Extraordinary Ordinary Guy In Japan

Comical Synchronicity

Most of foreign words are converted to KATAKANA characters when they are imported to Japan. Of course those 45 types of characters can not describe every words from every other country completely. We select a KATAKANA character which has most similar pronunciation to each syllable of original words. Since there is no Japanese pronunciation for both L and R, these two consonants are converted to the same Japanese consonant. So they always confuse us.
And when we pronounce those imported foreign words, we follow the pronunciations of those KATAKANAs. This custom prevents us from improving speaking foreign language.
Sometimes the same foreign word has several ways of description in KATAKANA, because those conversions are very subjective. For example, the English word "mobile" had been described like (MOHBIRU), but it has changed to (MOBAIRU) in these years.

Sometimes, those converted foreign words happen to have the same pronunciation as other Japanese words. And on rare occasions, these foreign and domestic words happen to be related in their meanings. It's so funny.

Because a new pope was elected several days ago, the word "Conclave" (the conference for election of the pope) has been seen many times on news reports. Conclave is written in KATAKANA like (KONKURAHBE) and this pronunciation is very similar to Japanese word (KONKURABE) which means "patience contest". I heard that the word "Conclave" came from the meaning of "with a key" because the voting cardinals are confined in a room not to be influenced by anyone else while the election goes on. So it's very funny since they must have been required to be patient in those several days. It's just like a patience contest, isn't it?

"Taberna", which means "restaurant" in Greek, is converted to (TABERUNA). It has the same pronunciation as (TABERUNA) which means "do not eat".

In the following examples, each pair of words does not have any relation in their meanings. But, I think they're still funny.

"Scheveningen" is a name of a place in The Hague, The Netherlands. If you write it with KATAKANA like (SUKEBENINGEN), its pronunciation changes to be the same as (SUKEBENINGEN --lechery human).

There is an island named "Erromango" in Vanuatu and it seems to be a very beautiful place to visit. But please forgive us that we can't help associate its name with (EROMANGA --erotic comics).

Her name is mostly called as (YUMA) by Japanese people because "Uma" means (UMA --horse). "Horse" may not be suitable for the name of an actress in spite of her narrow face.

I found "Bimbo" means "shallow woman" in English, "child" in Italian, "bread" in Spanish. Are they correct? In Japanese, (BINBO) means "poor".

It's easy to imagine that some opposite things can be seen. We describe beautiful things as (KIREI), but I've heard that it sounds just like a Thai word "keeree" which means "ugly".

Although it is off topic, I'm wondering what does the word "kuso" mean in Chinese. Because every time I search the word "kuso" (which means "shit" in Japanese, but it's typed with English alphabets in this case) with Google, a bunch of pages written in Chinese are hit in these years. (Don't ask why I'm doing this!) By using an online translation service, I found that "KUSO-culture" in Chinese seems to mean some hilarious or foolish things, but I'm not sure. I'm also wondering whether this came from the Japanese word or not. Please let me know if you have some information about it.

What Is Actually Lost

We can often see or hear Japanese words in a lot of Hollywood movies in these years, like "The Last Samurai", "Kill Bill" or "Lost in Translation".
But we can laugh at their incorrect use of Japanese words no longer, because most of them are grammatically correct when comparing with the old movies of Sho Kosugi's era. (I have watched a ninja movie over 20 years ago that a ninja was repeatedly saying "Sit down and I give you my sword" in awkward Japanese but it didn't make any sense in that situation.) The filmmakers seem to have realized about the importance of good language coordinators.

I saw "Lost in Translation" on US version of DVD and found that there is no English subtitles for Japanese lines on the movie. So I guess many people are wondering whether something was actually lost in translation, and if so, what was lost. So I tried to translate them to English.

 

In this scene, an American actor Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is being directed to star in the commercial for Suntory whiskey. The director speaks to Bob  only in Japanese and a Japanese lady translate it, but she doesn't seem to be a professional translator. Bob starts to suspect the translation is not correct, and to feel uncomfortable with being in Japan.
The following italic words are spoken in Japanese in the movie.

Director: Mr.Bob-san, you're now comfortably sitting in your den. And there is a bottle of Suntory whisky on the table, you know? Please speak with full emotion, slowly, looking at the camera, tenderly, and just like meeting your old friend. Like Bogie in Casablanca. "Toast to your eyes, Suntory time!"

Translator: Um, he want you to turn, look in camera. Okay?

Bob: That's all he said?

Translator: Yes. Turn to camera.

Bob: All right, does he want me to... to turn from the right, or... turn from the left?

Translator: (to the director) Well, he is ready to act. But he's still wondering whether he should turn from the left or turn from the right when it starts...

Director: Who cares about such things! We don't have much time Bob-san, you know? Then quickly give me more high-tension. Look at the camera. Keep staring at it. Slowly, okay? Show more passion in your eyes. Alright?

Translator: Right side, and, uh, with intensity. Okay?

Bob: Is that everything? I mean, it seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.

Director: What you say (in this commercial) does not mean only about the whiskey, you know? Like meeting an old friend, tenderly and gently. And an emotion flowing out from your heart! Don't forget it!

Translator: Like an old friend, and into the camera.

Bob: ...Okay.

Director: Get it? You love whiskey. "It's Suntory time!" Okay?

Bob: ...Okay.

Director: Okay? Ready? Action!

Bob: (to camera) "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."

Director: Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Do you really understand? Or you joking? This is Suntory "Hibiki" which is the most expensive whiskey in Suntory. Give me more high-grade feeling, okay? It's not an ordinary booze!

Translator: Uh, could you do it slower...

Director: (to the translator) Luxury feeling. Translate it!

Translator: and with more ...intensity?

Director: (with pointing his finger to Bob) "Suntory time." (to the crew) Okay? Ready? Action!

Bob: (to camera, a bit more slowly than the last time) "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. "

Director: Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Give me a break!

Bob: (says nothing and scowls at the director)

The funny thing is that the director (I think it's stereotype of Japanese commercial directors) says only abstract things and there's no logical direction at all. So Bob would not understand him even if his words were translated correctly.
When the classic movie Casablanca was released in Japan, the lines, "Here is looking at you, kid" were translated quite lyrically like "Toast to your eyes" in Japanese by some oldtime translator. So many Japanese people believe that Humphrey Bogart actually said so in the movie.

And one more funny thing I found on another DVD. In "Kill Bill vol.1", we can see a Japanese actor Sonny Chiba obviously missing his lines in Japanese. In the scene that his role as Hattori Hanzo finishes his new sword and passes it to The Bride (Uma Thurman), his required lines were: "MOSHI KAMI GA TACHIHADAKAREBA KAMI WO MO KIRERU DAROU" (If the God interrupts you to go, this sword can even kill him). It's very serious scene, but the word "TACHIHADAKARU" (to stand to interrupt) is pretty hard to pronounce even for us. In the movie, Chiba once says like "KAMI GA TADA..." and quickly corrects it "KAMI GA TACHIHADAKAREBA". I guess that he must have spoken those lines without any mistakes in another take, but sadly, no one in the editing room might understand Japanese language to find which one was an OK take. Isn't it rare that such a clear mistake remained unnoticed until the movie was released?

In addition, in "The Girl Next Door", Elisha Cuthbert wore a t-shirt that said "A happy new year, January 1st".

Insulting Words

Knowing which keywords people were searching for when they came to my site is very fun. Many people came here just because all of their keywords happened to be included in my posts. And I'm sure most of them would be disappointed that the things they wanted were not in here.

I found out that several visitors strayed into my site when they were searching for "Japanese insults". I have no idea why they would like to know such things. Were they going to make a fool of some Japanese person? Do they really want to do it to my fellow citizen? Mmm... That sounds...fun! I'll help you.

(BAKA)
Perhaps, this is the most simple insulting word in Japanese. It means a fool or an idiot.

(AHO)
This has been mainly used in Kansai, the district around Osaka and Kyoto. Its meaning is mostly same as BAKA.

(MANUKE)
The original meaning of this word is "doing something untimely or too late", and now it simply means a stupid thing or person.

(NOROMA)
A slow person. It's interesting that "to be slow" is looked down on in both Japanese and English.

(HETA)
To be bad at something. HETAKUSO is worse (KUSO means a crap). You better never use this to your partner in bed.

(KECHI)
A stingy person. A miser. Many Japanese people came to be KECHI in this hard times.

(JIJI)    (BABA)
If you say these words to someone worrying about aging, certainly they will get angry. JIJI means an old man, and BABA is an old woman.

(DASAI)
An adjective which means "to be not cool" and is mainly used by young people.

(UZAI)
An adjective that young people prefer to use when they express something fussy or depressing.

(KIMOI)
Young people also use this very often just like above two. This means "creepy".

Cross Translation

I often use Babel Fish Translation, the free online translation service by altavista.com. It's very useful but sometimes it shows us the difficulty of translation between Japanese and other languages.
For example, this is my translation of a quote from the essay by Hyakken Uchida.

I'm trying not to read any books since I've gradually tired to read them. Although I had thought that reading is very worthy, interpreting letters one after another, reading line by line, and turning pages are similar to hearing others talk by my eyes and annoying. I feel the eyes are not for seeing such things.

I think it's terrible, but it may better than this by BFT.

Because those where the book is read gradually became troublesome, try not to read if possible. Book-reading, very much like nice thing, however you thought, picking up the letter each one letter, chasing line, turns the page the going, with kind of those which hear the chat of others, with your own eye, is noisy. With those in order to look at such a ones the improbable air does the eye.

Japanese sentences tend to have no subject and we judge them from the contexts. But the translating program always recognizes them as the imperative sentences. And there are many idiomatic expressions in Japanese language, like "chase by eyes" which means reading. The program seems to translate many of them literally.

Then, how about English to Japanese translation? I made a test. I put this sentence from CNN.com into the program and translated it to Japanese.

We have always suspected that man's best friend has a special ability to sense when something is wrong with us, but the first experiment to verify that scientifically has demonstrated that dogs are able to smell cancer.

And I put the result into the program again and translated it back to English. If these translation and counter-translation are done well, the sentence will keep the original meaning. But...

As for us always man' In the close friend of s something us by mistake it is sometime should verify, as for the dog where the cancer darkens scientifically shows the thing which whether there is the first experiment which is felt doubts the special functional thing which a certain thing which.

I finally found out a way to write a funny text! I don't know where the words "mistake" or "darken" came from and why it repeats "which" so many times. I think everyone should play this kind of cross-translation.

For reference, see the following result of English-French-English translation. Compared with the above, this seems to be almost perfect.

We always suspecté that the best friend of man's has a special capacity to feel when something is wrong with us, but the first experiment to be checked which scientifically showed that the dogs can feel cancer.

Mansion Owners Yearn for Europe

Are you still searching for a ridiculous ENGRISH? I'm afraid it's already a thing of the past. The Western culture fanatics in Japan had bored with English words long ago. (even before they learn them...) Now they prefer French, Spanish, German, or Italian, because these languages have been not known well by Japanese people yet.
People had deceived each other by using strange foreign language, English. If you made some useless thing and want to sell it to Japanese people, you should name your product with some vague English word. Any word will do so long as people don't know its meaning. Misspelling? Who cares? Look, people are charmed by the "magic spell", and are waiting in a long queue to buy your useless thing. It's the moment of the birth of the Japanese wacky Engrish.

But, the power of the magic spell has weakened in recent years because the English language has became popular among Japanese people. People feel any stimulations from English words no longer.
So, what should you do to sell your things? It's easy. Use the words of any other language! It works well especially for sales of the expensive things like a house.

Here is my gallery for the name plates of recent Japanese apartments. (We call it 'Mansion' even if it has only one small room.)
Please let me know if you find any mistake in my translation.

La belle étoile
"The beautiful star" in French.



la belle colline
"The beautiful hill" in French.



Il Consolare
"Consoling" in Italian.



Plaire
"Be liked" in French.



el santa fe
"Santa faith" in Spanish.



CASA FELIZ
"Happy house" in Spanish.



maison de Richesse
"House of richness" in French.



VERDE
"Green" in Italian.



viena parterre
"Viena floor" in French.



Le Sillage
"The wake" in French.



SANCTUS
"Holy" in Latin.



CASA FIORE
"House flower" in Italian.



DAS HAUS AM BAHNHOF
"The house at the station" in German.



Sun Duell
Is "duell" from "duel" in German? Does this owner love the spaghetti western movies? Or did he want to say "dwell"?



Alte schloß
I think "Altes Schloß" means "old castle" in German. Is it wrong?



VIOLA
"Violet" in Italian (Or, "Violated" in French!)

Revenge for Engrish

It may be unavoidable to feel some kind of exotic atmosphere for foreign language. This is very paradoxical. If we study the language and can use it like our native language, perhaps we will stop feeling special for it. We are interested in the pronunciations and characters of foreign languages and are moved to use them, just because we don't know their meaning well.
Therefore, we always misspell and misuse foreign words, like a snack named Pokey. And this feeling is not only a Japanese thing. (I know Japan is conspicuous though)

"cafepress.com" is a on-line store which can sell the things that we designed by ourselves, such as t-shirt and mug. Many unique designed products are put on the store and there are also many stuffs designed with Japanese characters. Some of them are quite humorous for us Japanese, and the people who made them must not expect it.

Although the description reads "says meow in Japanese", some characters printed on the shirts don't even seem as Japanese. But when I look hard at it, it can read "It's a hose."

This is so funny. The Japanese top 5 of insulting words are printed on this shirts, but every Japanese must rather laugh than be angry when you say these words to him/her. Because these all expressions are too classical for the recent Japanese people and rarely used today.
I think the #3 word must be a mistake for "CHIN-CHIKU-RIN". It spells like this.

"When you remove frost of my head, we want the donkey body depending upon me!"
Though I could not get any sense from this sentence at first, I found and really enjoyed this humorous article and got its meaning. But the Japanese translation still makes me confused. It says like "According to my mind, I want the donkey body when you take away the frost from my head part".

It's ungrammatical and hard to translate. This says like, "Japanese language be there"... It does not mention where the Japanese language must be or who must let the Japanese language be there. And the more funny thing is the words printed on its back. It does not have a meaning of "Not just a fad", but it says "Nothing". We always say it when we give someone a cold reply.

Who does want this mug which is simply printed "a stupid"?

No! It does not have a meaning of "poison" at all. This kanji says "a fish".

This one realy amused me with its wacky KATAKANA spellings. It says like...
"Metropaltane"
"Spacial Interview!!"
"Danilovic gardenia and sakura." (...what did he want to say?)
"This job is... very fun because... it's not a job."

Added in Translation

I hope I could watch the foreign movies without Japanese subtitles someday... It seems to be a long way. But I sometimes realize the difference of feeling between the original English dialogues and its subtitles. (Yeah, very very rarely...)
As for comedy movies, though the translator of subtitles always make their efforts to translate various kind of gags, it cannot say that all the efforts bear fruit.

'Rat Race' is one of my favourite, and I especially love this episode. Whoopi Goldberg and her daughter, Lanei Chapman asked a woman (Kathy Bates), who was selling squirrels on the road side, the way to Interstate. Kathy urged Whoopi and Lanei to buy her squirrel but they declined it. Then Kathy told them the shortcut way. When they were driving along it, the road dead-ended suddenly. And during slipping down the cliff, they read a signboard saying...
"You should have bought a squirrel"
Already many weathered cars had been piled up on the bottom of the valley... Funny, isn't it? The madness of Kathy's role reminded me her another movie 'Misery'.

But the Japanese subtitle for that signboard said like this...
"It's all your fault, it serves you right! by squirrel"
I think that the translator thought this was easier to understand that gag, but it seems to be little bit wordy. More simple translation might have been enough. Too much explanation always destroys a joke.

DA-JA-RE

Among Japanese people, humor had been thought not to be important for a long time. For example, the MANGA, which became to be well-known over the world, had been despised by many domestic people until about 20 years ago. Only a seriousness was considered as a virtue, and the persons who like joking were regarded as useless. However, the persons with the capability of making people laugh have got popularity after the 1980s. Some of MANGA creators have became billionaires, and a number of comedians are appearing on TV all day long. In order to be liked by others, people have come to express positively that they understand humor. But, I think that the quality of Japanese humor has not improved so much.

Men of middle age in Japan, "OYAJI", love puns. Since the puns are too boring in many cases, the people who heard that are very embarrassed, but the OYAJI who said that are always satisfied. In Japan, a pun is called "SHA-RE". SHA-RE has also the meaning of "being tasteful or witty". The puns of OYAJI are called "DA-JA-RE" ...SHA-RE attached with prefix "DA" which means being boring.

This is a example of DA-JA-RE.
"Coordinate WA KOU-DE-NEETO!" (The coordinate should be like this.)
Since "KOU-DE-NEETO" (should be like this) is pronounced just like "coordinate", some people (OYAJI) think it's funny. But it's not funny at all for the others. (BTW, The word 'coodinate' is mainly used in a meaning of "combination of clothes" in Japan. I don't know why, though.)

Some Japanese people understand a high level humor, which are tasteful, satirical, and not too vulgar. But, all other people cannot react to jokes which the "punch line" is not clearly shown. Some people love puns because they mistake "success of playing on words" for "being funny". Though people are always wanting to laugh and make others laugh, they don't know what is funny and what is not. They are only searching for the point where they should laugh at. If you come to Japan and watch TV programs, you will be surprised in the subtitles being continuously shown on the TV screen. They are quoting "the spot that you have to laugh at" from the performers speaking. It is for the humorless people to realize something funny is on TV.

I think not all people have humor, and I don't think all people should have humor. I cannot stand only that the humorless people are going to make the others laugh with their tasteless joke.
...And judging from taking humor seriously like this, I also may be one of the humorless person.

Why we are bad at English #3

I heard that Japanese culture is in fashion in Western countries in recent years. Actually, some of my American friends said KANJI is 'cool'. It is the same with Japan. Many of Japanese think English or other Western languages as cool. I think it's a very strange thing because the western culture went into Japan for 100 years or more, And all the Western-originated things except languages ...foods, clothes, arts or even ethics... are very popular for us and already have been part of our life style. Why we cannot be friendly particularly about the foreign languages?

3. Having a special symbolism for English

Though we do not like studying English, We like using English. It is not speaking, writing or reading. We just like using English conveniently as a kind of sign rather than as language. We usually name the various things in English, such as brands, companies, shops, buildings, or title of songs. In that case, the meanings of the words are not so important. We find out meanings in naming in English itself. They are smartness, are cleanliness, or are high-class feelings. Because if we have no idea what the words mean, they never remind us of our restless, poor or insipid life. (I know there are more complicated reasons why we think so, but I'll write about it at the next opportunity) Anyway, In this way, We continue using wrong English in the public scene. It must give a bad influence to the children who are studying or will study English.

Speaking of the name of things, there is one very strange thing. Japanese people think themselves as a member of the group of Western countries. I hear you laughing, But that is actually right. For a proof, We often use the words 'Asian taste' that indicate the atmosphere of Southeast Asia, China or Korea. We regard Japan as not being contained in Asia! The thought is appearing notably in the names of things. When we give the name of goods or shops in Japanese, It specifies that they clearly have the atmosphere of traditional Japan. On the contrary, If we do not use foreign words for the names of the modern things, We feel sense of incongruity. Many of us have responded to such an unnatural situation very automatically.

---

This is my thought about why our English skills are not improved. There are not so many foreigners in Japan yet. The opportunities to speak, read and write English for Japanese people may not increase for the time being. But, there is the Internet now. I think that it's good to let students exchange e-mails with children living overseas. Then they will want to know about English or other foreign languages more. Of course, Not all the students need to master English, But it will give a possibility for the future to some of them. Isn't a school such a place?

Why we are bad at English #2

I think some of you know that there are three kinds of characters in Japanese language. We Japanese have to memorize very many things in the process of mastering our native language. For this reason, Possibly, We may be thinking that learning language is too difficult, than it actually is.

2. Difference of characters and method of pronunciation

'KANJI' are characters imported from China, and are very complicated. We are usually using over two thousand KANJI, and it is said that there are totally about fifty thousand KANJI in Japan. Each KANJI has a meaning of itself. And almost all KANJI have several readings. So spelling and reading of KANJI are so hard to use correctly even for us.
Both of 'HIRAGANA' and 'KATAKANA' are characters that are simplified from KANJI to make them easy to read and write, And each of them has about 50 characters. The characters of HIRAGANA and KATAKANA do not have meaning of themselves like the English alphabet. But, It is different from the alphabet that each characters has only one pronunciation.

Now, When the foreign words came into Japan from the Western countries, the Japanese people of those days did not write down the words in the alphabet of the country which the words came from. They changed the words they heard into the KATAKANA characters by selecting the nearest pronunciation. Possibly, the people might think about that they already had too much characters in Japanese, and worry about increasing of them.

The surprising thing is that the custom is still being followed today. Many of Japanese people like reading or writing the foreign words that changed into KATAKANA, Because it's easier than as in the alphabet. This is one of the reason why Japanese people always make mistakes in English.

For example, we mistake L as R, R as L, very often. Since both pronunciations of R and L cannot be found in Japanese, the nearest one KATAKANA consonant is related to them. So once the English words changed into KATAKANA, we cannot distinguish which characters the origins were composed of. It reduces the necessity of getting to know the correct pronunciation of the English words, Because this changed English are well enough understood among us. But sometimes we are confused that two or more different notations are used to the same English word, Since it depends on the subjectivity of the person who translated the words that which Japanese characters are related to the pronunciations of the original English words.