1
I didn't know what it is, but I left him a comment that I hope is helpful. In most such cases one can find lots of info just by entering the product name into Google. The point is, you don't need to know what the heck the name means, just look at pictures.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 08, 2013 02:35 PM (RqRa5)
There's something which people say in fighting anime, a warning to their enemy just before launching a finishing move, that gets translated as "Prepare yourself" or something similar. One example is ep 3 of Mondaijitachi at 18:02.
It's Asuka, and it sounds to me like kaku no nasai.
Another example is in Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny ep 12 at 16:35. That one is Hakufu and what she says is kaku ga.
I can't find any meaning for "kaku", "kaaku", "kakku" or any other variation that makes any sense. What is it that they're saying?
1
I know there actually using a shortened form of a longer phrase, which probably suggests it's archaic in some form. It might be "kak'kunasai" or something like that, by sound alone in the Mondaijitachi clip.
Nihongodict has " 覚悟を決める kakugowokimeru " as "to prepare oneself". Guessing the "覚" is the "kaku" you need, though you'll need someone much better with the language than me to make a command-to-others out of that.
Posted by: Mikeski at March 05, 2013 08:10 PM (DU6Ja)
I think that probably is the one. It may be that what Asuka is saying is kakugo nasai. That would be in character. (When she uses her command power she still speaks using polite forms, such as appending kudasai to her command.)
It still sounds to me like kakuno nasai but some regional accents are known for softening "g" sounds to "ng" or "n".
In Mondaijitachi there's something that Izayoi shouts when his opponent has used a finishing move which doesn't actually finish Izayoi. We hear it first when he
defeats the water god in the first episode and again when
Leticia throws the lance at him and yet again when
Algol fires a stoning beam at him.
It sounds to me like garakuse. Variously it gets translated as "Not happening!" or "Little too soon for that!" or "That's all you can do?!" I can't find it in the dictionary; what is it he's saying?
瓦落多 garakuta means "trash, junk, rubbish". So I imagine it's related and actually means something like "That's really crap!"
1
I found a copy of the first episode, and between the music and the water, what I can make out is "sharakusei" (19:00, if anyone else wants to play along). A search for しゃらくせい turned up a bunch of Q&A sites where people were asking where it came from. The answer on several of them was that it was a slang-y pronunciation of "sharakusai" 洒落臭い = cheeky/impudent. Given his speech pattern, that makes sense.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at February 21, 2013 12:02 AM (+cEg2)
The girls have gotten MCSA'ed by Rico and Yuki, and are back at the aid station looking for a change of clothes. They encounter Godwin there, and turn around. "Don't look, you perv!" more or less.
Crunchyroll translated his response as "Like I would." Commie made it "Not much to see."
That's enough of a difference so that I listened to it several times to find out his real words. What he says is dare ga mieru ka.
I think that means "what is there to see?" so I have to give the win to Commie this time.
1
Literally the "dare" is looking (dare ga). So literally it's "who's looking!" However, it does not fall in with English well. I had literally the same problem with Idolmaster Cinderella Girls Gekijou #8. Original said "dare ga ikuka", and I had to switch it to something that's not literally that, to preserve the flow. That reaped similar critique, too.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at February 03, 2013 07:55 PM (RqRa5)
2
I didn't look up dare and I remembered it wrong as "what" instead of "who". I guess that's one of many reasons why I'm not a translator.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 03, 2013 08:01 PM (+rSRq)
I've gotten to the point where I keep spotting places where I think the subs translated the Japanese badly.
One example of that is in the second episode of Dog Days 2, at 13:00. Calloway says kokoroimashita, I'm pretty sure it is, in response to an order from Couverte. Commie translated that as "Understood", but it seems to me that "It would be my pleasure" or "I'd be happy to" would be more accurate.
And in fact, all through this series I keep running into places where I think Commie's translator just filled in something that made sense in context but which wasn't really a translation of what was said.
It's frustrating, because I'm not remotely good enough yet to watch without subtitles, so I'm dependent on them.
1
I remember when I hit that point working for ADV.
So in the bad old days, there wasn't any kind of review done on translations whatsoever. A translator would turn in a translation and it was essentially the subtitler's (and the director's, on the dub end, but in a completely separate process) job to work out what needed to be subtitled where. Sometimes you'd have lines in your translation that made absolutely no sense, or ones where the translation was "????"... in fairness, you didn't always have a Japanese script to work off of (and they ain't always accurate even when you do), and back then people were listening to VHS tapes we sent out. So sometimes you went and asked poor Hiroko from the art department, since she was the only Japanese speaker on the staff, to see if she could figure it out. And if she couldn't, well, you did what you had to do.
That sucked. It wasn't so bad if you had a good translator, since there would be very few holes in the script and you could deal with what was there. It was still okay if the translator was indifferent but at least took copious notes. But, well, some of the translators were bad. Actually a whole lot of them were bad, and the company didn't really have any way to tell that a particular translator was bad.
I got to the point where I could tell "hey, this line is wrong" or even "this is almost right but not quiiiite" without necessarily being able to do anything about it, and that was a little frustrating. Eventually we hired a full-time translator and I could run things past her... and I'd ask her about one line and a whole scene would need to be fixed... and then another... and we eventually got to the point where I'd just run everything past her so that she could check it.
In retrospect I realize how much of an amazing luxury that was! Not only did it fix the outright problems, but it let me be a lot more aggressive in using language for characterization or mood. I could make subtle changes for connotation without worrying that I was missing the same thing on the Japanese end (and, for that matter, sometimes we'd find that it HAD been missed on the Japanese end and I had to scramble for a subtle change for connotation, but hey! That was a lot of fun.)
I wonder if "that would be my pleasure" is a little less formal than the situation requires here. He clearly didn't say "tashikomarimashita", which would be the conventional response and for which "Understood" or "As you command" would have worked just fine, but it's clearly a parallel construct and implying a master-servant relationship. But at the same time, the more accurate translation is hard to formal up any further without getting downright stilted.
If it's any consolation, Crunchy's subs also said "Understood"...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at January 13, 2013 12:38 PM (GJQTS)
2
Trying to loop a single line on Crunchyroll is painful, but I think his line is "kokoroemashita", from the verb "kokoroeru" = "to understand/consent/agree".
-j
Posted by: J Greely at January 13, 2013 01:13 PM (+cEg2)
If so, then Commie's translator is smarter than I am after all.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 13, 2013 01:52 PM (+rSRq)
4
I've had worse. In Zero no Tsukaima, Doki's translator turned phrases like "iku yo!" or "boku datte!" (in a combat situation) into "spirits of fire!".
Posted by: Jordi Vermeulen at January 13, 2013 02:01 PM (AJZdn)
5
In Vividread Operation Akane says "Haiiiiii" a lot, and Commie translated that several different ways.
Posted by: Mauser at January 13, 2013 03:41 PM (cZPoz)
6
The fortunate aspect of the adventure is that one can start watching raws before you've got a functional language.
Back in 1991 or so, I bought a VHS tape of Disney's Beauty and The Beast in English. I think I watched it about 20 times. Not sure if it helped any, but it was quite fun.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at January 13, 2013 04:12 PM (RqRa5)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 13, 2013 04:23 PM (+rSRq)
8
Yes. It was also for the (future) benefit of my daughter, who was 2 at the time. She still failed a placement test when we moved, and was stuck in an ESL program. I had to pull levers and grease wheels to rescue her.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at January 13, 2013 04:50 PM (RqRa5)
1
That one may be a JMdict artifact; it looks like someone added a whole bunch of current slang in 2007, including the derogatory ikemen, while the positive one wasn't added until 2011. Google, meanwhile, treats them interchangeably, so it's hard to test with an image search (oddly, insisting on a search for 逝け面 included a picture of the definitely female, definitely attractive Yui Okada).
Both were updated on 4/16/2012, when there was apparently a major effort to work through some of the slang entries (such as adding ヌードル meaning both "noodle" and "TV personality who has appeared in the nude" (nude idol)).
-j
Posted by: J Greely at January 10, 2013 03:17 PM (fpXGN)
2
ikemen meaning "hunk" appears in Dog Days Dash ep 10 about 13:40. So that one, at least, is a real usage.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 10, 2013 04:03 PM (+rSRq)
I knew "ikemen" as "cool guy" before this post, so if it's slang, it's fairly commonly-used slang. (In anime-land, at least.)
Finding things like this that make you grin is one of the best parts of learning a new language. "Lock" and "key" both being "kagi" was one of my favorites.
Posted by: Mikeski at January 11, 2013 08:58 PM (DU6Ja)
Peter Payne has posted the cover of something that's probably a porn title of some kind, whether manga or animated.
I find myself bemused by it. I can see where some might find it offensive, even sacrilegious, but it doesn't affect me that way. My first reaction to it was "Yoshika's panties are the wrong color." (Which tells you where my mind is.)
I am curious as to what it is. Anyone know? (For instance, someone who can read the title?)
1
It's the cover of the doujin manga "魔女たちのノパンツ" (Witch-tachi no no-pantsu); a google search returned scans.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at November 01, 2012 04:41 PM (fpXGN)
2
Well, it didn't when I tried, but I used American google. Anyway, I'm sure it's major trashy.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at November 01, 2012 04:47 PM (+rSRq)
3
I had safesearch turned off, expecting it to be exactly what it turned out to be.
They had a number of titles featuring hot witch-on-witch action.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at November 01, 2012 05:06 PM (fpXGN)
4
It's an H-doujin, my thinking is that is the list of the concerning content, haha.
More seriously, I'd think a Japanese viewer might have more of an issue, given what the flag raising means in a historical context. For me, it's "eh?".
Posted by: sqa at November 01, 2012 09:38 PM (iWwXY)
In Mouretsu Pirates, there's a strange word or something I can't figure out. When they're talking about the Corback class destroyers, they often refer to corubako kyu.
What's that kyu? I can't find anything in the dictionary that makes sense, no matter how I try to spell it. (kyuu kiu kiyu etc.)
The original Nanoha series was 2004. A's was 2005. StrikerS was 2007. And Nanoha, Hayate, and Fate are still popular cover girls for these kinds of magazines. That's really rather surprising after all this time! (It's the loli versions, and maybe that's why. Ick.)
Nanoha and friends are back in the news due to the movies. The A's movie came out mid-July, so the lolisized versions are the most recent non-manga images of the characters, again.
(That's part of my reason for wondering about subtitles on Dog Days Dash blu-rays... Nanoha the movie 1st had subs, DD1 had subs, DD' did not... will Nanoha the movie 2nd? Hopefully...)
Posted by: Mikeski at October 02, 2012 05:18 PM (1bPWv)
