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Translation of "No gods, only man"

masterj

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19 Aug 2017
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Guys, can someone help me translate this sentence "No gods, only man" to kanji?

The best I could find was auto translate (attached image). But I feel like this is wrong, no?
 

Attachments

  • no gods only man.jpg
    no gods only man.jpg
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Hard to do this satisfactorily because;
Japanese isn't a kanji-only language. It uses hiragana for word endings and verb conjugations.
There are many kanji-only set phrases, but I don't think there is a set phrase for "no gods, only man" in Japanese. (There might be one in Chinese...).
Inventing a kanji-only translation requires us to think like a Chinese (kanbun) scholar. And, for example, even if I think I have found a good approximation, another Japanese-speaking person may not understand what the phrase is... it will just look like an undecipherable Chinese phrase. Having said all that, and following from the hint you gave, I suggest 無神唯人
As I said, without any explanation, it looks Chinese. Who knows what it might look like to a Chinese person.
 
Agreed. I, a native Japanese speaker, would never interpret 無神唯人 as "No gods, only man". (It seems to be something like people related to atheists).
 
This thread is for translating and interpreting kanji, not for translating English into Japanese...

Anyway, if a translation into CHINESE kanji is acceptable to you, Ayn Rand's "no gods or kings, only man" is translated into Chinese as 沒有神,沒有王,只有人.

Using this as a starting point, you could translate "no gods, only man" as 沒有神,只有人.

If you specifically need a translation into intelligible Japanese, then you'll need to go with something else.
 
Apparently the quote comes from the game BioShock, not from Ayn Rand. Sorry for the mistake.
 
Just one more thing: I've tried different fonts that are available on internet with this text. Could anyone confirm that they are readable by normal people (who can read chinese) and that the meaning is still the same as previously? (please look into attached images)
 

Attachments

  • no gods only man 1.png
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  • no gods only man 2.png
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  • no gods only man 3.png
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  • no gods only man 4.png
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Just one more thing: I've tried different fonts that are available on internet with this text. Could anyone confirm that they are readable by normal people (who can read chinese) and that the meaning is still the same as previously? (please look into attached images)
I prefer #3. Note that your #1 is different from #2, #3, and #4. Also, I don't think you need or want the comma in there - although the conventions of punctuation might be different for Chinese. Bear in mind this is a Japanese forum, and you probably need the validation of the whole thing from a Chinese speaker.
 
I prefer #3. Note that your #1 is different from #2, #3, and #4. Also, I don't think you need or want the comma in there - although the conventions of punctuation might be different for Chinese. Bear in mind this is a Japanese forum, and you probably need the validation of the whole thing from a Chinese speaker.
I agree with all of this. I think it looks best without the comma, and with either a half-character space or a full-character space between the two halves. Try it both ways and see which looks better to you. DEFINITELY have it checked by a native speaker of Chinese. There should be multiple websites through which you can get a native check of something this length for free.
 
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