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In that respect, I miss the word 携帯. スマホ (sumaho, ugh!) feels so uncultivated in such a pleasant language. It was a predictable outcome though. Japanese has a
by Freak_NL 11y ago
In that respect, I miss the word 携帯. スマホ (sumaho, ugh!) feels so uncultivated in such a pleasant language.
It was a predictable outcome though. Japanese has a tendency to abbreviate common words, and the term smartphone (the unwieldy スマートフォン/sumātofon) was imported with the first generations of smartphones.
The German Handy on the other hand (as ccozan mentions)… What a lovely word.
- rangibaby 11y agoI only hear people using スマホ to differentiate them from feature phones ガラ携 (Galapagos phone, also a homonym for "junk phone"). 携帯 is still the general term for "cellphone".
- wodenokoto 11y agoYou see cellphone store advertise feature phones as Galapagos phones, and I believe it was Panasonic or Sharp that even had a line of phones called Galapagos. I'm not sure I get what word "Gara" is a homonym with, to me it seems like a fairly normal word.
- rangibaby 11y agoYes, the Galapagos phone is where ガラ comes from. I've heard people calling them ガラクタ (crap) phones before. It's obviously just slang...
- deciplex 11y agoYou don't need to miss it, as 携帯 is still an acceptable term to describe a smartphone, and frankly I'm not sure スマホ is on track to being a fixture of the Japanese language. Adoption of the term seems a bit spotty. Which I think is nice, because I agree with you that スマホ is a distinctly stupid word.