Need a word or phrase translated?

[openstate]

Hello, kumusta! (that is Tagalog)

My Mom is an awesome English language poet (she is Filipina), and she is trying to learn the proper Japanese translation of some of her poems names! It would be great to hear from an actual Japanese speaker - we don't know any, so we are trying the internet! If anyone could take a moment to let me know the modern Japanese equivalents of the following phrases, it would be so appreciated!

1) I Can Eat
2) You (as in You will be okay)
3) I Am Ready To Depend On You
4) Circle K (like the store)
5) Post-Talk Radio (context: "after I listen to talk radio")
6) Wonderful and Frightening
7) Watch Is Mine (watch being a noun, like a wrist watch)
8) The Times and the Times
9) Victims of the Times

I think she has more, but that's all I will post for now. Time to eat dinner of sausage and rice.
Thank you so much!

-O

 

[Mike Cash]

Oddly enough, #2 is really the most difficult.

Why does she want/need Japanese translations of the titles?

 

[Andromedashun]

あなたも今晩はカレーにしませんか。

Sorry if this seems noobish, but does the negative form here have any meaning? (I knew that にします is for decision)

 

[Toritoribe]

A volitional verb + ませんか? is a form for recommendation. When the speaker is also the doer, it's for invitation as same as ましょう（か）？

 

[Shiriu]

Hello, I have a question concerning the meaning of this sentence :
(situation : a man finds a hidden letter that is destined to himself) The letter starts this way :
これはきっと読まれることのない手紙です。
I don't understand the meaning of "のない" here. Is it to negate the part saying that it (the letter) will surely be read ?
So in the end, does it mean "this is a letter that will probably not be read" ?
Thank you for you help.

 

[Toritoribe]

Yes, your interpretation is correct. きっと読まれることのない is an adnominal/attributive clause which is modifying 手紙, so the subject marker が is changed to の.

手紙は読まれることがない。
The letter will not be read.

読まれることがない手紙/読まれることのない手紙
the letter that will not be read

 

[Shiriu]

Thank you. That is much appreciated.

 

[Oshiruko]

This is a bit long, but this paragraph is really tripping me up.
運がいいとか、悪いとかは確かにあっても、それに身をゆだねるのは甘えだ。そう思ってつらさが減るわけでもなんでもない。それに気づいてからは、ろくでもないことと、普通の生活を同時進行できるぐらいには私はいやらしく大人になったが、確かにいきやすくなった。
Here's my rough translation:
"Even though good and bad luck exists, entrusting your fate to the whims of chance is 甘え [depending on one's kindness]. If you think that way (i.e. entrusting yourself to chance), then your pain won't necessarily decrease. After I realized that, even though I didn't like it (いやらしく), I became an adult in order to take the good with the bad, and it certainly has made life easier to live."

My doubts are "運がいいとか、悪いとか" - is that an idiom?
それに身をゆだねる - is the それ the whims of chance, or does it refer to a person? What is the meaning of 甘え if the それ refers to chance?
できるぐらいには - does the には mean "in order to"? i.e. she became an adult so she could ろくでもないことと、普通の生活を同時進行できる?

Thanks!

 

[ningen]

In English there are sentences like "My dream is dead/has died", in which "to die" has more of a figuratively meaning. The dream is not really dead since it doesn't have a heart that stops beating or something like that.

So a sentence like "My dream has died", would that be something like "Atashi no yume wa shinda" or do I need a completely different vocabulary for these kind of things

 

[Andromedashun]

1/天星は不死の薬を焼かせました。

Does this mean that ''Tennou let his people bake the medicine of motality'' here?

2/国際人でいらっしゃいます。

Does this mean this person also belong to international citizens?

3/たぶんけんかもなさったと思います。

What's たぶんけん? けん = health? >> たぶんけんかもしれません?

 

[nnnaaa]

1/天星は不死の薬を焼かせました。

Does this mean that ''Tennou let his people bake the medicine of motality'' here?

2/国際人でいらっしゃいます。

Does this mean this person also belong to international citizens?

3/たぶんけんかもなさったと思います。

What's たぶんけん? けん = health? >> たぶんけんかもしれません?

1) I think you read right.
2) 国際人 means that this person works globally or has the gobal kind of mindset.
I use this site for saerching the example of English or Japanese terms. Please try 国際人。英語学習・TOEIC対策・英辞郎 on the WEB | アルク
3) たぶん、けんかも、なさったと、思います。It's けんか。

> "運がいいとか、悪いとか" - is that an idiom?

It is not an idiom. It is a rough way of saying 「運がいいとか、悪いとか(いうこと）は確かにあっても」.

>それに身をゆだねる - is the それ the whims of chance, or does it refer to a person? What is the meaning of 甘え if the それ refers to chance?
それ stands for the previous part,「運がいいとか、悪いとか(いうこと）があること」, so it means, "it will be too indulgent to allow yourself drifted along with that waves (up and downs of luck) ". Sorry it is not good English, but I hope you get the feel of the meaning.

>できるぐらいには - does the には mean "in order to"?
出来る位に＝so that you can do...
出来る位には＝ so that you can at least do...

>i.e. she became an adult so she could ろくでもないことと、普通の生活を同時進行できる?
「私はいや らしく大人になった」 means, "i became cunningly[slyly, smartly(in a kind of a bad sense)] an adult" enough to at least live an ordinary life at the same time doing life-sucking things.

 

[Toritoribe]

This is a bit long, but this paragraph is really tripping me up.
運がいいとか、悪いとかは確かにあっても、それに身をゆだねるのは甘えだ。そう思ってつらさが減るわけでもなんでもない。それに気づいてからは、ろくでもないことと、普通の生活を同時進行できるぐらいには私はいやらしく大人になったが、確かにいきやすくなった。
Here's my rough translation:
"Even though good and bad luck exists, entrusting your fate to the whims of chance is 甘え [depending on one's kindness]. If you think that way (i.e. entrusting yourself to chance), then your pain won't necessarily decrease. After I realized that, even though I didn't like it (いやらしく), I became an adult in order to take the good with the bad, and it certainly has made life easier to live."

The second sentence means "If you think that way (i.e. entrusting yourself to chance is 甘え), ~"

いやらしく is an adverb which is modifying (大人に)なった.

My doubts are "運がいいとか、悪いとか" - is that an idiom?

It's just a common phrase.

それに身をゆだねる - is the それ the whims of chance, or does it refer to a person?

The former.

What is the meaning of 甘え if the それ refers to chance?

甘え

Amae (甘え) is the nominal form of the verb amaeru, which Doi uses as a keyword to unlock, analytically, the behavior of a person attempting to induce an authority figure, such as a parent, spouse, teacher, or supervisor, to take care of him. The word is rarely used of oneself, but rather is applied descriptively to the behavior of other people. The person who is carrying out amae may beg or plead, or alternatively act selfishly while secure in the knowledge that the caregiver will indulge him. The behavior of children towards their parents is perhaps the most common example of amae, but Doi argued that child-rearing practices in the Western world seek to stop this kind of dependence, whereas in Japan it persists into adulthood in all kinds of social relationships.

The Anatomy of Dependence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

新和英中辞典 says that there is no English word or expression that is the exact equivalent of amae.

できるぐらいには - does the には mean "in order to"? i.e. she became an adult so she could ろくでもないことと、普通の生活を同時進行できる?

ぐらいには means more likely "enough to".

Are you reading Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchen?

In english there are sentences like "My dream is dead/has died", in which "to die" has more of a figuratively meaning. The dream is not really dead since it doesn't have a heart that stops beating or something like that.

So a sentence like "My dream has died", would that be something like "Atashi no yume wa shinda" or do I need a completely different vocabulary for these kind of things

夢は死んだ is also used in Japanese.

1/天星は不死の薬を焼かせました。
Does this mean that ''Tennou let his people bake the medicine of motality'' here?

That's 天皇, not 天星.

焼く means "to burn" here.

 

[Rei Yahya]

]ちょっとだけ
短い間
少しだけ

And probably some others as well.

Thank you!

 

[Andromedashun]

帰りにお寄り下さい。

Is this mean ''Please approach to return''? This seem arkward.

 

[Toritoribe]

Probably this is the fourth, fifth or maybe sixth time you got the same advice, but look up 帰り（に） and 寄る in a dictionary before asking us.

 

[Watermelon]

Hello! I'm afraid I need to bother you with another translation question, if you don't mind...

A girl does something unexpected/not in line with her "perfectionist" image. The other person says 「一応人間だったんだな」. I assumed that he was commenting on the fact that she was actually human after all, but that doesn't really seem to fit with the wording. I guess it's mainly the usage of 一応 in this context that's confusing me.

Could anyone help me interpret this statement? Thank you.

 

[Mike Cash]

You're getting hung upon the 一応 when the key part is actually the use of the んだ phrasing, which is something that most learners either have huge problems understanding or just gloss right over without ever recognizing the significance of its use.

 

[Glenn]

I guess it's mainly the usage of 一応 in this context that's confusing me.

See this definition of 一応:

２［副］
１ 十分ではないが、ひととおり。大略。「これで―でき上がりだ」
一応

I think the んだ along with だった here is for realization/discovery. The 一応 shows that the speaker is admitting she actually is human, but still not up to his standards. I'd probably translate the sentence as "Oh, so you are human after all."

 

[Watermelon]

Thank you so much for the responses!

Yes, I think I was concentrating far too much on the 一応 and letting it distract me from the meaning of the rest of the sentence. I admittedly tend to have issues with that.

Glenn, thank you for the definition and wonderful explanation! I guess I just hadn't really encountered that usage of 一応 before, so I was thinking of it in terms of "temporarily" or "just in case" and getting confused. I appreciate the help!

 

[Diogo Gaio]

Hi everyone.

Would like to know what this image says

If possible, there seems to be another watermaked phrase over the highlighted one, I'd like to know that as well.

 

[Localize]

Would it be appropriate to ask for help with translation of an Android app (Charger Alert) into Japanese? Not sure of the protocol here but I can provide a link to the project if it's OK.

It would be great to have this available to Japanese users.

 

[Oshiruko]

Thanks for the help Toritoribe and nnnaaa!

Are you reading Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchen?
夢は死んだ is also used in Japanese.

Yes, I'm reading Kitchen! I read Kafka on the Shore in Japanese (without an English reference), so i thought Kitchen would be easy, but it's actually much harder for me. Kafka on the Shore had a lot of imagery, which is relatively straightforward to parse, whereas Kitchen has very complex and ambiguous sentences/pronoun references.

The reason I ask for the translation is because I checked out a copy of the English version of Kitchen, and it seems like the translations are off. For example, in the passage I quoted, they translated the 甘え part as the protagonist being spoiled by Eriko (I had to return the book, but I'll check it out again to get the exact translation), which seems not correct.

Here's another part where I suspected that the translation was wrong:
"「今は、君を巻き込めない。二人で死の真ん中にいても、君は楽しくなれない。……もしかするとこの二人でいるかぎり、いつまでもそうなのかもしれない。」"

The English version translated the 可能系 as "should", i.e. "I shouldn't get you involved in this." Can potential form be used in this way? It is in English, but I thought in Japanese potential form only indicated whether you are capable of doing something or not. If the first sentence is meant to only express potential, then this really changes the meaning, I think. It would imply that he wants to 巻き込む her, but he is not able to.

Also, the second sentence seems very odd to me (the English version basically omits it).
It seems like he's saying "Even though we're in the middle of death, you can't become happy."
The use of も (which I'm assuming means "even though") seems odd to me, because being in the middle of death doesn't seem like something that would lead to happiness, so it seems like it should be 死の真ん中にいるから or something.

 

[nekojita]

@Diogo

ローディングウィンドウまで移動中です。
"moving to the loading window"
Beneath is hard to read, but I think it starts チャンネルサーバー接続（something, underneath いどう)しました. Something happened or was done to the channel server connection.
The kanji at the bottom are just 確認 (confirm)

 

[Toritoribe]

Hi everyone.
Would like to know what this image says

If possible, there seems to be another watermaked phrase over the highlighted one, I'd like to know that as well.

The sentence behind ローディングウィンドウまで移動中です。 is チャンネルサーバー接続に失敗しました。"Failed to connect to the channel server."

Are you playing ELSWORD or something?

Thanks for the help Toritoribe and nnnaaa!

Yes, I'm reading Kitchen! I read Kafka on the Shore in Japanese (without an English reference), so i thought Kitchen would be easy, but it's actually much harder for me. Kafka on the Shore had a lot of imagery, which is relatively straightforward to parse, whereas Kitchen has very complex and ambiguous sentences/pronoun references.

The reason I ask for the translation is because I checked out a copy of the English version of Kitchen, and it seems like the translations are off. For example, in the passage I quoted, they translated the 甘え part as the protagonist being spoiled by Eriko (I had to return the book, but I'll check it out again to get the exact translation), which seems not correct.

Here's another part where I suspected that the translation was wrong:
"「今は、君を巻き込めない。二人で死の真ん中にいても、君は楽しくなれない。……もしかするとこの二人でいるかぎり、いつまでもそうなのかもしれない。」"

The English version translated the 可能系 as "should", i.e. "I shouldn't get you involved in this." Can potential form be used in this way? It is in English, but I thought in Japanese potential form only indicated whether you are capable of doing something or not. If the first sentence is meant to only express potential, then this really changes the meaning, I think. It would imply that he wants to 巻き込む her, but he is not able to.

Also, the second sentence seems very odd to me (the English version basically omits it).
It seems like he's saying "Even though we're in the middle of death, you can't become happy."
The use of も (which I'm assuming means "even though") seems odd to me, because being in the middle of death doesn't seem like something that would lead to happiness, so it seems like it should be 死の真ん中にいるから or something.

I think "shouldn't" is a good translation. The potential form can mean ～てはいけない/べきではない in some context. The subject must be the speaker for the case.

As for the second sentence, that's a special usage of the conditional ～ても, just as そんなこと言われても困る. The meaning is more close to ～たら/ては/ちゃ in this usage.

二人で死の真ん中にいても、君は楽しくなれない。 ＝ 二人で死の真ん中にいたら/いちゃ、君は楽しくなれない。

 

[Diogo Gaio]

@Diogo

The sentence behind ローディングウィンドウまで移動中です。 is チャンネルサーバー接続に失敗しました。"Failed to connect to the channel server."

Are you playing ELSWORD or something?

Thank you both, and yes, I was trying to play Elsword. Everything went fine while installing it, but when the game starts, it freezes with that message, and eventually closes on its own.