Why does no one understand when I talk about Baskin Robbins?

August 27, 2008 at 2:55 pm (Confucius Lives Next Door, Gairaigo, Japan FAQs and SAQs, Japanese English, Japanese business and economics, Japanese company names, Japanese food and drink, Japanese language, Japanese pronunciation, Japanese shops)

This is one I’d been wondering about on and off for a while, then by chance came across the answer to.

According to Confucius Lives Next Door,the company chose to call itself “31″ in Japan as that is easier to pronounce, although as in Japanese it is written as サーティワン (saati wan) they were at best half successful. Like most written English, the words Baskin Robbins, which although not the official name are plastered all over the stores, are totally ignored

1 Comment

  1. Kelly said,

    September 15, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    Thank you for this! My husband and his family always refer to Baskin Robbins as “31 icecream”. I keep telling him no, it’s Baskin Robbins and he says “no, it’s 31!!!”. Thank you for clearing that up. The rest of the world knows it, why does Japan have to be so different?? I saw Baskin Robbins as the name of the store in Japan when i was there, but they still insist calling it 31. Weird!

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