/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Due to the way that the Japanese language works, the only way to truly enjoy Japanese media as intended by the creators is to become fluent in Japanese and enjoy it raw. Japanese is NEVER translated in a way that preserves the original thoughts and intentions, and is always localized.
>Some simple examples:
>日本語がわかる
This would be translated as "I understand Japanese", but that's not what this sentence means.
The English translation is ego-centric, as English tends to be. In fact, the Japanese sentence doesn't mention self at all. The topic of this sentence is Japanese, which is understood. The topic of this sentence is NOT I, who understands Japanese. If the subject were self, then the sentence would have 私 (watashi) which would be marked by が to indicate it as the topic.
In fact, if you translated the English version to Japanese it would be 私が日本語をわかる which is an entirely different statement and is incredibly unnatural Japanese.

It's impossible to truly enjoy Japanese media unless you become fluent in Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

true

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
So you're saying the sentence translates to "Japanese is understood"?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43985589
Kind of, yes.

[Anonymous No.]

N4’s watch one cure dolly video and think they’re experts…

[Anonymous No.]

Japanese is notoriously hard to translate properly, but OP's critique comes off as a monolinguist's cope.

[Anonymous No.]

OP is an American monolingual who just found out that languages can have different grammars and overinterpreted the significance of that. those are basically different ways of saying the same thing. the difference is just in how it's expressed grammatically

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
This post reads like someone just completed their first week of learning Japanese and wants to let everyone know

[Anonymous No.]

>>43986092
>>43986123
>>43986341
>>43986489
cope

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987148
cope about what? I can read Japanese

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987148
knowing a bit of japanese doesnt make you as smart as you think, n3-chan

[Anonymous No.]

>>43986341
this
Most european languages have weird word order and grammar when you only translate directly into english, and that's with a common root.
Just accept that a direct translation is only useful for explaining puns and wordplay, and stop complaining about shit that isn't even a problem.

English and japanese have radically different grammar, and there is nothing you can do about that since the reverse of OP's point is true, in that if you literally said "Japanese is understood" while referring to yourself you'd get called an ESL (rightfully) since it's expected that you state who you are talking about.

Holy shit, you are the epitome of a r*ddit atheist who went to one japanese class and now feel superior to people who aren't fluent.
I should not have to explain that different languages are different, you actual mongoloid.

[Anonymous No.]

yeah, all that is obvious
you’re not wrong, but it’s funny how you call him a redditor when you type like you want positive reinforcement
dekinai status = highly likely

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987354
Kill yourself, how's that for positive reinforcement?

Besides, OP is still a fuckwit for not recognising that the literal meaning of the example sentances are indeed different, but the intended meaning when in context would be identical under the same conditions.
The fact that you are talking about yourself isn't explicitly stated in said sentence is overriden by the fact that you would be asking someone whether or not they understand japanese, and they respond with the aforementioned.
It's absolutely wrong to state that information is lost during this exchange if you have a competant translator, or that the "meaning" of the sentence has changed at all, because guess what? English is just a little more explicit in this exact circumstance when it comes to who's talking about who, instead of being implicit like japanese is.
The information on who is talking is STILL THERE, but you have to work it out from extralingual context.

What OP is doing here is noticing that the direct translation is different from english, and making the statement that there is somehow a loss or corruption of the intended meaning in making the sentence make sense, and equating that to localization, which is a fallacy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987178
Sure you can.
>>43987198
Project harder, I already passed N1 ages ago when they used the old system that only had 4 levels.
>>43987230
It has nothing to do with word order. Words can be arranged into almost any order in Japanese and the meaning of the sentence will not change.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987503
>Project harder, I already passed N1 ages ago when they used the old system that only had 4 levels.
Sure you did.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987466
>but the intended meaning when in context would be identical under the same conditions
Not at all, dekinai-chan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987518
Explain to me how not referring to yourself explicitly when asked the question "Do you speak Japanese?" changes the meaning of the sentence in any meaningful way other than the obvious lack of referral in and of itself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987466
upvoted

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
>The topic of this sentence is Japanese
ok this is bait

[Anonymous No.]

Why are you making a thread about this on the one board where most people know Japanese at least at an intermediary level? Are you a tourist?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987771
obviously meant 'intermediate'.

[Anonymous No.]

ah yes the svperior japanese language folded over a million times
one would need a thousands lifetimes to grasp it's glory...

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
i know for a fact you just copied this from cure dolly
come on bro

[Anonymous No.]

>>43987556
It's a simple example to show the vast differences between the two languages. These differences exist over essentially all sentence patterns and the end result is that the true nuance behind every passage of text cannot properly be translated into English.
>>43987729
It's literally marked by が you retard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988028
>*posts grammatically correct japanese*
>you copied that!!

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988194
A different sentance structure does not make it untranslatable you actual retard, you just convert between the two.
There isn't a subtle nuance between these two, it's just two different ways of constructing a sentence.

This man here is mocking you for overthinking how translation works, I thought I'd point it out since clearly you are so pedantic you think that translation somhow destroys the inifnite layers of meaning behind each and every sentence spoken.
>>43987892

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988194
why are you pretending to be retarded? you do realize that everyone replying is just trolling you as well?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988234
>There isn't a subtle nuance between these two, it's just two different ways of constructing a sentence.
There literally is, which is why some characters often have their entire personalities changed when anime/manga/games/etc get translated into English. Sometimes it even affects the entire atmosphere of the show.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988246
>you do realize that everyone replying is just trolling you as well?
All I see is cope.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988278
grow up

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988270
No, that' shitty localisers changing personalities, not some infintesimal difference between sentace structure.
If it was that fucking hard to translate accurately, how come you learned to speak the language?
Clearly there is just an inescapable barrier between the english and nip way of thinking that makes it impossible to communicate whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988304
They do it because they don't understand the sentence structure.
>If it was that fucking hard to translate accurately, how come you learned to speak the language?
Because languages are learned through immersion, not translations, hamburger-san.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988205
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSX-cbtux1s
go to sleep lil bro

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988351
This word 'Translation', I don't think you know what it means.
You have managed to conflate localisation into translation, and seem to think that raw exposure without any knowledge is the method to learning a language.
At some point, you had to read a fucking book, which will have had translated sentences in it, which you will have had to read and take as fact on how to construct a sentence.

>They do it because they don't understand the sentence structure.
Again, sentence structure does nothing regarding the meaning of a sentence, it's custom and standard for the most part. You are not going to change someone's whole personality when you switch between two different systems during translation, provided you do so correctly.
I have no idea why you seem to think that an indirect manner of speech is so integral to the language that it renders whole swaths of information untranslateable from basic sentences.
English is explicit in who's talking, Japanese is implicit, as in, you figure it out from context. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp, and it doesn't mean that it's untranslateable, it just sounds weird unless you change things to fit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988425
>You have managed to conflate localisation into translation
It's a part of it, hence they change the nuances behind the sentences instead of giving literal translations.
>At some point, you had to read a fucking book, which will have had translated sentences in it, which you will have had to read and take as fact on how to construct a sentence.
The first book I read in Japanese was また、同じ夢を見ていた and it didn't have any translated sentences in it.
>sentence structure does nothing regarding the meaning of a sentence
Sentence structure is literally what sets the meaning of the sentence. If I move around th structure of the sentence it changes meaning entirely. Try learning a second language before you try and talk about languages.
>You are not going to change someone's whole personality when you switch between two different systems during translation, provided you do so correctly
Professional translators literally do it all the time.
>I have no idea why you seem to think that an indirect manner of speech is so integral to the language that it renders whole swaths of information untranslateable from basic sentences.
I didn't say that it makes it untranslatable. You did. I said that it changes the nuance and the original meaning of the passage. And it does.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
So what? Are you implying that Japanese version is somehow better?

[Anonymous No.]

It's been a while since I've seen a bona-fide weeb. What a breath of fresh air.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988509
It's not implied, it's just reality.

[Anonymous No.]

What a pretentious dweeb lol

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
Is this what happens when an American finds out about other grammatical systems?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988490
>It's a part of it, hence they change the nuances behind the sentences instead of giving literal translations.

They are closely linked, but not the same thing and are entirely seperable, which is why they have different names, dumb fuck.

>The first book I read in Japanese was また、同じ夢を見ていた and it didn't have any translated sentences in it.

And what did you do when you encountered a word you didn't know? Use a dictionary? Guess?

>Sentence structure is literally what sets the meaning of the sentence. If I move around the structure of the sentence it changes meaning entirely.

This only applies when you are changing the structure within one language, not between two others. You HAVE to change the sentence structure since jap and english don't use a remotely similar one. This does not mean that if you convert between said systems *correctly* that any meaning would be lost.
Sure, if you did so incorrectly it would in fact change the meaning of a sentence, but that would be incorrect and therefore not representative of a correct translation fucktard.

>Professional translators literally do it all the time.
Said professional translators are wrong for doing so. They are changing the meaning of a sentence to fit in line with something other than the literal translation, since again, it is possible to translate correctly without said alterations.

>I didn't say that it makes it untranslatable. You did. I said that it changes the nuance and the original meaning of the passage. And it does.

Nuance and original meaning are perfectly able to be conveyed 90% of the time with a competant translation, since there is nothing magical about japanese that somehow encodes information extralingually. The other 10% would be comprised of figures of speech, puns and worldplay, which is nothing unique to japanese since that's what localisation is supposed to fix, but a lot of the time they alter stuff that should not have been changed.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988606
I'm not American, so no.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
Japan is a language of implied contexts because of its indirect nature. It is implied that you are saying Japanese is understood [by me]. European languages are direct and unambiguous because there is no retarded ego-centric "face" concept like East Asia where you can never say anything direct or to someone without besmirching their honour. It is, objectively, a shit language for communication.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988619
>And what did you do when you encountered a word you didn't know? Use a dictionary? Guess?
I used a dictionary. And then when I got better at Japanese I used a monolingual dictionary and had to relearn many words that aren't properly translated like 悔しい. And before you try to make your stupid argument, bilingual dictionaries tend to give random words that appear similar and don't contain grammar.
> This does not mean that if you convert between said systems *correctly* that any meaning would be lost.
Then why is it often lost?
>Nuance and original meaning are perfectly able to be conveyed 90% of the time with a competant translation, since there is nothing magical about japanese that somehow encodes information extralingually. The other 10% would be comprised of figures of speech, puns and worldplay, which is nothing unique to japanese since that's what localisation is supposed to fix, but a lot of the time they alter stuff that should not have been changed.
Provide one example of a character who speaks 大阪弁 being translated properly in English in a way that preserves the original nuance, doesn't change the character, and is true to the intentions of the author.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988659
Shit you're right

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988659
>Then why is it often lost?
So you admit that there are in fact times when there is zero information lost?
Would this not imply that impefrect translation or outside factors is more to blame than the languages being somehow incompatible?

Let me break down what has just been said

If you do X correctly, then Y will occur.
Then why does Y* sometimes happen?

Do you see the assumption being made here? Just because something can or even should be done doesn't mean it is always done so.

>I used a dictionary. And then when I got better at Japanese [. . .]

My point here is that you had to read a godamn translated book at some point, maybe imperfect maybe poorly explained, but the fact that there are some words that aren't exactly one-to-one with english is not an excuse for what kind of sentence structure a language uses mattering for translation in terms of meaning. Said words occur all the time, and can be properly accounted for easily for the most part, albeit with a wordier explanation.

>Provide one example
You provide to me an example of a genuine instance of sentence structure giving an honest-to-god effect on the translation of a sentence and how it's so important that you can't just change it when you translate.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988741
I didn't read anything with translated sentences, moron.
>Can't provide an example
Back to the cope bin with you.
>You provide to me an example of a genuine instance of sentence structure giving an honest-to-god effect on the translation of a sentence and how it's so important that you can't just change it when you translate.
Literally any series that doesn't take place in Osaka, but one character is from Osaka, and it can't be accurately expressed in English. They often wiogive the character an American southern accent which changes the personality of the character entirely.

And beyond that, many books are essentially different works entirely after they've been translated. Genji Monogatari - literally the first novel ever written - is a great example. English and Japanese have very different literary traditions and linguistic structures. Various translations of the book exist, each with its own interpretation and attempt to capture the essence of the original text. These translations can differ greatly in style, language, and even narrative choices. Try comparing them and then maybe learn Japanese and read the original.

Haiku poetry also can't be accurately translated because the syllabic structure and cultural references don’t align.

I asked ChatGPT for some more examples of this and it recommended “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami, “Botchan” by Natsume Soseki, and “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea” by Yukio Mishima

[Anonymous No.]

Who the fuck cares about this shit? European sentence forming is superior anyway.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988889
And this all means that nothing written in japanese can be accurately translated because...?
These are all very very specific, and frankly cherrypicked.
Poetry will never work across languages, cultural references are, as the name would imply, dependant on culture to work, and that accent thing is common to anything in any different language that relies on how another group is perceived. All in all, you have made no argument as to why just a correct translation of what's being said and what's happening is somehow impossible, and provided evidence for edge cases that are common to every other translation.

There is nothing special about le nihongo, but it isn't english either. The original argument of "Japanese can convey such nuance and subtlety" has fallen apart and been reduced to "Well cultural references don't work" which is obvious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988976
I didn't say it was subtle, nigger. Nor did I say it was unique to Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43989010
Yes you fucking did, there was a whole point in which you said that the subtlety and nuance was lost in translation, and you at no point brought up the fact that it wasn't, so you can fuck off and take your bait with you.

You are a dumbass who has managed to make a totally anaemic statement sound like a huge problem, wittingly or not.

[Anonymous No.]

Look, I'm not reading half of this nor do I know Japanese, but OP, why would the translation "I understand Japanese" not be accurate? I thought the entire point was it's context based, and if the context is you getting asked if you understand Japanese, what information is lost in translating it as that? You said it "kind of" translates to "Japanese is understood", but this sounds off to a native English speaker, and is likely introducing clunkiness that isn't there originally.

[Zeke No.]

No shit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988659
>when I got better at Japanese I used a monolingual dictionary and had to relearn many words that aren't properly translated like 悔しい.
Are you ESL or something? 悔しい already has a proper translation that doesn’t require a Japanese dictionary to understand. I always see pseuds complaining that the J-E dictionaries aren’t accurate, but every time it’s always them just not understanding English.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
you are correct wise sir

[Anonymous No.]

No shit all the virgins stopped studying Japanese after becoming sex havers, wasting all your day learning an absurdly hard language just so at the end of the day you can still suck at it, compared to native speakers, on the off chance that you might move there one day just so you can not know anyone and be completely lonely and have shit social skills in the environment you find yourself both because of the difference in culture but also cause of your lack of grasp on the language but also lack of social skills from all the time spent alone on said life sink of a hobby is insane when compared to the joys of finding someone you can connect with and share whatever normal people hobby people have like traveling or hiking.

Learning Japanese is a hobby for losers that haven't felt the joys of life and have completely given up on trying to obtain them. Losers who one day might realize that the thousands of hours that they lost weren't worth it.

L O S E R S
O
S
E
R
S

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990132
You make a very good point

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990182
No doubt

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
I asked my wife and she translated it as I understand Japanese. She is 96% Japanese, was born there, and grew up/lived there for over 25 years.

>>43986489
I get that feeling too

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990317
Why did you need your wife to confirm something so simple? Did you even read his dumb argument?

[Anonymous No.]

ngmi

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990132
>absurdly hard language
yep its a dekinai who got filtered
i also have sex
completely mogged bro...

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990516
That wasn't the point, it was more or less to just show native Japanese don't even conform to his ideas.

[Anonymous No.]

Japanese grammar is illogical and fucked up

[Anonymous No.]

he's not wrong but it's funny because he clearly just started learning japanese and is very proud of himself
lol

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990633
You're both too stupid to understand that you don't understand Japanese and too stupid to understand my post wasn't about sex.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990317
how did she translate it?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990911
why would someone seethe so much that others speak japanese... someone who posts on a board about japanese culture... who would do that...
sour grapes

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990516
n-no don't ask native speakers this doesn't concern them please the burden of defending superior nihonese culture must fall upon my ESL JTL shoulders...

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990920
exactly as it's written but her first assumption is I as well. I think OP is just misunderstanding the feeling and thinking when first learning a language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
All of what you said is true, but I still don't actually give a shit. I'll continue consuming my weeb shit in english.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43986489
This is blatantly apparent from the fact that they have confused what a topic marker and subject marker are, which is N6-tier fundamentals

[Anonymous No.]

>>43991113
>muh superior nipponese gaijin hunter wife will defend my honor and prove those incel chuds what japanese really means
A native speaker doesn't have any extra knowledge on the topic. OP's argument revolves around him getting mad that grammar has to be transposed between languages to maintain idiomatic speech.
It's dumb to think that you even need a Japanese person to tell him something obvious when it isn't even the point of his argument.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43988889
That is all an excellent argument for why learning Japanese is a waste of time.

Everything you mention is contingent on understanding things you will never understand because you aren't Japanese (and in the case Genji, also fluent in the courtly Chinese of the 11th century Heian court) even if like a trained parrot you can mouth the words.

My conclusion from your examples is that you are better off with an English translation by someone who understands the contextual nuance. Grammar is something a chimp can learn, its not "all that" in itself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
the topic of yourself is implied through context.
when translating a null-subject language into a non-null-subject language you insert the implied subject to retain the original intentions of the sentence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43991823
>you will never understand because you aren't Japanese
Yes, this makes sense. We are not Japanese, therefore the intricacies of the language are impossible to make sense of as a foreigner. Similarly, Japanese people will never understand the intricacies of English, thus disallowing any translation to occur between the two languages.
>you are better off with an English translation by someone who understands the contextual nuance.
Wait what?

[Anonymous No.]

Reminder that the only virtue by which translations can be judged by is accuracy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
>if you translated the English version to Japanese it would be 私が日本語をわかる
Only if the person translating was you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992021
わかる is intransitive, so let's fix the statement to be more truthful.
私が知るを日本語
This is a perfect translation and respects transitivity and English SVO order.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992175
The perfect time to stop posting was before you made this thread.
The second best perfect time is now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992877
>anon thinks everyone who posts on this thread is OP
meds. now.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992910
I refuse to believe there are more people as stupid as you, yes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992915
I think you're pretty stupid for thinking I don't know Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43992958
if you're the one posting these attempts at japanese then yeah, ydkj. lol

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993440
日本語が分からないってバカにしてんのか？じゃあこれ何だと思ってんだよ！？
オマエには読めるわけねえだろうな
Google翻訳でチェックしてみろよバカ野郎

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993635
why do tools like you always jump this this gaudy tough guy speech when you get called out for talking like tards?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993661
>english response

[Anonymous No.]

>バカ野郎
>オマエには
it doesn't deserve any responses tbcf.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993778
Oh, were those the parts you could read?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993635
何様？

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993635
小学生？

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993846
>>43993856
文章ぐらい書けねえのか？

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993919
書かなくても伝わるから良くない？

[Anonymous No.]

>>43993947
>から
ｗ

[Anonymous No.]

>>43990707
It's people like OP who make me realize that Americanism truly is the plague of the internet. They're basically the only type of people who think that starting to learn a language is something worth getting this arrogant over. It's piss-easy to just be proud of yourself and try to speak to native speakers in a second language who, in every other part of the globe, will be happy with you just trying even if you fucking suck and can barely get a full sentence out, rather than this weird peacocking. But I guess boys will be boys and there ain't anyone more fitting of that label than the Good Ol' Boys.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994034
It's not some special Americanism, just normal Dunning-Kruger. We all do it at some point in some way.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994034
I love reading posts by ESLs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
True. But don't expect modern frogniggerchuddies /jp/sie wannabes to pull off even learning hiragana and katakana. Its been years since there's even been a Japanese only thread on this board. Any time you bring up learning Japanese anons just cry and say moonrunes are hard. Its pathetic compared to back when and I miss that. Its not even that hard to shitpost... you dont need to use completely fluent Japnese just to shit post... just learn the fucking basics and have fun to practice...

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994155
>Its been years since there's even been a Japanese only thread
Then make one?

[Laffed No.]

Thread full of lulz

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994155
I wonder how many anons on this board nowadays could pick up something written in even fairly basic japanese and read it. 1 out of 50? 1 out of 100?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43997159
more like 0, everybody here is either for touhou, vtubers, jav and some minority are here for some other random stuff like trains.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
is that why a lot of the things they say in animes and books come off as childish at times

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
so youre telling me a 日本語 わかるd this rice?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
>The English translation is ego-centric, as English tends to be. In fact, the Japanese sentence doesn't mention self at all. The topic of this sentence is Japanese, which is understood. The topic of this sentence is NOT I, who understands Japanese. If the subject were self, then the sentence would have 私 (watashi) which would be marked by が to indicate it as the topic.
>In fact, if you translated the English version to Japanese it would be 私が日本語をわかる which is an entirely different statement and is incredibly unnatural Japanese.

This is just autism, what matters is the context of where the sentence is said, so the translation is good enough.
No Japanese person besides retarded westaboos will make manifests on how English is impossible to translate in Japanese for example.

[Anonymous No.]

Fucking weebs comparing who's more weeb makes me laugh so hard haha

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994155
>Its been years since there's even been a Japanese only thread on this board
What's the point of practicing Japanese in a thread with no one but other JSLs anyway?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
Bassically you need to be living in japanese for 25 years

[Anonymous No.]

>>43997235
translate this then 人間は残酷です, because I know you can't and actually mean what it really means in Japanese (and neither can deepl or google translate or any of the english dictionaries either)

face the reality, Japanese is ridiculously hard to learn to a fluent level

[Guess my favourite fish No.]

>>43984989
>translating's too hard for me
Let me guess, you're black or latino

[Guess my favourite fish No.]

>>43992175
>私が知るを日本語
holy shit hahahah
este negro culiao no sabe japonés jajaja

[Anonymous No.]

>>43994034
True, but I feel some sympathy for OP because most educational texts on Japanese are bad. I learned some from my first wife and later friends, without having any previous knowledge. Every time I went to regular textbooks I got fooled because they were so bad. Anime/manga/dictionary/kanji tables are what work for me.

[Anonymous No.]

>>43997170
うそつき

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
Hell is other people

[Anonymous No.]

I like learning Japanese because I enjoy writing silly characters

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001989
You are not here, you just do not know that. yet

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001826
あんたは頭が良くないんだね？

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
>man is cruel
i can't believe i just translated the untranslatable. i'm literally shaking rn

[Anonymous No.]

>>44002582
it doesn't mean that at all, fail

[Anonymous No.]

>>44002582
Don't feel bad though, this is just a good example why Japanese is so difficult and how trying to translate to English is sometimes ridiculously difficult.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44002718
>>44002770
I’m laughing so hard imaging what you think this must mean

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
If you think that "muh sugoiiii nihongo" having hard or impossible to translate elements is in ANY way special then you are sorely mistaken

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
I give you a 3/10 for effort alone.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44002545
You'd want to use の there.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
Humans are zankoku (TL Note: Zankoku means cruel)

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
Cruel human's thesis.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44003049
I'm laughing at you for thinking you have a clue as you rely on your gaijin jisho and shitty translator sites

[Anonymous No.]

>this whole thread

[Anonymous No.]

>>44003590
lol, lmfao even

[Anonymous No.]

>>44006189
You’re like Dunning-Kruger the person

[Anonymous No.]

>>44007251
I worked on this exact phrase mutlitple times with native Japanese people that are also fluent in English

[Anonymous No.]

>>44008484
Should have taken 10 seconds. What is wrong with you?

[Anonymous No.]

>>43984989
>I understand japanese
>Japanese is understood (by me)
these two mean the exact same thing
they might have different connotations and suggest different communicative intentions when used in context, but they mean the same thing

[Anonymous No.]

>>44008571
Because even Japanese realize there is no easy way to translate this phrase.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
other people are (emotionally/psychologically) bothersome

[Anonymous No.]

>>44008626
What about it is hard to translate?

[Anonymous No.]

>>44008484
Seriously, what is wrong with you, anon?

[Anonymous No.]

>>44001688
What context is this sentence being used in?
Because context is important to the translation if many sentences in many languages.

[Anonymous No.]

muh japanese can't be translated, lmao. Truly a dead language for pretentious moonrune-loving faggots.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44009089
He's baiting. The sentence is one of the simplest constructions in Japanese, an "[A noun] は [B adjective] です" sentence. In other words, [A] is [B].

[Anonymous No.]

>>44009178
What does "Love is war." mean?
If you take the words at face value you'll come to a different meaning than if you consider how the phrase is used.
He's definitely baiting, but he's doing it because languages are imprecise and context dependent and he gave and example out of context.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44009257
It doesn't matter what the deeper implications of love being war are. What's important is translational equivalency, and in this particular sentence, "humans are cruel" is both grammatically and semantically equivalent to "人間は残酷です."

[Anonymous No.]

>>44009434
The faggot asked for a translation that carried the same meaning as when it is used by the Japanese, so the implications are important and the context is lacking.

[Anonymous No.]

>>44009732
The only thing that's lacking is your knowledge of Japanese.