Trouble understanding this apology: 我々が...謝罪

Question

An English website wrote an apology in Japanese after it took down an image of cracked hinomaru (日の丸) — the hinomaru linked to a donation page for the disasters following the March 11 earthquakes.

It read: 我々が 起こした偉大な犯罪の謝罪 (われわれが　おこした　いだいな　はんざいの　しゃざい)　

I understand the meaning, but I don't really get how this sentence works.

It's really tricky for me because no one explicitly apologizes, or there is no actual apologizing here. Is something like です dropped, or する? If a です is dropped, I see that as saying they are the apology...is that a valid way to apologize?

And is 偉大な犯罪 strange in this context? I thought 偉大 was more along the lines magnificence rather than greatness in terms of magnitude.

Answer 1

This is some very obvious example of Google Translate gone out of hand.

At the very best, it is missing some bits. But best I can tell, it's mostly nonsensical.

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Edit: OK, so I was hoping we could swiftly address that: put it under "machine-translated gibberish" and move on...

But it seems like some people are not fully convinced that this is absolute gibberish. For some reason, they think there is a point in trying to fathom what the transistors at Google's Data Center were thinking when they came up with that (to be clear: "What is a good way to give an apology in situation X?" would make a very good and separate question).

Oh let me count the ways Google Translate is wrong:

• 我々: is almost certainly not the right word here (but would need context to be sure)
• 起こす: probably not, either.
• 偉大な: is pretty much the opposite of what they want to say ("great", but in a positive way, i.e.: "awesome")
• 犯罪【はんざい】(crime): is hilariously inappropriate. I suspect an unforgivably literal translation of "offense"...
• that の between 犯罪 and 謝罪 makes no sense, any way you look at it...
• 謝罪【しゃざい】(apology): probably not the word you want. 謝る【あやまる】 or 詫びる【わびる】: more likely...

Are we satisfied that no part of this sentence makes any sense now?

And just before anyone says anything: no, this wasn't a useful exercise in any way... Your time and brain cells will be much better used, reading human-generated Japanese...

Answer 2

我々が起こした偉大な犯罪の謝罪 is not ungrammatical for the reason you mentioned, but is not an apology either. It is just a nominal phrase that points to an apology (from the third person perspective). Its translation will be:

Apology for the great crime that we committed

This will never mean by itself that they are apologizing.

What is more problematic about this phrase is that 偉大 means great with positive connotation. This phrase can never be used as pointing to a serious apology. It may be taken as ironical.

The word 犯罪 may not be appropriate here too. It usually means legally stated crimes. In this context, maybe 罪 'sin' or 過ち 'mistake' will be more appropriate.

Answer 3

They aren't saying they -are- the apology... They've saying the apology refers to them.　は and が don't actually mean 'is', it's just that sentences using them and no verb often get translated that way into English. It's a cultural thing.

Here they are just saying "We have an apology for the great crime that occurred." In other words, they are providing an apology for committing a great crime.

Answer 4

Whether or not it was Google translated is one thing. But it just sounds like a newspaper headline, which often aren't full, grammatically correct sentences. Even in English, you'll hear like "Government Budgets Tighten; Economy in Slump".

If it was supposed to be a complete sentence, I think a more polite, correct apology might be something along this lines of

我々が起こした甚だしい犯罪のため、お詫びいたします

And yes, 偉大 does not have negative connotations.