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Need a word or phrase translated?

breez;418163 said:
I keep hearing 「ひとりきり」 in some songs, but can't find it in WWWJDIC. Any help?
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ひとりきり is not a single word but two.
ひとり = one person
きり = only, alone

e.g.
ひとりきり alone
ふたりきり only two (of us/you/them... depending on the context)
これっきり only this time = (there's no "next time"), only this one (there remains no others), for example.

The above is noun + きり, but it can be also used with verbs.
 
wallpaperは日本語で何ですか。Something similar sounding in katana? I'm referring to a computer wallpaper, desktop background, or whatever other names there are for it.
 
Fehrant;418661 said:
wallpaperは日本語で何ですか。Something similar sounding in katana? I'm referring to a computer wallpaper, desktop background, or whatever other names there are for it.
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Hi Fehrant!

Desktop is デスクトップ, and its background/wallpaper is called 壁紙（かべがみ）.
かべ means wall, かみ means paper - so you can see, it is the same as English.
壁紙 is not specifically for computer, actually the paper on the wall in a house is also called 壁紙.
 
There is a similar word ぼち, but the nuance is different. ふたりきり sounds like it's a good thing to be alone, just the two of you, but ふたりぼち sounds like you're sad about being alone and want more people around.

I think you'd find ひとりぼち a lot more than ふたりぼち, though.
 

Yeah, ひとりぼっち indeed has a feeling of loneliness.
Sometimes I want to be ひとりきり, but not ひとりぼっち!

Checking ひとりぼっち in a dictionary, I learned that it was derived from 独り法師.
At first I wondered how come 法師 (Buddhist priest) is combined 独り (alone).
Then I realized that it also could mean "person" as in 影法師（かげぼうし） or 一寸法師（いっすんぼうし）, thanks for the dictionary! So 独り法師 = lone person.
Being a native, I take a lot of words and expressions for granted, and often fail to fine something interesting behind them.
 
Hi!
How would you translate following sentence... it's from a book... and the author talks about her holiday... she got a tan in Fukushima... and didn't get one when she was in Guam...
福島で日焼けするっていうのも、けっこうシブい感じだ。 (Kanji and Kana are the same in the book)
so, what I think she is trying to say is: "Getting a tan in Fukushima seems somewhat cheap."
Is that correct? I need to translate the book (into German) as a project for university, so help is really appreciated
Thanks in advance...
 

シブい（渋い） here means "not showy but good taste/refined" with positive connotation.
So she is saying "getting a tan in Fukushima is pretty cool".
 
undrentide;418797 said:
シブい（渋い） here means "not showy but good taste/refined" with positive connotation.
So she is saying "getting a tan in Fukushima is pretty cool".
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I didn't know shibui before, so i looked it up and apparently chose the wrong translation thanks a lot for clearing that up ^-^
 
部長に来月東京に転勤するように言われました

I see this as "I was told by the chief that I'm going to be transferred to Tokyo next month".

The reason "suru" in this sentence is not "sareru" is because of the final verb being the one that defines the rest of the sentence, correct? Or could suru still be "sareru" here?

:emoji_stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
 

I think it works in the same way as it does in English:

部長に来月東京に転勤するように言われました。
I was told by the director to transfer to Tokyo next month.
部長は来月東京に転勤するように言いました。
The director told me to transfer to Tokyo next month.

The mode of the main sentence does not affect the mode of what was said (sub-clause?).
 
されるように言われた I've never encountered such a construction but as a hypothetical thought experiment I would read it with a distinction between the event itself and request for action, as "there is going to be a transfer, as I have been told." or something like that...
 

Ah, that makes perfect sense now. Thank you so much for taking time to explain it. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas by the way. The weekend for me, as long as it was, wasn't long enough. They never are it seems.
 
Hi everyone

Just watched a movie and couldn't catch two variations of "Close your mouth" or "stop staring". I listened to it a bunch of times and still couldn't pick it up.

Anyone know any common, slang terms for

1. Close your mouth (as in stop being so dumbfounded) (I think the phrase started as かわ、 or がわ.. I could be totally off though)

2. Stop staring (as in stop staring and get back to work) Quite a short phrase. Perhaps it's why I couldn't pick it up.
Thank you everyone. It's really nagging at me.
 
MikeM;419636 said:
残念だったね↓
what does that say? thanks.
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It means "That's too bad..isn't it?" or "That's unfortunate...isn't it?"

I also have another quick question:

本当ならあの子の全てを知り、行く末を見届けたいが・・・

I'm a bit confused on the "本当ならあの子の全てを知り" line. I'm taking that as meaning "If it's true, I know everything about that child, and..." I'm not sure if I got the "if it's true (Honto nara..)" part right. And also, "知り" if it were to be (want to know) It would go the full way and be "shiritakute..." and not just "知り" correct?

 

本当なら in this context is used to mean "if things are right, if the situation allows, if I could have my wish, etc."
In this sentence, there are two verbs, 知る and 見届ける .
見届けたい suggests a wish, so the speaker is not describing the present but a wish. This modifies both verbs in the sentence.

More accurately, it means "If things allow, I want to know everything about the child and watch over his/her future (i.e., what he/she will become, whether he/she will be happy, etc.)."

HTH!
 

To put two clauses together, you can use te-form （連用体＋て） but using 連用体 is also possible.
Also here the speaker uses ～たい (want to do ___, would like to do ___) which is for both 知る and 見届ける.
This can be written
本当ならあの子の全てを知りたい、そして行く末を見届けたいが・・・
but to avoid the repetition in one sentence (which makes it sound a bit childish or redundant), ～たい for the first clause was omitted.

本当ならあの子の全てを知り〔たい〕、〔そして〕行く末を見届けたいが・・・
I'd like to learn all about the child and make sure how he's getting along, but...

----
epigene san beat me! I only noticed your post just now. (4 hours later)
 
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I cannot think of any "slang terms" that fits your description, also even rough speech varies depending on the situation (especially what kind of people are talking to whom) but here's that come to my mind:

1. Close your mouth
だまれ
だまってろ
だまってな
うるせえ
うるせえんだよ
口を閉じてな

2. sto staring
じろじろ見るな
じろじろ見てんじゃねえ

just for example.
 
epigene;419730 said:
本当なら in this context is used to mean "if things are right, if the situation allows, if I could have my wish, etc."
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I thought I hadn't understood the meaning of "honto nara" correctly. Many thanks to both you and undrentide for explaining it in such detail. I had spent my entire day listening to a conversation, which that sentence was from, and couldn't quite wrap my head around the meaning.
 
Thanks Undertide.

The thing is, I know all those phrases. That's exactly what's bothering me. After I posted, I did realize that just because the subtitles in English says "stop gawking at me", it doesn't mean that is exactly what the actors were saying. They probably used some metaphor or something.

The movie was BOUNCE KO-GALS.

Thanks for the help.
 
Hi! I'm back with a book-trans-problem ^^;

In this passage she is talking about playing a game called "Dragon Quest" and about being stuck at someplace... and than comes this sentence:

わからなくなった原因がわかればまだどうにかなるのだが、どこがいけなかったのかさっぱりわからなくなり、全く話がすすまなくなった。
(loads of hiragana, but its that way in the book)

I would (roughly) translate it as something like: If I knew where I went wrong, I could somehow make it, but for now I can't go on with the story. (It's a really rough translation, just to convey what I understood... but I'm not the least bit confident, that I understood correctly)

Maybe someone can help me out?

Thanks...
 
If I could get to the reason why I was no more aware what to do,
then that would enable me to do something.
But I could not know at all, what went wrong,
so the story did not go anymore.

Ach, mein englisch ist so schlimm, nein, my english is so bad.
 
まだどうにかなるのだが
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これをSomehow I would still be able to handle/manage itと訳すのが間違ないと思いますね。
 
What is 深蒸什上げ in やぶきた茶を深蒸什上げにしておつくりました。?

I can more or less conjecture the tea that is deep steamed part, but rising utensils ???

Is this their secret recipe or cultivation process on the back of my tea bag ?
 
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