Need a word or phrase translated?

[Toritoribe]

Hello! I have a personal “seal” that was designed by a Japanese man and his wife at an Asian fair in Hamburg, many years ago. I’m thinking of having it tattooed, but I’d like to make sure it’s not some dodgy random stuff before I do so. No one has actually confirmed it since (this was made for me some 20 years ago and I’ve put it on all my paintings, so I really hope it’s legit..).
We agreed on something sounding like MI-CU, a combination of letters in my name. Then some adjustments to make it look arty.
Is it nonsense or does it have some meaning?

It's a stylish way of writing 美宮 (from right to left). It indeed can be read "MI-CU" or "MI-KU". They did a nice work since the kanji means "beautiful palace". Good name!

 

[InDespair]

意気に感じずにはいられない。
I've been having trouble trying to translate/understand this exact phrase, would someone be able to clear up the meaning of it for me?

 

[Majestic]

Sometimes helpful to work backwards:

いられない = Can't live, can't exist, can't "be"...
感じずに = without feeling. Kanjiru would be the root verb, but this has the ず ending which negates the verb.
意気に = 意気 means enthusiasm, spirit, motivation, energy, passion, etc...

Actually 意気に感じる is kind of a set phrase meaning "feeling someone else's energy/passion" or "being inspired by someone else's passion/energy". So the negated form (意気に感じず) would be "not feeling, or not being inspired by someone else's energy".

So it would mean "I can't live without feeling (your) energy/enthusiasm" or to turn it around, "Your enthusiasm/energy/passion is what I live for". That is what I think it means, anyway. There could be some widely accepted alternative meaning that I am missing.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Sometimes helpful to work backwards:

いられない = Can't live, can't exist, can't "be"...
感じずに = without feeling. Kanjiru would be the root verb, but this has the ず ending which negates the verb.
意気に = 意気 means enthusiasm, spirit, motivation, energy, passion, etc...

Actually 意気に感じる is kind of a set phrase meaning "feeling someone else's energy/passion" or "being inspired by someone else's passion/energy". So the negated form (意気に感じず) would be "not feeling, or not being inspired by someone else's energy".

So it would mean "I can't live without feeling (your) energy/enthusiasm" or to turn it around, "Your enthusiasm/energy/passion is what I live for". That is what I think it means, anyway. There could be some widely accepted alternative meaning that I am missing.

I've always thought of the ずにはいられない pattern as something along the lines of "I can't help but..." in English.

 

[Majestic]

Yes that works much better: I can't help but be influenced by the excitement of others.
Or maybe more colloquially, ”I can't help but get caught up in others' enthusiasm".

I thought my original one sounded a bit tortured... I couldn't quite hit the nail on the head.

 

[Toritoribe]

意気に感じる means not just "feeling someone else's energy/passion" or "being inspired by someone else's passion/energy", but also implies "and because of that, wanting to do something for them".

 

[Michealin]

I'll preface this by saying I'd have come here before checking the online translator I used, if I'd thought about it.

Yesterday while contemplating the name of a phoenixfolk PNG/Vtuber concept (hanemimi whose central tailfeather has a flame-like tip) I'm working on, I put せいぎょく (sei gyo ku) into an online translator as one word just to see if it's a real word (obviously is, in a roundabout way) because it's the name of a retired roleplay character (no picture of her because all are NSFW) and got "production" as its translation. Yet, when I just reversed the translation, "seisan" (生産) and "seizō" (製造) were given as translations. Thus, what's the correct translation of "production"? Please provide romaji for any translations not mentioned above as well because I can't read Japanese.

Expect doubled vowels to represent long vowels (cf. uu for ū)

 

[Toritoribe]

I put せいぎょく (sei gyo ku) into an online translator as one word just to see if it's a real word (obviously is, in a roundabout way) because it's the name of a retired roleplay character (no picture of her because all are NSFW) and got "production" as its translation.

I don't know which online translator you used, せいぎょく doesn't mean "production". The only one meaning of せいぎょく as a common noun is 青玉, i.e., "sapphire" (it can also refer to "bamboo", though). There can be many other proper nouns of the same pronunciation, but the meaning differs depending on the kanji of the word.

Please provide romaji for any translations not mentioned above as well because I can't read Japanese.

Really?? There are tons of kanji/hiragana/katakana Japanese words without romaji in our replies to your posts so far, aren't there?

EDIT:
I checked Google Translate, and indeed it gives the translation "production".

Google Translate

Google's service, offered free of charge, instantly translates words, phrases, and web pages between English and over 100 other languages.

translate.google.com

And here's a result of a chat with Bing AI.

me: 「せいぎょく」を英訳して

AI: 「せいぎょく」は英語で「politics」という意味です。

「politics」は「政治」じゃないの？

はい、正確には「politics」は「政治」を意味します。私の誤りでした。お詫び申し上げます。

回答を生成しています…

「せいぎょく」は、「政治」という意味です。私の前回の回答が誤りであったことをお詫び申し上げます。
詳細情報:
1. bing.com
2. dictionary.goo.ne.jp
3. weblio.jp
4. kotobank.jp
5. ja.wikipedia.org
6. kotobank.jp
+3 その他

そのソースのどこを見ても「せいぎょく」は「政治」という意味だとは書いてないけど？

おっしゃる通りでした。私の誤りでした。誤った情報をお伝えしてしまい、申し訳ありませんでした。正確には、「せいぎょく」は「政治」という意味です。

だからどこにも「せいぎょく」は「政治」だとは書いてないですよ。そもそもそれは誤りだと自分で繰り返してるじゃないですか。

申し訳ありません。私の誤りでした。今回の会話を終了させていただきます。

Bing repeated the same wrong answer "せいぎょく means 政治/politics", they couldn't show any source, and finally they gave up answering the question. This is another example of how useless AI is (well, probably it's not always so, though).

You need to double-check the result you got, after all. You can find out the correct answer from good old on-line dictionaries, for example.

せいぎょく 青玉
Noun
1. sapphire; jacinth?

https://jisho.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keyword=%E3%81%9B%E3%81%84%E3%81%8E%E3%82%87%E3%81%8F

青玉
読み方：せいぎょく
文法情報 （名詞）
対訳 sapphire; jacinth

「せいぎょく」の英語・英語例文・英語表現 - Weblio和英辞書

「せいぎょく」は英語でどう表現する？【対訳】sapphire, jacinth... - 1000万語以上収録！英訳・英文・英単語の使い分けならWeblio英和・和英辞書

ejje.weblio.jp

 

[Michealin]

Thank you for the help, Totritoribe. I would've immediately thought to use one of the dictionaries you provided or Wiktionary, if I hadn't done it right before going to bed. Of course, I've seen everyone's roomaji-free replies throughout the translations section. I just like having roomaji to help with approximate pronunciation while not having to reference something else, especially for kanji. I'm drawn to caligraphy-based languages, like Japanese, because they're, simply, beautiful to look at. I, even, came up with a few phrases for one I ddabbled with creating in high school. But, I, promptly, scrapped it because I didn't know how to properly conlang back then.

 

[Buntaro]

The word for alligator/crocodile in Japanese is わに (wani). But does the Japanese language distinguish between alligator and crocodile?

 

[mdchachi]

The word for alligator/crocodile in Japanese is わに (wani). But does the Japanese language distinguish between alligator and crocodile?

Yes of course. If you want to be more specific, you can use アリゲーター for alligator and クロコダイル for crocodile.