Dec 18, 2025
My new pet peeve is people who say "sake just means alcohol" when the person in question is speaking English. The English word for nihonshu is sake. When I'm speaking English and I want to talk about Japanese rice wine, I use the word sake because that's what it's called in English. If my non-Japanese friends talk about sake I know they don't mean alcohol generally because they're speaking English.
Sure, if a Japanese learner or someone who only knows basic Japanese wants to order sake in Japan, I'll tell them to ask for nihonshu because otherwise they'll just get a menu for alcoholic drinks. But "correcting" people on the internet (or irl) for using the correct term in the language they're actually speaking? Don't be such a snob.
