The WSJ’s Yoree Koh reports the confusion is so bad that Google Japan actually asks users if they’r searching for 尻 (shiri) when they enter Siri. While I’m sure a lot of Japanese browsers are in fact looking for arse online, most of them are just trying to get the scoop on the new iPhone. Not that Siri will support Japanese in the first place.
One (poorly Google-translated) Japanese tweet really says it all: “iPhone devices can talk and magical arse.”
We should have just skipped the liveblog and posted that. [WSJ via TNW]
Flame
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:06 AMI often talk out of my arse, but Siri let’s me talk into it?
jack
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 9:50 AML and R are the same in Japanese. Siri and how it’s pronounced in english sound nothing like Oshiri in Japanese. I can see how autocorrect on a computer would think this new word was misspelled.
Comment
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 1:28 PMYou forget that Japanese has no ‘natural’ SI sound. And the O in Oshiri is an honourific and doesn’t need to be there.
SHI し/シ is used for the SI (ci/cy) sound. (also, non Hepburn romanization specifically uses SI for し/シ)
So yes, they would say SHI.RI for Siri.
olearymo
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 10:19 AMEverything means something in another language.
Wait until we make contact with aliens. It’ll be so awkward!!
Morkai
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 2:27 PMHuman: “Hello, welcome to Earth”
Alien: “What did you call my mother!!?!?!”