This might be hard to understand if you don't know Japanese, but I'll try to convey it the best I can. I've loved everything Japanese since I was a kid and I've studied the language on and off throughout the years. A couple years ago, I saw a sign with the word "welcome" written in many languages.
I'm also a language nerd and I could read the sign in almost every language, French, Spanish, German, and then there was the Japanese. I looked at it and thought it was spelled wrong. I noticed that よこそう (yokosou) was missing the "う" on the end, but had an "う" in the first syllable and it read "ようこそ" (youkoso). (The "う" creates the long vowel sound). I immediately Googled my college Japanese textbook of the same name and I saw that it also read "ようこそ" (youkoso).
I wondered how I could have made a mistake. Even though I hadn't studied Japanese in a few years, this was one word I remembered vividly because it was the name of the textbook in my FIRST EVER Japanese class. As usual with The Mandela Effect, I later learned that my first instinct was right!
My first way of knowing how to spell this word came up in Google translate.
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| Short vowel on 1st syllable, long vowel on 3rd syllable |
When I typed the word in without the "う", the suggestion added it at the end.
I've found many signs with it written as I remember. None are written as "よう" with the long vowel on the first syllable.
Someone in this language forum is asking the meaning of "よこそう" and they spell it the way I remember.
Forget foreigners, I think that Japanese people, themselves, should know how to spell basic words in their language.
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| 1st word in parenthesis |
It's strange that I found this sign with the "う" spray-painted out in the end of the word, even though the caption is written as "よこそう".
My Japanese is not fluent, so if there are any Japanese-speaking people out there, please help me out on this one. Is there any reason why this word would have two different spellings?
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