3 ms·

'Karaoke' too. Originally, 'kara'-'okestura' - a compound word short for 'box-orchestra'.

• jrockway 10y ago
  The kara is not 空 as in empty?
  • glandium 10y ago
    It is.
    • frooxie 10y ago
      A weird detail is the Chinese transliteration of "karaoke":卡拉ＯＫ. It starts out with two Chinese characters pronounced "ka" and "la", and then tacks on the English "OK": ka-la-OK. So the English word "orchestra" turned into "OK" after two transliterations.