See, this is why being in Japan melts my brain. We’ve already established that I treat foreign languages like cryptanalysis. So I see this bus go by with a sign on it that reads 市バス.
市 is easy. I know from Chinese that it means “city”. And I know enough kana to know バ is pronounced “ba” and ス is “su”. So I sound it out.
It’s like half of Japanese is recycled Chinese and the other half is a parody of how Americans think English words would be pronounced with a thick Japanese accent.