A Japanese person learning English has asked me what クリームパン is in English.

jisho.org [describes
it](http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%83%91%E3%83%B3&eng=&dict=edict)
as "a cream-filled roll", but that may be describing it rather than
translating it. The [Japanese
edition](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%83%91%E3%83%B3)
of Wikipedia claims that the English is "Custard Filled Brioches", and
googling suggests that "Custard Brioche" gets more hits than "Custard Filled
Brioches".

Is "Custard Brioche" the best term for this foodstuff?

![Image of クリームパン](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jqxKM.jpg)
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question
translation food
What is a クリームパン in English?
Yeah in Japan some people call it カスタードパン which would be 'custard bread'. But
that's just custard cream stuffed into a hollow bread, so we don't say it's a
brioche anyway. See the JP Wikipedia link
[here](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%83%91%E3%83%B3)
and there's no mentioning of the word 'brioche' (ブリオッシュ) throughout the entire
article except for the definition.
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I make it a general rule when I translate these kinds of things from Japanese
to English, those being things which may be common in Japanese culture but are
rare or otherwise not present in Western culture, to either preserve the
Japanese word (for example we say 'sushi' instead of raw fish on rice or
whatever) or to go with something descriptive when the person I'm
communicating with might not know what I'm talking about, so like I might say
_natto_ to people who know what it is, but fermented soy beans to others who
don't. Ultimately it's about communicating your point in such a way that you
are easily understood and that doesn't sound jarring.

In this case, and given my conditions, I say you would be perfectly fine
calling it a **cream-filled roll**. Why? Because that's what it is, and if you
were trying to describe it to me as a baka gaijin, if you said to me "It's a
custard brioche!" it wouldn't exactly give me an "a-ha!" moment. Translation
isn't just about finding a one-to-one match for a word regardless of
differences in use between languages. クリームパン in Japanese is simple and easily
understood. Custard brioche in English isn't, unless maybe you're a big fan of
custard brioches.

If you're just looking for the formal English name out of curiosity then you
can disregard this answer. But for the sake of communication just call it what
it is when there's no ready equivalent. I don't really think there's much of a
difference between description and translation anyway. You can almost think of
translation as just describing what something says in another language.
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answer