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平たい/cater to a wider audience

Kraise

先輩
8 Mar 2013
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Hiho there !

Today I have two questions, again they're more related to real life situations during conversations.

1 - May I use 平たい to describe something such as a plot (of a movie, book) in a 会話 ?

2- What would be a good way to convey the idea that something was "dumbed down to try and cater to a wider audience"? I was thinking of saying "幅広くアピールできるように、凄く単純なものにされた"
But I'm not sure if its safe to say 幅広い in a spoken conversation, also 単純なもの doesnt seem to keep the strong impact of the expression "dumb down", is there a japanese equivalent to this?


Sorry for the rush today, 2 months untill jlpt, gotta return to the books !!

Thank you as always
 
1. As in "flat"? Doesn't sound right to me. Maybe 単調 or メリハリがない
2. Dumb-down... a versatile phrase that can be benign or satirical, or pejorative depending on the situation. It won't shoe-horn nicely into Japanese. I have looked on the web and seen it translated as 単純化 or 単純化しすぎ but I suspect (as you do too, I imagine) that those don't have the bite that you are looking for. Maybe something like 万人受けするために薄っぺらくなっていた
 
Thank you Majestic-san.

Do you think that 万人受け can safely pass during a conversation? I'm often afraid of "polluting" the communication with "difficult" words sometimes, and this one and メリハリ are kinda new acquisitions for my vocabulary
 
Like everything else in Japanese, you're going to have to specify the context if you want something specific.


One example:
より多くの人に楽しんでいただけるように分かりやすく編集された。

Which JLPT level are you going for?
 
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Like everything else in Japanese, you're going to have to specify the context if you want something specific.


One example:
より多くの人に楽しんでいただけるように分かりやすく編集された。

Sorry
I failed to provide enough background on the second question.

1 is indeed about a story, in this case the plot of a strategy game. 2, however is about the movement and control mechanics of said game,(I'm considering it as 操作システム) , that become a lot more simple in the last iteration compared to the first one released almost 17 years ago.

Anyway, your answer is heavily appreciated since the word choice is fairly common and I could easily adapt it to my needs in many different situations.

Thank you Mike-san

edit : 思い切って一級を目指している
 
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As Majestic-san pointed out, it depends on the opinion you have about the simplification. Mike-san's translation is an example of positive nuance.
 
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