Interesting Phrase Site

OtakuForLife · Post by **OtakuForLife** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:08 pm

Check it out it's most used japanesepharses for dummies
http://www.cs.mun.ca/~anime/afs/phrases.html

J-0080 · Post by **J-0080** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:21 pm

Doumo ^^

Trident · Post by **Trident** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:27 pm

Wow! With only that guide in hand, I can understand all anime completely without subtitles!

ein-stein · Post by **ein-stein** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:39 pm

Kono anime wa ikura desu ka?
How much is this anime?

As usual, the most important one is last!

Answer: Too much

Now we all can sound like pathetic fanboys/fangirls (jk

)

From toastyfrog.com

Urusei
Japanese for "annoying," it's an appropriate way to describe all those people who pick up two or three common Japanese phrases or terms while watching anime and use them in their daily speech... or worse, throw them randomly into their fanfiction.

I admit that I am guilty of such practices.

azulmagia · Post by **azulmagia** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:44 pm

I've always wanted to be able to use "Anata wa watashi no kanojo naritai" as a pickup line. Or maybe, "Anata no oppai wa kirei da yo!!"

Or perhaps "Domo arigatou Mister Roboto"

Cyanna · Post by **Cyanna** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 10:46 pm

azulmagia wrote:"Domo arigatou Mister Roboto"

Awwww you beat me to it.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 1:21 pm

Well, in defense of using Japanese phrases in fanfiction, some characteristic words just don't translate right.

A character who constantly pauses with 'Ano...' just doesn't sound the same when you write it as "Um...well....uh..." At least for the girls, the english translation makes them sound stupid, while the Japanese keeps it 'in-character' - an uncertain 'cute' sort of pause. And what do you turn the typical 'Ah' or 'aa..." into? Writing 'yes' and 'I see/that makes sense/whatever you say/etc' is a poor translation of a simple sound that is typical of certain characters.

Then there's 'oi' which, I'm sorry, but using 'hey' just isn't a good translation. That's one of the reasons some characters get ruined in the dubbed version of anime - the translation just doesn't have the same connotations that the japanese has.

As for the typical one-word oaths 'k'so, urusei, baka, kissama' - I've seen too many anime killed with the random 'damn' and 'shit' for the first and last because having a character hiss out 'you...' just doesn't carry the weight of an inulting 'kissama'. And 'urusei' may translate to annoying or noisy, but when it's used as a term of irritated endearment, saying 'annoying' or 'idiot' is far from the original terms - the connotations aren't there in the english translation.

Sure, it would be nice to have everything in the original japanese, but it's a very difficult language to learn (compared to Spanish, at least in my experience). And writing a story about characters who are supposed to be speaking a different language is difficult to keep 'in-character' when you have to use words that just plain *don't* translate right. Instead, you get the occassional 'key phrases' that distinguish the character's voice as being as similar to the original tone (in the Japanese version) as possible while still having it understandable for English speakers.

Yeah, me running around calling my friend a baka may be a sign of my rabid fangirlness and inherent fic-writer cliche, but as long as he knows it's more than the translated 'idiot' then I'd rather use that. It's no different from the nicknames and random Spanish phrases I used with my classmates when learning *that* language - calling my brother pobrecito is much better than using the translation 'poor little baby' because the connotations are different depending on the language used.