シネマ

French cinéma, with the accent in cinéma, is the source form behind Japanese シネマ. It is a shortened form of cinématographe, the motion-picture device associated with Auguste and Louis Lumière. Their public screening in Paris on 28 December 1895 made the French term internationally known; the deeper Greek element kinēma means movement. Japan received moving-picture technology soon after. Screenings of imported devices took place in Kobe, Osaka, and Tokyo around 1896-1897, and Meiji and Taishō Japanese used several terms: 活動写真, キネマ, シネマ, and later 映画. シネマ kept a link with French film vocabulary while English cinema also became familiar through film distribution and criticism in the twentieth century. In present Japanese, 映画 is the neutral everyday word for a movie, while シネマ often appears in venue names, media titles, and compounds such as シネマコンプレックス and シネコン. English cinema can mean a movie theater or film as an art form; Japanese シネマ is less common in plain conversation than 映画. It appears in modern chain names such as Toho Cinemas in Japan. Example: シネマ好き means a person interested in film culture.