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Dooble traduction4/19/2023 ![]() Japanese simply does not have the relevant pronoun-usage rules or verb morphology to make this sort of thing clear, and it uses to either way (rather than making an optional distinction with a subordinating conjunction like English). The most natural translation of Iranai to iimashita would probably be something like "She said she didn't need it," but structurally speaking a rendering like "She said 'I don't need it'" is just as valid. Why this difference between the two languages? Ultimately I think it comes down to the fact that (spoken) Japanese doesn't distinguish between direct and indirect quotations in the same way as English. Here, too, I think that the natural English sentence would be "Please don't say I'm lazy," or, better, "Please don't call me lazy." Looking it up now, the title of the song is actually Don't say "lazy", which I strongly suspect is a rendering of an original something like lazy to iwanaide, more naturally Englished as "Don't call me lazy." Indirectness! They go: Please don't say, "You are lazy,"ĭatte hontō wa crazy Digging deeper, it's relatively unusual I think in English for a straight-up line of dialogue, one character to another, to be used as a title in the first place, but whatever.)ĭating and otaku-ing myself a bit (okay, a lot), I remember noticing something similar in the first two lines of the original K-on! ending theme. For example, I think that as a movie title, "Say you love me" is far more likely than "Say 'I love you.'" (Sidebar: For this particular title, you'd want to capture the infuriating smugness of the imperative form -na yo, so "Admit that you love me" would actually be closer. The main reason it's unnatural is that in a case like this English speakers tend to prefer indirect quotation. Hearing the title Suki tte iina yo repeated about a jillion times over a convenience store PA the other day, I got to thinking about the official English translation of the title: Say "I love you." This is grammatical, and captures the outlines of the original at least, but it strikes me as unnatural. Special bonus: Anquetil-Duperron's 1804 translation of some Upanishads into Latin ("OUPNEK'HAT (ID EST, SECRETUM TEGENDUM): OPUS IPSA IN INDIA RARISSIMUM"). ![]() (I have no idea where Waley got "fair, fair" from.) Baxter (1992) reconstructs this osprey-quack as *kron in Old Chinese, incidentally, giving Middle Chinese kwæn (or kwan in Karlgren's reconstruction). I suppose he somehow tortured it out of the "barred door, lock, guarded pass" meaning of 關, even though it's just used for sound here, as Couvreur recognizes. Say what you will about his accuracy: "hid, hid!" is definitely the best thing in any of these renderings. Segregata, abdita, optima puella (facta est) principis sapientis eximia conjux.Īs usual, the more translations are compared, the more apparent it becomes that I should have just read some poetry by Ezra Pound instead. (Invicem respondentes) kouan kouan (aves aquatiles) ts'iu kiou sunt in fluminis insula. (No guarantees on those last two characters in the scan, they're basically just blobs.)Īnd of course the Latin: Couvreur (1892) - Latin l'auguste Seu, était fille du prince de 莘 Chēnn, dont la famille se nommait Seu. Plusieurs anciens auteurs prétendent que c'est une espèce d'aigle de mer. Il est le symbole de la fidélité conjugale. Il ressemble à la mouette ou au petit canard appelé 鳧 fôu. To be fair, I'd better include his notes: Le 雎鳩 ts'iū kiōu est un oiseau aquatique. Une fille vertueuse (T'ai Seu) qui vivait retirée et cachée (dans la maison maternelle), devient la digne compagne d'un prince sage (Wenn wang). Les ts'iu kiou (se répondant l'un à l'autre, crient) kouan kouan sur un ilot dans la rivière. So shall be the prince's fere." Couvreur (1892) - French The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady:įor our prince a good mate she. Guan-guan go the ospreys, On the islet in the river. I'll throw in a couple of English versions first for comparison: Original He even included the original Chinese text!īecause I'm lazy, let's take a look at the very first poem, the one with the onomatopoeia that everyone bangs their shins on. I just realized that Séraphin Couvreur's 19th-century double traduction of the Classic of Poetry 詩經 into French and Latin is available in its entirety at : Cheu king: texte chinois avec une double traduction en français et en latin.
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