translation

A collection of 40 posts

japanese

Regarding Arisen Ones

WARNING – Spoilers regarding the Dragon’s Dogma games. The term “Arisen” is used within Dragon’s Dogma and its related games to refer to an individual who has entered a pact with a dragon by having their heart taken by force or willingly to then have the power to command

japanese

Return of "Old Sport"

I wrote a while back about how a Japanese translator handled the adaptation of the term "old sport" in the seminal novel The Great Gatsby. This time around I have not just one, but three more translations of the term from their respective translations and the choices are

japanese

Piece of my mind to feast upon

In a Christmas Carol’s third chapter, wherein the Ghost of Christmas Present, a towering incarnation of Yuletide jollity, guides Scrooge through the homes and streets of various people that the miser knows, but does not know his impact upon, he comes across the humble house of Robert Cratchit and

japanese

On Bison and Cammy

It's a common misconception that Street Fighter character, the amnesiac British soldier Cammy's relationship to the mysterious main villain of the series, General Vega ("Master Bison" in the West), is a creepy one. So, Cammy approaches Vega and asks him to tell the truth

japanese

Baronet Eagle of Street Fighter

So, Tiamat's otherwise superb Street Fighter Plot Guide mentions this bit about Eagle, a tonfa wielding gentleman from Street Fighter 1 - this regards his opening bio in the arcade mode of Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper: Street Fighter Zero 3 Double Upper:  Eagle, a bouncer from Great

japanese

Speech Patterns: Akatasuki Musashi

SNK’s timeless classic The Last Blade, and its sequel and spin-offs, feature a host of fencers and fighters who are based off actual historical people or out of entirely new fictive cloth. Akatsuki Musashi (暁 武蔵) himself is not merely inspired, but is heavily implied to be the very

japanese

Speech Patterns - Palpatine (Star Wars)

Palpatine (“Lego Star Wars – The Skywalker Saga”, 2022) The duplicitous Sith Lord turned chancellor turned emperor from Star Wars has to wildly varying modes of speech depending on which of the personas that he is using, Sith Lord or politician, the former speaks in Classical Japanese using regal language and

japanese

A question of Hokuto Fists

In the seminal martial arts epic “Fist of the North Star” (Hokuto no Ken), there is a scene near the end of one of the early major story arcs, where the brothers Raoh and Toki face off. These two are practitioners of the eponymous Hokuto Shinken, (北斗神拳, “the Divine Fist

japanese

One word, multiple kanji

In Japanese you will from time to time encounter that a verb can be written synonymously with different kanji, but these meanings whilst sharing similarities can differ in usage. For example: Tsukuru (つくる) – “to create/make” 作 – Making of smaller things. 造 – Making of medium/large things 創 – Making of

japanese

Writing out the I

In the manga adaptation by Gatou Asou of the 2012 CGI animated feature of Shoutarou Ishinomori's classic, Cyborg 009, titled "009 Re:Cyborg", I am across a panel that stuck with me in terms of how it highlighted the nature of Japanese writing. The main character,

japanese

Aggrandising Japanese Keigo

Whilst browsing through some of the linguistics that I own, I encountered this gem from Bjarke Frellesvig's excellent A History of the Japanese Language, p. 371: The inventories of forms used in these functions have changed over time, as have rules for their combinations. However, with a few

japanese

Santa-san

A friend of mine asked me recently as to the origins of the Japanese name for the voluminous giver of gifts, Santa Claus. A direct transcription of the name Santa Claus is サンタクロース (Santa Kurôsu), but he is typically referred to as サンタさん (Santa-san), literally something to the effect of

japanese

Yuru - Yule

Lo, a micro translation-comparison sort of thing. In the 11th volume of Vinland Saga, a group of country nobles and loyal vassals to King Canute plead their case to His Majesty, in this quote do we see Makoto Yukimura, the author and illustrator of the comic, mention the Old Norse

japanese

Thor versus Thor versus Thor

With the advent of the new God of War Ragnarok game, and the appearance of another fresh interpretation of the Aesir, Vanir, Jotun and other members of Norse mythology, it behoves me to make a comparison with previous incarnations of one particular Aesir, Thor the Thunderer - the first being

japanese

Robotto!

Word robot first appeared as early as in the 1920s science fiction play, R. U. R (Rustrom’s Universal Robots), by Czech playwright Karel Čapek (1890 – 1938), wherein the automatons featured within the story are not mechanical humans, but synthetic ones created from various organic materials to then serve as

politeness

Morbid honorifics

When a person succumbs to the mortal coil and passes away, we have in all cultures words of varying degrees of formality and respect to refer to this posthumous state. Japanese being the focal point of this blog and seeing as Elizabeth II just recently passed away, it may be

japanese

Tekken - Jin's Pronouns

In the recent animated adaptation of the events of the third Tekken game, taciturn Jin Kazama is featured as the main character. Jin himself is the son of Jun Kazama, a female karate master of composure and benevolent nature, and Kazuya Mishima, a pugnacious and violent karate master whose father

japanese

Shadow the Colossus and Elvis

According to the unofficial net-encyclopaedia of the games ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the 16th colossus of the latter game, whose role is also that of the final boss, had two prototype names prior to the final design, those being Evis and Buddha. Furthermore it lists the names of

japanese

DB Addendum - That Insult by Gohan

During Son Gohan's pivotal fight against Boo - essentially an ancient jinn, whilst he has attained a more powerful form and Gohan himself has awoken his latent qi, he spouts an insult: ウスノロ… Usunoro... This has been infamously translated as "retard" by Stephen Simmons as the

english

Update - 14-08-22

Greetings! A long time has passed since the last time I posted anything on this blog, but IRL has been rather difficult as of late. Nevertheless, I have been working on various projects, an e-book version of the translation-comparison articles of the Emperors New Clothes that I covered some time

japanese

Quick Post - Fell Omen

In Elden Ring, one of the bosses that you can encounter is a ogreish warrior known as Margit the Fell Omen, which in Japanese corresponds to: 忌み鬼マルギット (Imi Oni Marugitto, "Shunned Oni Margit"). Oni here doesn't literally refer to the mythical creature itself, but moreover to

japanese

Third person pronouns in Japanese – 3rd Person Neutral

In Modern Japanese there are two 3rd person pronouns that correspond to the Western mode of masculine and feminine ones, namely: 彼 (kare, “he”) and 彼女 (kanojo, “she”). For “it” there is もの (者・物, mono), using two distinct kanji, the former for persons and the latter for objects or

japanese

Lord of Dragons

SPOILERS ARE APLENTY We shall be looking into perhaps one of the most enigmatic characters of Elden Ring. Before proceeding know that this article delves into possibly one of the most impressive secrets of the game. Popular Youtuber and expert on Elden Ring information as well as data, Zullie the

japanese

The "Idiot Bird"

Whilst preparing for an upcoming article about the Japanese version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of he Ancient Marine, I encountered the Japanese name for the albatross within the text. 信天翁 Literally "believe heaven venerable-oldster", which frankly does sound like a respectable name for the albatross

japanese

Line Individualism - Yura

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! Yura in Elden Ring takes the role of a wizened veteran hunter of “bloody fingers”, i.e. people having gone deranged with bloodlust, thus he effeche ctively is a bounty-hunter of sorts – he is also along with a few other characters, representing the samurai class arch-type. Voiced