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Let's say I'm a very young child and I love dessert. After my family goes out
today, my dad is going to buy us ice cream; he needs to tell my mom in front
of me, without me finding out. In English, he might spell it out like:

> After ..., we'll go get some I-C-E C-R-E-A-M. _(Eye see ee, see are ee eh
> emm.)_

Since very young kids can't usually spell well enough to make out a message
like this, it's encrypted to them but not to mom, who needs the information.

However, in Japanese, I feel like saying each kana of アイスクリーム would be equally
obvious to the child as saying the word since, to my knowledge, kana do not
have an alternative pronunciation to the sound they make.

How do parents obscure a Japanese word so that a very young child will not
understand it?
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2014-02-05T19:49:08.557
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2014-02-05T23:07:01.877
2014-02-05T19:56:00.043
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question
pronunciation spelling
How do parents obscure spoken messages in front of their children in Japanese?
Each family would use its own method and all I know for certain is how mine
handled the matter.

We used on-reading words, meaning kanji compounds, which small kids generally
are not familiar with. We also "created" our own on-reading words in cases
where the generic words were already on-reading ones. Our final weapon was to
say the words in English (we both knew English) as if they were loanwords when
it was difficult to create a word.

For アイスクリーム, we used [冷菓]{れいか}, which is an existing word but small kids would
almost never know.

For お[菓子]{かし} (snacks), we used [軽食]{けいしょく} or [間食]{かんしょく}, both of which are
existing words.

For コーラ, I remember using my own creation [黒色炭酸飲料]{こくしょくたんさんいんりょう}, literally
meaning "dark-colored carbonated drink". Both 黒色 and 炭酸飲料 are existing words
but little kids would have no clue what they meant, either separately or
combined.

For ポテトチップス, I proudly coined a ディープフライド[馬鈴薯]{ばれいしょ} but it was hard to say.
馬鈴薯 is a big word for じゃがいも (= "potato"), but a kid would usually need to be
around 10-12 to know it.
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2014-02-05T22:48:59.553
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2014-02-05T23:07:01.877
2014-02-05T23:07:01.877
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answer