これは何でしょう? Do you know what this is called?
Yes, it is almond croissant.
I talked about almond croissant to my Japanese friend the other day and suddenly realised that the spelling of this word in Japanese is quite different from what we hear in English. In Japanese, this food is pronounced/spelled something like 'aamondo kurowassan'. The first word sounds pretty much same as what we hear in English, but the second word is completely different. I do not know why we have settled with this 'kurowassan' in Japanese.
When it comes to loan words in Japanese, we use a writing system called katakana to write them down. Japanese language learners tend to think Katakana-words are from English and their meaning and sound is pretty much similar to that of the original English words. Sometimes it's true but not always. I do not think the learners would understand what we talk about when hearing 'kurowassan' in Japanese conversation.
I should also note that there are quite a few so-called 'Japlish' words in Japanese. Those words sound like English but completely different from English. For example, do you know what 'muffler' in Japanese is? If Japanese people say 'muffler' in Japanese conversation, it almost certainly means 'scarf'. For some reason, we use the word 'muffler' to refer to a certain type of scarf (which is a long rectangular shaped woollen one for winter). Many Japanese people believe that 'muffler' is referred to that type of scarf and use the word in English conversation. Then of course, many native speakers of English would be puzzled…
Loan words and Japnlish words are sometimes confusing but they are definitely intriguing as well!