Today I took my first course in Japanese language and my teacher gave me a bilingual book for Japanese language beginners. I skimmed it all and started wondering why the authors only use rarely used English terms to translate new Japanese words.

For example, Hazukashii (恥ずかしい) = ignominious, shoddy, opprobrious.

I looked at the first page and found that the authors names are written in Katakana, and they are English native speakers. Why do they do so ? I am afraid I may make listeners laugh if I accidentally say something like "I am ignominious because I...."; the listeners if they are not native speakers or are not good at the English language will have a hard time to figure out what I mean.