If you find yourself saying any of these words, stop and think again.

They're not actually English.

They're Japanese.

Of course, the main reason for this confusion is that there are actually many words written in Katakana that are English.

Tomato, camera, orange, yoghurt...

but the Japanese words I'm going to show you today are almost completely different to the English word.

Let's look at some.

We'll start with this tool.

In Japanese it's called pench

but in English, it's called pliers.

Pench sounds a little like the English word pinch, which is what these do when they come together.

They pinch the material this action.

You can also pinch your brother or sister when they're being annoying.

Pinch.

So perhaps that's where the confusion comes from.

As a side note, pliers is also plural so it has an s on the end.

This is similar to trousers, scissors...

pants.

Now, you may think that a scarf is a  kind of light material like this maybe.

In fact, this and this one are both scarf.

The one you're wearing around your neck right now, that's a scarf. 100%.

We don't say muffler in England.

In fact, I've never heard it.

I did a little research online and found out that muffler is actually just an old-fashioned word that we don't use anymore.

So it's best to refer to both things as scarf.

This might be a little surprising.

Of course, this is bottle in English but we don't call it a PET bottle.

In fact, the first time I heard PET bottle, I thought we were talking about a bottle for a pet like a dog or a cat.

You know, a pet's bottle.

But I soon realized that PET stands for what it's made from.

Polyethylene terephthalate.

We also named the bottle after the material but we chose the much simpler word, plastic.

Plastic bottle.

So, while they're terrible for the environment, if you do need to talk about this you should use the word plastic bottle.

Surely this one is English.

Actually, no.

Sha-pen sounds like two English words put together

sharp and pen.

Sharp makes sense because these kind of pencils are always kept sharp.

You don't need to use a sharpener.

But pen has a totally different meaning in English.

Pen and pencil

They're very different.

So, in primary school we'll use a pencil from about ages 6 to 12 and then in secondary school from 12 years old onwards we switch to pens.

So, ballpoint or ink pens.

So, actually we don't use mechanical pencils often.

People usually just use an ordinary pencil.

The word manto comes from the English word mantle.

So, it is English.

Not exactly.

Mantle is a very old-fashioned word that nobody uses anymore and actually I'd never heard of it.

It may come up in old literature or old novels but in daily life and conversation, I think not many people would know what you meant if you called this mantle.

Instead, we use the widely known cape as in for the short ones or cloak for the much longer ones.

I hope this short video has helped you to understand some of those small differences between these Japanese - English words

and the actual English words that we use every day.

If you'd like personalised  English lessons with me, please click on the link in the description box.

Thank you for watching.