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Majestic said:

No, its as we said above.

Suffer the consequences of the Dragon King's sword.
Or, to say it shorter: "Eat the Dragon King's sword".

It's an imperative (command), with the verb being "eat". In this case, it doesn't literally mean "eat", but instead its more of a euphemism for taking the blow/strike of a fist, or in this case, a sword.

In this case, its a taunt being said by the person who is doing the striking. Kind of like "taste the steel of my sword!".

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Mikawa Ossan said:

Not only that, but 竜が我が敵を喰らう literally means "The/A dragon eats/devours my enemies". My proof? I spent years learning the language and lived in Japan for a decade. If you think some rando on Reddit has more credibility than I do, that really doesn't concern me. In either case, it does you a service to double-check, because what am I but some rando on Jref? lol

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Grandpa Frank said:

AND....just so you know , using the "F" word by anyone makes them look like a low IQ thug wannabe , please stop.
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Mikawa Ossan said:

@derekiscool , notice the difference in the way we qualify our translations: 'roughly' vs 'literally'

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derekiscool said:

@Majestic @Mikawa Ossan This is what i meant to post.

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Mikawa Ossan said:

I wouldn't necessarily. Just because I am a native English speaker doesn't mean that I can translate English into Japanese better than a native Japanese speaker. It might be true, but it doesn't logically follow. Same applies going in the opposite direction. That's why it's always good to double-check. I'm glad to see that you are doing so!

Having said that, your latest example is a pretty good translation. Given that it is surrounded by the context of the surrounding dialogue, it makes the job that much easier. Also, whoever translated that obviously tried to make the translation sound more natural in English, which wasn't a concern of mine.

It's interesting. One can translate the same thing multiple ways depending on your knowledge base, motivations, and intentions. In general, I tend to be more literal in translation than I could be. When no context is given, that's basically out of necessity. But aside from that, I'm more interested in the actual Japanese language and what it means and literally says than what a natural-sounding equivalent would be in English. I want to understand the Japanese, not the English. For the same reason, I never watch Japanese shows/movies/etc. with English subtitles or dubbed in English.

I had a professor in college who called natural-sounding translations a form of neo-colonialism. I kid you not. That particular professor was from Japan (Aichi Prefecture, of which Mikawa is a part of, in fact).

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mdchachi said:

If the target language is English then you should trust a native English speaker over a native Japanese speaker. And vice-versa for Japanese. I highly doubt "Taste the blade of the Dragon God" was the work of a native Japanese person unless they were completely bilingual.

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Mikawa Ossan said:

You mean 「狐の鉤爪を解き放て！」?
I would literally translate that as "Release the fox's claw(s)!" Who is being addressed is not specifically mentioned.

So depending on the context, yes, that could be a decent translation or oppositely, it could be wrong. You be the judge.

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derekiscool said:

Look up who gaku space is. Then look up Genji English voice lines in Overwatch, then tell me if he's not bilingual.


On a side note.


@Mikawa Ossan since I'm on the topic of Overwatch stuff, is this an accurate translation? Look at the picture.

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mdchachi said:

I looked him up. It says he is a voice actor. It wasn't clear if he was the translator or not. Most likely not.

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Mikawa Ossan said:

There are many Japanese proficient people here who would be more than happy to help you with kanji questions. What does this character mean? What is the character for such and such?
Ask away!
No question is "too stupid", and we promise to be nice in our replies! (This is a thread to help, so negative comments are not welcome here!)

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Mikawa Ossan said:

I don't know exactly what you want it to mean, but it looks like something a martial arts enthusiast would think of. Do you want confirmation of the meaning of the individual words?

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