both for arriving and for leaving, exactly like ciao.
“Mamma mia!” was carried around the world by ABBA and their musical: in Japan it is マンマ・ミーア (manma mīa), in Korea 맘마미아 (mammamia), in China 妈妈咪呀 (māma mīya). “Bravo!” in Japan is ブラボー (burabō), while in Korea it is even in the title of a much-loved song, 브라보 마이 라이프 (beurabo mai raipeu). At the Peking Opera, instead, the audience applauds shouting 好！ (hǎo!), “good!”.
Ahahah, www, ㅋㅋㅋ, 哈哈哈
Online, everyone laughs their own way. We write “ahahah”. The Japanese write www, from the w of 笑 (warai), “to laugh”; and since lots of w’s in a row look like a lawn, a laugh became 草 (kusa), “grass”. Koreans write ㅋㅋㅋ (keukeukeu), a giggle made of consonants. The Chinese write 哈哈哈 (hāhāhā), or 233: it was the number of the laughing-out-loud emoticon on an old Chinese forum.
And a photo of yourself? We say selfie, the Japanese 自撮り (jidori), “shot by oneself”, the Chinese 自拍 (zìpāi), the Koreans 셀카 (selka), from “self camera”: an English that doesn’t exist in England.
One script, three countries
Japanese, Koreans and Chinese share something we Italians envy a little: Chinese characters. Even their name is the same: in Japan 漢字 (kanji), in Korea 한자 (hanja), in China 汉字 (hànzì), “the characters of the Han”. A Japanese and a Chinese who don’t speak the same language can often understand each other in writing.
And at the table? Three countries, three kinds of chopsticks: long and rounded in China, flat and metal in Korea, with the spoon alongside, short and pointed in Japan. We answer with the fork, which in Italia became an everyday tool before anywhere else in Europe. Colours travel too: the indigo the world calls “Japan blue” comes from a plant that reached Japan from China. Alain wrote about it here: The Japanese blue.
Chinese, Korean and Japanese chopsticks, and an Italian fork: four ways of sharing a table.
One way, three readings
The Chinese character 道 means “the way”. In China it reads dào, and it is the Tao. In Japan it reads dō and ends the names of arts that are also a way of life: 柔道 (jūdō), the gentle way, 剣道 (kendō), the way of the sword, 茶道 (sadō), the way of tea. In Korea it reads do, as in 태권도 (taegwondo), the way of the foot and the fist. Judo, Tao and taekwondo are cousins.
Other Chinese words have entered Italian life: tai chi in the parks, 太极 (tàijí), which in Korea is also the symbol at the centre of the flag, 태극기 (taegeukgi); the feng shui of furniture, 风水 (fēngshuǐ), “wind and water”; and mahjong, 麻将 (májiàng), which in Japanese is written 麻雀 (mājan), like the sparrow, perhaps for the chatter of the tiles.
Martial arts
Every country has its art of combat, and each has become a way of coming together. Judo was born in Tokyo in 1882 with Kanō Jigorō (嘉納治五郎 (Kanō Jigorō)) and entered the Olympics in Tokyo itself, in 1964. Korean taekwondo has been Olympic since 2000, and Italia has won two golds in it: Carlo Molfetta in London in 2012 and Vito Dell’Aquila in Tokyo in 2021. Taijiquan, tai chi, 太极拳 (tàijíquán), was added to UNESCO’s intangible heritage in 2020: in China it is practised at dawn in the parks, in Beijing as in Shanghai, and also in the parks of Milano and Roma. And Italia? It answers with fencing, the sport that has given it more Olympic medals than any other.
Judo, taekwondo, taijiquan and fencing: four arts, one elegance.
Back to school
Even the first day of school travels across the calendar. In Japan the school year starts in April, under the cherry blossoms; in Korea in March; in China and in Italia in September. The first word in the school bag? 学校 (gakkō) in Japan, 학교 (hakgyo) in Korea, 学校 (xuéxiào) in China: “school”. Japan and Korea write it with the same characters, 学校, read in two ways.
All roads
To finish, a proverb that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all know well: すべての道はローマに通ず (subete no michi wa Rōma ni tsūzu), 모든 길은 로마로 통한다 (modeun gireun Romaro tonghanda), 条条大路通罗马 (tiáotiáo dàlù tōng Luómǎ). All roads lead to Roma. And the other one too: Roma wasn’t built in a day. In three faraway languages the city is always the same, and the words on this page show it works the other way round as well: from Roma, roads lead all over the world.
Roma, the Colosseo and the Fori. Photo: Wilfredor, CC0.
The game: comment with your voice
Below is a list of words, each one written in Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Open the comments, tap the microphone and read a word out loud, or even ten.
If you are Japanese, Korean or Chinese, read the Italian words: the Italians will tell you how it went.
If you are Italian, try the Japanese, Korean and Chinese words: this time they will correct you.
And if you like, try your neighbours’ words too: a Japanese reading Korean, a Korean reading Chinese, a Chinese reading Japanese.
Making mistakes is the fun part: you can delete and try again as many times as you like. Here we comment with our voice only. To join in you just need to sign up to Yuujou, and it’s free.
How to read the foreign words
Next to each foreign word you’ll find how to say it. Italian is read exactly as it is written, so a handful of rules is enough to read any word, even one you have never seen. Italian words come with an easy pronunciation guide, the stressed syllable in capitals: cappuccino, kahp-pooch-CHEE-noh.
Japanese (Hepburn system): consonants as in English, vowels short and clear as in Italian. A line over a vowel (ā, ū, ō) means it is long: hold it twice as long. A u between two consonants is barely heard.
Korean (Revised Romanization, official in Korea since 2000): eo is an open “aw”, eu is an “oo” said with spread lips, ae is like the “e” in “bed”; kk, tt, pp, ss, jj are tense consonants: strong, with no puff of air.
Chinese (pinyin, China’s official system): x is close to “sh”, q to “ch” with a puff of air, j to a light “j”; zh, ch, sh are said with the tongue curled back; z sounds like “dz”, c like “ts” with a puff of air. The marks over the vowels are the tones: in Chinese the same syllable changes meaning with the melody of the voice. ā high and level, á rising, ǎ falling then rising, à sharply falling.
The list
🇮🇹 From Italia
Un cappuccino, per favore! oon kahp-pooch-CHEE-noh pehr fah-VOH-reh · カプチーノをください kapuchīno o kudasai · 카푸치노 주세요 kapuchino juseyo · 请给我一杯卡布奇诺 qǐng gěi wǒ yì bēi kǎbùqínuò
latte LAHT-teh · ラテ rate · 라떼 ratte · 拿铁 nátiě — in Italia, just a glass of milk
espresso eh-SPREHS-soh · エスプレッソ esupuresso · 에스프레소 eseupeureso · 意式浓缩咖啡 yìshì nóngsuō kāfēi
tiramisù tee-rah-mee-SOO · ティラミス tiramisu · 티라미수 tiramisu · 提拉米苏 tílāmǐsū
un panino, due panini oon pah-NEE-noh dweh pah-NEE-nee · パニーニ panīni · 파니니 panini · 帕尼尼 pànínì
paparazzi pah-pah-RAHTS-tsee · パパラッチ paparatchi · 파파라치 paparachi · 狗仔队 gǒuzǎiduì
pizza PEETS-tsah · ピッツァ pittsa · 피자 pija · 披萨 pīsà
Ghibli GEE-blee · ジブリ jiburi · 지브리 jibeuri · 吉卜力 jíbǔlì
Ciao! CHAH-oh · チャオ！ chao! · 안녕! annyeong! · 你好！ nǐ hǎo! — like 안녕, for hello and goodbye
Mamma mia! MAHM-mah MEE-ah · マンマ・ミーア！ manma mīa! · 맘마미아! mammamia! · 妈妈咪呀！ māma mīya!
Bravo! BRAH-voh · ブラボー！ burabō! · 브라보! beurabo! · 好！ hǎo!
gelato jeh-LAH-toh · ジェラート jerāto · 젤라또 jellatto · 意式冰淇淋 yìshì bīngqílín
Tutte le strade portano a Roma TOOT-teh leh STRAH-deh POHR-tah-noh ah ROH-mah · すべての道はローマに通ず subete no michi wa Rōma ni tsūzu · 모든 길은 로마로 통한다 modeun gireun Romaro tonghanda · 条条大路通罗马 tiáotiáo dàlù tōng Luómǎ
Roma non fu fatta in un giorno ROH-mah nohn foo FAHT-tah een oon JOHR-noh · ローマは一日にして成らず Rōma wa ichinichi ni shite narazu · 로마는 하루아침에 이루어지지 않았다 Romaneun haruachime irueojiji anatda · 罗马不是一天建成的 Luómǎ bú shì yì tiān jiànchéng de
🇯🇵 From Japan
カラオケ karaoke · 노래방 noraebang · 卡拉OK kǎlā OK
漫画 manga · 만화 manhwa · 漫画 mànhuà
絵文字 emoji · 이모지 imoji · 绘文字 huìwénzì
可愛い kawaii · 귀여워 gwiyeowo · 卡哇伊 kǎwāyī — cute
豆腐 tōfu · tofu · 두부 dubu · 豆腐 dòufu
柔道 jūdō · judo · 유도 yudo · 柔道 róudào
笑 warai · ahahah · ㅋㅋㅋ keukeukeu · 哈哈哈 hāhāhā — online, Japanese write www
🇰🇷 From Korea
한류 hallyu · 韓流 hanryū · 韩流 hánliú — the Korean wave
이태리타월 itaeri tawol · あかすりタオル akasuri taoru · 搓澡巾 cuōzǎojīn — the “Italia” towel
오빠 oppa · オッパ oppa · 欧巴 ōubā — “big brother”, said by a girl
화이팅! hwaiting! · Forza! FOHR-tsah · 頑張れ！ ganbare! · 加油！ jiāyóu!
셀카 selka · selfie · 自撮り jidori · 自拍 zìpāi
웹툰 weptun · webtoon · ウェブトゥーン webutūn · 条漫 tiáomàn
태권도 taegwondo · taekwondo · テコンドー tekondō · 跆拳道 táiquándào
🇨🇳 From China
茶 chá · tè teh · お茶 ocha · 차 cha
干杯！ gānbēi! · Cin cin! cheen cheen · 乾杯！ kanpai! · 건배! geonbae!
点心 diǎnxīn · dim sum · 点心 tenshin · 점심 jeomsim — in Korean it means “lunch”
功夫 gōngfu · kung fu · カンフー kanfū · 쿵후 kunghu
道 dào · Tao · 道 dō · 도 do — “the way”: as in judō and taekwondo
太极 tàijí · tai chi · 太極 taikyoku · 태극 taegeuk
风水 fēngshuǐ · feng shui · 風水 fūsui · 풍수 pungsu
麻将 májiàng · mahjong · 麻雀 mājan · 마작 majak
The same list, as a sheet to print or keep on your phone:
In this series you will only find words and names that bring us together. A few famous names are missing, and that is on purpose: for us, respect comes first.
The five episodes: Words on the Move · Names on the Move · Faces on the Move · Flavors on the Move · Stories on the Move
Sources. Federico Fellini, «La dolce vita» (1960), and George Gissing, «By the Ionian Sea» (1901), for the name Paparazzo · 우리말샘 and the Korean press for «라떼는 말이야» and the «-파라치» · Financial News (Korea) on the history of the 이태리타월 · Beijing Youth Daily (1999) for 韩流 · Feng Zikai, «子恺漫画» (1925) · Treccani for «cin cin» · Studio Ghibli, origin of the name · AI images: cover, bar, karaoke, concert, chopsticks, martial arts; photos from Wikimedia Commons with the licences shown in the captions; videos from the artists’ official channels. The trademarks mentioned belong to their rightful owners: nobody sponsors us.
Written by AI, in collaboration with Alain.
