Nissan is a Japanese company that makes cars, vans, and other vehicles — and it is also the name we put on one of those vehicles: “She drives a Nissan.” We write it with a capital N because it is a name, not an ordinary English word. People say it like NISS-un. You hear it in ads, on the road, and in plain talk about cars. It is not slang and it is not a formal word; it is a brand that starts to feel like a common noun once the car is in the driveway. Though actually the name is not English at all. It was borrowed from Japanese 日産 (にっさん), a short form of 日本産業 (Nihon Sangyō), which literally means “Japan Industries.” In Taiwan you already know the same company as 日產; the English is only the sound and the capital letter. There is a different word, Nisan, for a month in the Jewish calendar — that is not this company.