It’s a misnomer as there is the Chinese Renminbi, known as the yuan. The yen and yuan have similar/same symbol. So people confuse the two as Japanese Yen and Chinese Yen even though that isn’t remotely correct.
When you use just “yen” it should be always known as the Japanese currency. There should be no need for clarification.
The confusion maybe comes from misunderstanding of history as the yuan (yoo-ahn) and yen both can mean “round”, like a coin.
thanks I didn't know that, I typed yen into XE.com's input and it suggested 3 currencies, Japanese first, it was a bit dark and didn't have my glasses so I didn't see that Chinese was Chinese Yuan, I had a minor memory that China also used "Yen" as name of their currency, from some time in high school I suppose, and so I took it as being that.
One suggestion was also Yemen so probably the input has some Levenshtein distance awareness to it
When you use just “yen” it should be always known as the Japanese currency. There should be no need for clarification.
The confusion maybe comes from misunderstanding of history as the yuan (yoo-ahn) and yen both can mean “round”, like a coin.