japanese is hard, sez barbie

[piranha]

just an example of what a sentence can look like, and why even being able to translate all the individual words doesn't dissipate the cloud of "HUH?" that forms around my head at times: 当然だ当こすりでつきあいはじめたようなものだから.

当然 (touzen)
natural; as a matter of course;
だ (da)
plain copula
当こすり (atekosuri)
snide remark, insinuation, innuendo, cynicism, sarcasm
で
particle location of action; at; in; or time of action; or means of action; cause of effect; by;
つきあい (tsukiai)
association; socialising; fellowship;
はじめた (hajimeta)
started; began;
ようなもの (you na mono)
those kind of; this sort of
だから
therefore; so;

i translate it as "therefore, i naturally began our kind of association due to my own cynicism", and in context would modify it to be more explicit about what that "association" consists of, and try to make the sentence less stiff in combination with the surrounding text. but man, no wonder babelfish totally fails on japanese, and why so many manga translations are unwieldy; one really has to have a good feel for japanese and the target language, and can't fake it.

also, y'all should have a chance to listen to bump of chicken's supernova and only lonely glory. 11:03 minutes of happiness, thanks to aja. *squee*.

Comments

[blur01.livejournal.com]

YAY for me, I actually knew a single word!

(Hajime)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

:). i love it when words start "popping" for me in a foreign language.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I think that's where a bunch of the seemingly pointless exposition comes from on "Ghost in the Shell". The contextual information is lost, and it's very complex, so they have to put it back in place by being overly elaborate with the translations.