linguistic roadblocks...

[Risu-chan]

In the same package as those Cain CDs, one of the old CDs I got has been out of print since like 1991. (The aforementioned $2.50 CD... gotta love being interested in something nobody else wants!) It's Horikawa Ryou's "Romantic Hours" CD. (have y'all noticed I'm a seiyuu maniac?)

Anyhow, one of the songs on there was called "Kimi wa suteki na motor dolphin."

Which, as you might guess, translates to something along the lines of "you're a wonderful/spiffy/cool/kick-ass/neato-keen/(insert your favorite superlative of choice for "suteki" here) motor dolphin."

I wish I was kidding.

I spent 20 minutes going syllable by syllable through the katakana, convinced that somehow, somewhere, I was reading something wrong and it wasn't really sounding out mo-ta- dorufin. Nope. I opened up the CD booklet and it was helpfully written out in the Roman alphabet: motor dolphin.

Going through Risu-chan's head at this point:
"@_@ what in the hell is a motor dolphin...?"

I mean, I can even kind of see "Banana Fish" (a manga). There are goldfish, and blowfish, and banana is sometimes used for colors, it could be a banana-colored fish. Or shaped like a banana. Fish and bananas are kind of the same shape, and both edible. It's not a construction anyone who spoke English would ever have put together, but it could be construed as making some kind of sense.

MOTOR DOLPHIN...?!

(shaking head in bemusement)

And the linguistic misapprehensions go in both directions; it's just that we don't tend to let them get into print when English speakers are mangling Japanese. (It just gets into email and the web. ^^; [img]wink.gif[/img]

One of my non-Japanese-speaking friends this morning wrote back to me about a proposed meeting place and time tomorrow. What she was meaning was "That's fine." What she wrote was "genki desu," which means "I'm healthy."

("Genki" is often translated as "fine" in the context of "I'm fine/not sick/not hurt/etc", but it just doesn't work for "fine" in terms of "that's good/that time works/I don't mind.")

And one of my Japanese-learning friends wrote to ask me a grammar point today too. What he was wanting to ask was "If you think it'd be better to write in English, tell me."

What he actually said was something to the effect of "As for mangled-word-resembling-fermented-soybeans, if it can be written in English, I think more is better, so please forgive me."

(shaking head in bemusement again)

You get to see so many amazing things when you're somewhat multilingual and can look at both sides of a monolingual divide... ^__^

[tenjou_sama]

LOL I've got to tell my friend she's a kick ass motor dolphin XD I can just see the look on her face now ^^

[Risu-chan]

(nod nod) I'm SOOOO disturbingly tempted to make that my sig file at my uni account, if it weren't for the fact that (a) it's my work account and (b) I'd then have to try to explain to people what it meant, when this all got started because I had no idea what it meant... ^^;;;

[rev.tsukiyama]

Banana-fish! Gackt's favourite, apparently @_@

BTW, I keep fancy goldfish, but I also have a bit of knowledge about other fish, there might well be something called a banana fish, off the top of my head I can also think of a Crowned Squirrelfish, Clown knifefish, one of my favourites, the Chinese Sailfin Sucker and the Longhorned Cowfish. Who names these things?

[yukawai]

errr, I'll post this here since I hae no idea where to post it and it isn't worth a new treat. In the latest Yami update, onpage 94, Tsubaki names her lover "alman" ^^; after a quick check, the true name is Armand. I think it sounds better ^^;;; gomen.

[crisisdreams]

Armand? Gotcha! I was wondering if it was Armand since that's a pretty common French name, but I tend to stick with the translator's translation since my names always seem to be wrong unless someone else helps me. ^^** (Must...fix...Kafka...names...)

*goes back to change it*