2023-05-21

Kirei -- Precision And Elegance (Translationisms, Economics, and Management Paradigms)

(If you read this partway through and don't read to the end, you'll probably be misunderstanding me. Maybe.)

My sister shared this with me:


Some Japanese translator thinks his English skills are better than they really are?

I can think of a few more possibilities, from my experience, each as likely as the other:

  1. Translator is not a native speaker of either English or Japanese.
  2. Translator is a native speaker of English, but has been handed a really long list of short phrases to attempt a translation of, and has been given one hour. The translator thinks he or she will be able to come back to this one and fix it, but the manager says, no, we've only budgeted for an hour. English is English. First translation is good enough.

(Actually, I can think of a few more possibilities, such as direct cut-and-paste from Google Translate or pure fabrication, but the above three possibilities are the most likely.)

Just for grins, let's look at a semi-mechanical translation to see where things might have gone wrong. Here's the text:

トイレをきれいに使って頂いてありがとうございます。

Parse it out:

トイレ を|きれい に|使って 頂いて|ありがとう ございます。
Toire wo kirei ni tsukatte itadaite, arigatō gozaimasu.

Look at meanings of vocabulary and grammatical elements:

トイレ: toire => toilet/washroom/restroom/wc

を: wo (general objective particle)

トイレを: toire wo => restroom (as the direct object of the verb)

きれい: kirei => prettiness/cleanliness/elegance/politeness/precision

に: ni (general adverbial particle)

きれいに: kirei ni => prettily/cleanly/elegantly/politely/precisely/carefully

使って (つかって): tsukatte => continuative/participle form of 使う

使う (つかう): tsukau => use (verb)

頂いて (いただいて): itadaite => continuative/participle form of 頂く

頂く (いただく): itadaku => partake/obtain {=>get, polite form} (verb)

使って頂いて (つかっていただいて): tsukatteitadaite => (that we have been able to get {subject} to) use {verb}

ありがとう: arigatou => formal form of ありがたい

ありがたい: arigatai => hard to accept/appreciatable/grateful (adjective)

ございます: gozaimasu => formal be verb with formal ending

ありがとうございます: arigatō gozaimasu => (We are/I am) (very) grateful/thankful (for {objective phrase}). (Literally, {subject} has great gratitude)

Select appropriate meanings and move things into English order:

We are grateful that we have been able to have you use the restroom facilities carefully and cleanly.

Too much translationism, so we want to optimize it a bit, and we can go several slightly different ways. A few of those might be

We appreciate your being willing to use these facilities carefully.

But, nah. Go one more step in this direction:

Thank you for being careful in the restroom.

Or, be more American and turn it into an explicit request:

Please use the restroom cleanly.

I'm not sure which dialect to assign this to:

Thank you for your consideration of others when using the washroom.

Now, having worked through all of this, we can see that the original translation as it was is not really all that bad. It feels funny, but it communicates the idea.

Which brings me to ...

Oh. I've cast aspersions at the current most prevelant economic attitudes already. You did notice that, didn't you?

Let's look at this again, from a slightly different point of view.

Native speakers of English are by far not (I repeat, not) the most common readers of English signage in Japan. People come from China, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Micronesia, Korea, South America, Mars, ...

Hmm. Maybe not Mars. Maybe. But all these people have a few things in common. One of those is that they are probably somewhat conversant in some probably-simplified subset of English, but English is not their native tongue. 

Moreover, when we say "simple English", even though there have been multiple attempts at defining  "simple international English", there is no practical, commonly spoken simple English, any more than Esperanto has achieved consensus status as the international language (even for Europe). 

Chinese as the international language? No one really wants that. (No one but the Chinese communist party.) Three orders of magnitude too many charaters to learn.  (Well more than 30,000, just for ordinary educated adult living.) Even if the construction could be regularized and the radicals could be taught as the basic alphabet, with the constructed characters being taught as root words, or something similar, there is an order of magnitude too many radicals. (More than 500.)

Would the original translation be okay for international, non-native English speakers?

I don't know. According to Wiktionary, urinate, precision, and elegance are defined in simple English.

But does that justify management in refusing to allow the translator time to go back and attempt to make a decent translation? Does it justify management in pushing the translator to make assembly-line translations in the first place?

I don't know about this one, either. I have been that translator. I could not deal with the mode of work, and that is why I don't translate for a living. You can't starve your workers and expect them not to die.

Modern society is a society of affluence without meaning. Affluence without meaning sounds a lot like effluence. We are doing the same things to our economic environment that we are doing to our physical environment, poisoning it by overproduction.

It's true that one man's waste is another man's treasure. Bad translation would seem to be better than none at all.

But there ought to be a better way. All the mechanical help that we have should be giving the common worker time to find meaning, and to give the common consumer a better flow of product to choose from. 

If the guys at the top of the consumption pyramid were not taking all the profits and all the power to themselves, trying too hard to be king of some meaningless hill -- they could pay the workers enough to take the time to get the job done; they could hire more workers to cover the work that needs to be done; they could put out product that gives consumers more meaningful options.


2022-03-18

Negating Lists in English

H: Is this correct?

J: is what correct?

H: She had no eyes, no nose, no mouth.

J: Ah, Lafcadio Hearn's retelling of the woman and the vendor and the traveler on the bridge.

H: Hearn?

J: Koizumi Yakumo. From Kwaidan. Spooky people with no face.

H: Uh, yes. Is it correct?

J: Yeah.

H: Why? Isn't there a better way to say it?

J: Depends on your purpose.

H: Well, you know my ultimate goal ...

J: To pass the college entrance exams with the highest score and get into the best university. 

H: So? Are you going to try to tell me again that college isn't important?

J: Cart before the horse, but we never get anywhere discussing that. Are you willing to try to understand the grammar?

H: Of course.

J: It's going to sound a little like math.

H: You always tell me English is math.

J: Language is a branch of math. English is a language. So's Japanese, but the complexity ...

H: No eyes, ...

J: Okay, okay. In most languages, when you string stuff together, unless you say otherwise the assumption is "and".

H: I don't understand.

J: If you mean "or", you usually say "or". But if you mean "and", maybe you don't really need to say it.

H: Hmm. So what would it mean if I said, "no eyes or no nose or no mouth"?

J: Let's start with a short list, okay? And extrapolate from there?

H: Ex strap O' late?

J: See if we can figure it out.

H: You always make things hard.

J: Short lists are easier.

H: Oh-kay.

J: Peas.

H: Yum.

J: No peas. 

H: No fair.

J: Good. Peas and carrots.

H: That's American.

J: True. Peas or carrots.

H: I'll take peas.

J: Of course you will. But you see that "or" gives you an alternative.

H: Could you take both?

J: Actually, in English, yes.

H: Hmm.

J: No peas or carrots.

H: Uhm, carrots or no peas?

J: That would want a comma to break connections -- no peas, or carrots. But it's a bit ambiguous.

H: I am not biguous.

J: True. I mean, without the common, the no negates or flips the whole expression upside-down.

H: Okay, that sounds like math.

J: Yep.

H: So, no peas or carrots would be no peas, flip the or to and, no carrots? No peas and no carrots?

J: Right.

H: And no peas and carrots means no mix, but it could have just peas by itself?

J: Or just carrots. No, what does "no peas, no carrots" mean?

H: Neither. Like "no peas and no carrots".

J: Very good.

H: Okay, I think I got it. "No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Nothing."

J: Ve-ry good.

H: Would it be the same as "no eyes, nose, or mouth"?

J: Because the comma can mean more than one thing, it gets a little tricky, but, usually, yes.

H: What about "no eyes, nose, and mouth".

J: Heh. In Kwaidan, Simplicity takes over and it means the same thing.

H: Oh, ...

J: Language is not ideal math.

H: I believe that.

J: But you would prefer to write it with "or".

H: Okay, I think I get it. What if ...

J: Uh, huh?

H: I were drawing a picture and had to choose to leave one out?

J: Be explicit.

H: "Draw a face without the eyes or without the nose, or without the mouth."

J: Something like that.


2022-03-12

Ichi Dāsu ・1ダース

At-chan: What's this?
{なんだ? : Nan da?}

Mik-kun: What's what?
{なにが? : Nani ga?}

At-chan: This.
{これ : Kore ...}

Mik-kun: It's a dozen eggs. Or it was.
{玉子の一ダース。だった。 : Tamago no ichi dāsu.}
Now, of course, it' just an empty egg pack.
{当然、今は空パックだけど。Tōzen, ima ha karapakku da kedo.}
Are you saying I should toss the empty?
{もう、空を処分してるはず、と? : Mō, kara wo shobun shiteru hazu, to?}

At-chan: No ...
{いや、とっくに : Iya, tokku ni ...}

Kei-chan: 卵の1ダース。
{Tamago no ichi-dāsu. => one dozen eggs}

At-chan: わかってるよ。
{wakatteru yo => I know. (=> I can see that.)}

Mik-kun: Not to worry.
{ご心配無用。 : Go-shinpai muyō.}
We aren't out of eggs, we have another dozen over here.
{玉子がなくなっているわけじゃない。ここにも一ダースあるよ。 : Tamago ga nakunatteiru wake ja nai. Koko ni mo ichi-dāsu aru yo.}
Fresh, even.
{増して新鮮なの。 : mashite shinsen na no}

At-chan: It's just ... 
{だって : datte ...}
All we ever see in Japan are four-packs and ten-packs.
{日本で見かけるのは、四個パックや十個パックだけだろう。 : Nihon de mikakeru no wa, yonko pakku ya jikko pakku dake darō.}
Well, ten-packs and six- or smaller.
{まあ、十個パックか、六個パックとそれ以下少ない。 : Mā, jikko pakku ka, rokko pakku to sore ika sukunai.}

Kei-chan: 2個増量と書いたるのに。
{Ni-ko zōryō to kaitaru no ni. => It does say 2 extra.}

At-chan: Yeah, so it's a value pack.
{はい。というのはお得用のパックなんだ。 : Hai. To iu no wa o-toku yō no pakku nan da.}
But it's an actual dozen.
{だけど、本物の一ダースの玉子だ。 : Dakedo, hon-mono no ichi-dāsu no tamago da.}
It's kind-of rare.
{なんとか稀だ。 : Nantoka mare da.}

Mik-kun: Maybe not so rare.
{もしかしてそれほどめずらしくないかも。}
They show up fairly regularly at Kansai Supermarket.
{関西スーパーにぼちぼちと出されることはある。}


2022-02-05

If There Were Fuel in the Stove ...

(From a very short scrap of conversation:)
(会話のほんの短い破片から〜)
(This one is not my best work.)
(今回の例文はボクのベストじゃなかったか。) 

F: How was the visit to the doctor?
(診察どうだった?)

D: It was okay, I guess. It's cold.
(まあまあだったと思う。冷えているよね。)

F: Sorry. If there were fuel in the stove, it would not be so cold. I'll go fill it.
(ごめん。ストーブに灯油があれば、これほど寒くなってないだろう。入れて来る。)

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Notes:
注釈:

scrap => 破片

conversation => 会話

visit => 訪問 =>検診・診察

guess => 推測する=>軽く考える=>思う

fuel => 燃料(灯油など)

if => たとえ、もし

there were 〇〇 => 〇〇があるとしたら

stove =>ストーブ、暖房

in 〇〇 => 〇〇の(タンクの)中に

would not be 〇〇 => 〇〇となっていないだろう

fill => 注ぎ満たす、満タンにする

 


 

** "Visit" については、昔は検査などのために、家に来てもらうことがよくありました。つまり、

doctor's visit => 医師の訪問
      => 診査・検診・診察

現在は、病院に診察に行くとしても、"visit the doctor" ということよくあります。

We used to have doctors come to visit us. But we still use "visit" in modern English, even when we are going to visit the doctor.

 

** 石油のそれぞれ

  • 灯油 => kerosene 
  • 原油 => crude oil, petroleum
  • 石油 => petroleum (products)
  • ガソリン(石油) => gasoline, petrol
  • オイル => oil
  • など

In the example above, it's not a problem to say kerosene instead of fuel.
上記の例文では、 fuel の代わりに、 kerosene と言ってもとくに問題はありません。

 **** Caution: ****
Remember that all petroleum products are dangerous. Gasoline is much more dangerous than kerosene, but kerosene can also easily explode when stored under direct sunlight or where it gets too hot.
** 注意:石油製品はみな、基本的に危険を伴う製品です。灯油よりもガソリン(石油)のほうが随分危険なのですが、灯油も、直射日光や高温の場所に保管すると爆発する可能性は充分あります。

**** And never, ever confuse gasoline with kerosene.
** それに、絶対にガソリンを灯油に入れ違ったりするようなことはだめです。絶対にダメ。


** "If there were 〇〇 …" は現在、やや固く感じるのです。
    "If there were ___ ...." sounds a little formal, a bit stiff. We can use softer turns of phrase:

やや砕けた方言としては 

  • If there was 〇〇 …
  • If we had 〇〇 …
  • (仮定分をやめて)〇〇じゃないから… 

Used in the above subjunctive mood examples,
したがって、以上の仮定分の代わりにこれもできます:

  • Sorry. If there was kerosene in the stove, it wouldn't be so cold.
  • Sorry. If we had kerosene in the stove, we could get warm.
  • There's no kerosene in the stove. That's why it's so cold. Sorry about that.

 


Original version (I must have been really tired when I did this.):

(From a very short scrap of conversation:)
(会話のほんの短い破片から〜)

F: How was the visit to the doctor?
(診査どうだった?)

D: It was okay, I guess. It's cold.
(まあまあ、とおもう。冷えているね。)

F: Sorry. If there were fuel in the stove, it would not be so cold. I'll go fill it.
(ごめん。ストーブは灯油があればこれはど寒くはないはず。入れておくわ。) 

 


 

Notes:
注釈:

scrap => 破片

conversation => 会話

visit => 訪問 => 診査

guess => 軽く考える、思う

fuel => 燃料 => 灯油

if => たとえ、もし

there were 〇〇 => 〇〇があるとしたら

stove =>ストーブ、暖房

in 〇〇 => 〇〇の(タンクの)中に

would not be 〇〇 => 〇〇となっていないだろう

fill => 注ぎ満たす、満タンにする

 


 

** "Visit" については、昔は診査に、家に来てもらうことがよくありました。つまり、

doctor's visit => 医師の訪問
      => 診査

現在は、病院に診査に行くにしても、"visit the doctor" ということよくあります。

We used to have doctors come to visit us. But we still use "visit" in modern English, even when we are going to visit the doctor.

 

** 石油のそれぞれ

  • 灯油 => kerosene 
  • 原油 => crude oil, petroleum
  • 石油 => petroleum (products)
  • ガソリン(石油) => gasoline, petrol
  • オイル => oil
  • など

In the example above, it's not a problem to say kerosene instead of fuel.
上記の例文では、 fuel の代わりに、 kerosene と言ってもとくに問題にはなりません。

 **** Caution: ****
Remember that all petroleum products are dangerous. Gasoline is much more dangerous than kerosene, but kerosene can also easily explode when stored under direct sunlight or where it gets too hot.
** 注意:石油製品はみな、基本的に危険を伴う製品です。灯油よりもガソリン(石油)のほうが随分危険なのですが、灯油も、直射日光や高温の場所に保管すると爆発する可能性は充分あります。

**** And never, ever confuse gasoline with kerosene.
** それに、絶対にガソリンを灯油に入れ違ったりするようなことはだめです。絶対にダメ。


** "If there were 〇〇 …" は現在、やや固く感じるのです。
    "If there were ___ ...." sounds a little formal, a bit stiff. We can use softer turns of phrase:

やや砕けた方言としては 

  • If there was 〇〇 …
  • If we had 〇〇 …
  • (仮定分をやめて)〇〇じゃないから… 

Used in the above subjunctive mood examples,
したがって、以上の仮定分の代わりにこれもできます:

  • Sorry. If there was kerosene in the stove, it wouldn't be so cold.
  • Sorry. If we had kerosene in the stove, we could get warm.
  • There's no kerosene in the stove. That's why it's so cold. Sorry about that.

 

2022-01-22

O Tsukare-sama -- Preface/Title/TOC

[Hmm. I got excited about this, and then discovered I don't have time to do it unless someone (some publishing company) fronts me the bread. Oh, well. It's the world's loss.]

O-Tsukare

零石
(Joel Matthew Rees)

Copyright 2022, Joel Matthew Rees

 

Author's Preface

If you deal much with languages other than your mother tongue, you are probably familiar with words and expressions which just don't translate well without context. A fairly well-known example from Japanese into English might be tada-ima, which means literally, "just now", but, depending on context, should be translated as "I'm back." or "I'm home." -- or something else that might seem totally unrelated.

These expressions are derived from both cultural and mechanical context. If you're familiar with the context, you can understand them. But if you're not familiar with a similar context in your original culture, you may have a hard time translating them -- especially if you're translating for an employer that doesn't want to pay you to think.

Some of these expressions are considered beautiful, or especially meaningful. This work takes it's title from one of those especially expressive phrases in Japanese, which, in a previous era, might have been translaughterated as "(You are such an) honorifically tired person."

Having time on my hands and a need to use it constructively doing things I haven't done before, I decided to write up a bit of what I know about such expressions in Japanese and English (specifically, expressions I have bumped into when translating between Japanese and English).


Table of Contents

  1. 只今 (ただいま == tada-ima) => Just Now
  2.  

 

 

Published beginning January 2020 by Joel Matthew Rees in Joel's Random Eikaiwa, a personal blog hosted on Google's blogger platform at

https://joels-random-eikaiwa.blogspot.com/search/label/o-tsukare

All rights reserved.


2020-11-03

Super Tuesday

Matsu: Ah, welcome back. I believe the memory modules you were asking about came in last week.

Hal: Thanks. Any word on the bare-metal ARM CPUs?

Matsu: I've been asking around, and it really doesn't look like anyone is doing that. Let me go check on the memory modules.

Non-chan: Worried about the election?

Hal: Heh. Nah, not really. Well, maybe.

Kay: I'm worried, and I'm not even an American. If that clown Cornet gets re-elected, this world is done for.

Bee: I'm far more worried about what would happen if the former vice-president Call were chosen.

Non-chan: There really don't seem to be any decent candidates.

Hal: That's what has me worried. It's like all the good people in the US have just given up and stood down. Like none of them is willing to make the sacrifice.

Non-chan: Well, trying to be an un-bought president in the US these days means setting yourself up for all sorts of attacks.

Hal: Taking a bullet could be too literal a metaphor these days.

Kay: Well, some incumbents could make themselves less of a target.  I don't think Cornet can do anything that's not stupid.

Bee: Call is any better? Half senile. If he weren't propped up by the party, he'd fall over. And that's another worry, if he dies. His running mate might as well be a communist.

Kay: There's nothing wrong with a little socialism.

Bee: There's nothing wrong with being sociable. Socialism is putting society at too high a priority.

Non-chan: Calm down, you two. We're here to look at memory modules.

Matsu: Ah, here's the memory module you were asking about. Just got it in today.

Kay: Eight megabytes. Wow. Lots of RAM.

Hal: Heh. Yeah. Neo-retro computing has a different set of parameters. Eight Megabytes is plenty for a 24-bit address 3801.

Kay: Do you have any 16 gigabyte modules that work in ordinary AMD-based notebook PCs?

Matsu: You mean like these?

Kay: Yeah. Like those.

Bee: Would they work in the ARM-based computer I bought here last month?

Matsu: Let me see. You bought the Guava Epsilon version seven-point-three, right?

Bee: That's it.

Matsu: Should work. Do you want a couple?

Bee: Yeah.

Kay: I'll take a pair, too.

Non-chan: Do you need RAM for yours, Hal?

Hal: Not today. How about you?

Non-chan: I think 64 gig is enough for now.

Matsu: Did you vote?

Hal: Yeah. I'm not sure it was meaningful for anybody but me, but I sent in my vote for the only candidate I felt I could even half-way support.

Matsu: One of the third party candidates?

Hal: Yep. One more tiny voice to ask both major parties to back off. I wish we had a none-of-the-above, do-it-over choice.

Matsu: That wouldn't support the power structures, though, would it.

Hal: Precisely.

Matsu: Agreed.

Kay: More conspiracy theory?

Non-chan: Guys, even the people who think they are at the tops of the social hierarchies need to be allowed to make their mistakes.

Matsu: Sometimes I wonder.

Hal: Sometimes it's hard not to wish they'd quit, though.

Bee: Conspiracies do exist, Kay, even if the source of the conspiracy never can keep his stories straight.

Kay: Yeah. True. I'm convinced the devil is a woman.

Bee: And just what is that supposed to mean?

Non-chan, Hal, and Matsu: Guys, ...

2020-10-14

Overdrawn in the Check-out Line

Non-chan: What's wrong, Hal?.

Hal (shakes his head): Nothing.

Non-chan: You're a little quiet.

Kay: He's always quiet.

Bee: Maybe a little quieter than usual, though.

Non-chan: So, what's on your mind?

Hal: Well, I'm thinking about something that happened at the sūpā today.

Bee: What happened?

Hal: The guy in front of me in the check-out line was apparently overdrawn on his credit card.

Kay: So you had to wait while he argued about it?

Hal: He didn't really argue, but I guess he asked to have a manager check.

Kay: I'll bet he was buying a case of beer and a big pack of steaks.

Hal: No. Just bean sprouts, coffee, and orange drink.

Non-chan: That's what? 400 yen? And his card couldn't cover that?

Hal: Apparently not.

Non-chan: Poor guy.

Kay: Well, he shouldn't let his card get overdrawn. Very inconsiderate of him.

Bee: What'd he do?

Hal: He had enough pocket change to pay for the bean sprouts and the coffee, apparently.

Kay: Che. Bean sprouts!

Non-chan: Poor-man's vegetables.

Kay: Huh? Bean sprouts've got nothing in 'em.

Bee: Amino acids for a little protein, a little of the proto-B vitamins. 

Non-chan: Not much, but better than plain rice.

Hal: Four bags, so I'm guessing it was for his family's dinner.

Kay: How much of your time did he waste?

Hal: Not that much, really. I admit I was a little impatient at first.

Kay: I'd've been a lot impatient.

Non-chan: It's still two weeks to payday.

Hal: Exactly. Overdrawn this early in the month.

Bee: With the virus lockdown --

Kay: It's not lockdown.

Non-chan: For a lot of people, it might as well be.

Bee: He might not be getting a paycheck at all.

Kay: But he shouldn't be wasting other people's time in line.

Hal: I thought about offering to pay for the orange drink, but I wasn't quick enough.

Bee: Hard to figure out what's going on in time.

Hal: Yeah.

Non-chan: I think he probably needed other things more than the orange drink.

Hal: I wanted to buy him tofu, cabbage, carrots, and an onion, at least. But I only had enough money for the bag of rolled oats I was buying.

Kay: You bleeding heart.

Non-chan: I think the world needs more bleeding hearts.

Bee: More billionaire CEOs and members of the board who'll let their books bleed a little, if you ask me.