Questions tagged [translation]
翻訳. This site does not provide a translation service. However, questions about translation are welcome provided that they have some academic merit. For example, questions about translating uncommon words, phrases that have different meanings in different contexts, and other non-trivial topics.
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Understanding 「 退屈だな学校ってところも」
In the second episode of Death Note, a 死神 says about a human school:
退屈だな学校ってところも
退屈だ is I assume modifying 学校. So why isn't だ in its attributive form, as in 退屈なな学校 (I assume the other な is the ...
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Understanding 「あの後のオヤジとあれからどうだった？」
From the second episode of Death Note, a classroom a student says to another student:
ってあの後のオヤジとあれからどうだった？
I'm curious about this <NOUN>と...<COPULA> usage here. Is this slang for ...
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Meaning of 僕に in 「僕に勝手に人を裁く権利があるのか？」
In the first episode of Death Note, the speaker wonders whether he has the right to take people's lives as he wishes:
僕に勝手に人を裁く権利があるのか？
I understand that 勝手に means "as one pleases", but ...
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するだろうな wonderment or a question?
If a person says " レイどんな顔をするだろうな"
Is it more correct to translate it as:
I wonder what face Rey would make.
Or
How do you think he will react?
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Meaning of しかも and それで in Yes-No question
I see that しかも and それで usually connect 2 sentence together. But I see them place at the beginning in Yes-No questions.
1)"しかも歌うんかい"
2)"それで上手いんかい"
Does it mean 1) "(Moreover) is he singing?" and 2) "...
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~乙女ならばともかく: Translation and grammar issue
I was reading The Tatami Galaxy, and I came across the following sentence:
うら若き乙女ならばともかく、二十歳過ぎたむさ苦しい男を誰が抱きしめてやりたいものか。[pg.295]
I know ~ともかく means "leaving aside", "never mind X,..." ...
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Prepositional phrase with に and verb 感じられる
"界王神界にまでエネルギーが感じられるほど強大な力を開放し"
In this phrase, would it to be correct to say the prepositional phrase "界王神界に" connects to the object of the verb "エネルギー" or the subject of ...
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Does the も particle mean "as far as" in the following sentence?
I'm translating a sentence, and I come across the particle も. I remember learning in my Beginner Japanese class that the particle も can be used to mean "too" in various situations, but that meaning is ...
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Help with translating this quote
I'm going to say a word on peace, participating in contest at university, and I have literally no one to check what I've written, and it's tomorrow.
I think of putting this quote from Ibn El Romi:
...
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How to say 'I want to be red' in Japanese?
Watasi wa akaku sitai. ?
Watasi wa akakaritai. ?
How to say 'Be red!'?
Akaku siro! ?
Akakare! ?
How to say 'It's being red at the moment (as in: it will turn purple and then blue soon)'?
Kore wa ...
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だって, なんだって and some other interpretation questions
I have couple of issues/questions about a certain piece of monologue from a manga. Because it's from a manga I will be separating the lines based on boxes in which they are in, and using / to separate ...
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Inferring the missing verbs from「世の中に知らしめるんだ 僕の存在を正義の裁きを下す者が いるってことを」
Here's a transcript segment from the first episode of Death Note, where the main character goes on an egotistical rant:
18:03
世の中に知らしめるんだ 僕の存在を
18:06
正義の裁きを下す者が いるってことを
The speaker then gets ...
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How would you say, 「Will you please look at this picture?」
I am talking to my a teacher of mine, and would like to ask her to look at a picture I took a screen shot of this morning because one of her staff came up to us and said 「おはようございました」and we had a ...
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How do you say "breast meat chicken"?
My instructor told me to say 「胸肉」-- "breast meat" -- but we got a lot of weird looks in Japan (one waitress asked for clarification by discreetly tracing the shape of her own breast). Since ...
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行けます vs 行きます potential form
I've got the following sentence:
Everyone but my older brother is going on next week's trip.
which, in Japanese, is supposedly
来週の旅行は兄以外みんな行けます。
But since it's got 行けます as opposed to 行きます, which, ...
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Attack on Titan episode 2 - What does preacher say?
I am translating 進撃の巨人. Below is a sentence from the transcript of the second episode.
Here the link for reference: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XT7gHjFO8jft8DAQCVpPfmU3DreCsraJVYC-NPtmv5g/edit
...
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Doubt about third conditional sentence
This is a sentence from Death Note. The assassin has just said "I am victorious!" thinking his plan to kill everyone was successful. But being alive and still, the detective says:
あなたはさっき、...
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How to parse 親も辞書を買ってやったかいがあるってもんだ
親も辞書を買ってやったかいがあるってもんだよ
The context is that speaker (a child) is trying to find the meaning of a word and asks her friend if she can borrow a dictionary. The friend ridicules her. She brushes aside ...
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Meaning of 文す, かわらせなく in sorobun, Tanizaki, Yoshino-kuzu
Ther following is an extract from a letter that the writer quotes in the above book. The letter was found amongst his grand-mother's belongings after she died, apparently a letter sent to her, by her ...
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Translating into single line having the qualification name, subjects and its grades
I've been trying to translate this single line of the qualification name, subjects, and its grades in Japanese and somehow it looks more challenging to me than how it's supposed to be. Here is the ...
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A problem with numbers
I ask again today a question that will probably be completely trivial for those who know the language.
What is the difference between 一〇〇四六 and 一万四十六 ?
Or (I think the difference is the same, but I ...
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What is meant by そこはね here?
女：手でね、書かなくても、今パソコンで作るからさ、別に問題はないんだけど でも頭の中にあるものを手で書けたら、なんかもっと幅が広がるような気がして
男：これ、あれですね、ペンタブ買うやつですね
女：いや、まずはね・・・まずあの・・・そんなお金はかけない。紙からやるけど、上手になったら考える
男：偉いね！形から入るタイプの人だったらまず買うよ
女：いや、でもさ、...
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Is Saturday considered a weekday or weekend, or something else?
I'm confused about this sign. It states working hours. The first part is easy: weekdays is 9:30 to 20:00. The second part is strange. Instead of saying 週末・祭日 (weekends and holidays), it says "...
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Does the word 有不好的預感 mean いやなよかんがする in Japanese? [closed]
I also asked the same question in HiNative.
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允可ス on Aikido Certificate - Meaning and Katakana Usage
I'm still a Nihongo Noob but recently I tried to translate my Aikido certificate for fun. The important part says:
[my name]
右者{みぎもの} 今般{こんぱん} 合気道{あいきどう}
参段{さんだん} ヲ 允可{いんか}ス
which basically ...
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How correct is Duolingo with 俺は人間をやめるぞ！
Recently I got curious about Duolingo's Japanese courses, so I downloaded it and skipped over to section 5. This is the highest level section where they are still teaching you to my understanding. ...
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Meaning of しない in sign 飲酒運転しないさせない我が職場
I can't understand this sign. Part しない just doesn't make sense to me. If it weren't there I would translate it as "Drunken driving isn't allowed. This region under my duty" (later part I ...
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What's a natural way to say "If I can do it so can you!"?
I would translate it as
わたしが出来るとあなたも出来るよ！
Could someone help explain what a more natural translation would be, or even better if there's a saying or a common idiom to express the same idea?
P.s. ...
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Asking someone to sing a song with me
Ryura! Would you like to sing 'Isshin Furan' with me and a friend?
This is what I have so far...
Ryuraさん！「一心不乱」を私と一緒に歌えませんか？
Please help me make it sound more fluid if possible!
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したく in 「戦いをしたくありません.」
In
戦いをしたくありません.
[He] didn't want to start a war.
is したく the adverbial form of したい? Literally speaking, does this sentence means something like
"wanting to do a war"-ly doesn't exist.
...
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Spontaneously in Japanese
How can we say spontaneously in a natural way in Japanese?
Here the context:
My German friend will spontaneously visit Okayama tomorrow. Because of that I want to cancel our running session tomorrow.
...
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Trying to translate a more complex sentence, Instrumentives
I am having difficulty translating something (I am translating as an excerise), how would one translate a more instrumental sentence, like:
"Charlie sweetens the cake with sugar"
"...
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I'm having trouble understanding the usage of 特に...もっとですね, and 15回以上は
From Sakura Tips podcast episode 615. パッキング, there is a transcript to the podcast. I'm having difficulty understanding due to my confusion regarding word/phrase ordering.
Original transcript:
...
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Why are conflicting verb tenses allowed in usage of なら
In https://japanesetest4you.com/japanese-language-proficiency-test-jlpt-n4-grammar-exercise-7/ I encountered the following sentence:
父は何でも作れたんだ。
戸棚が必要なら、父が作ってくれた。
If I were to translate this into ...
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Who is the agent in the sentence そんなおとぎ話をよく聞かされたっけ?
In the Chantelise opening narration, having Japanese audio and English text translation, multiple sources, like rpgfan, hardcoregaming101 and RPGamer say that Elise is quoting a warning that her ...
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Grasping the meaning of this passage by Miyamoto Musashi
I was doing some JLPT reading practice and found this passage that I cannot really comprehend. The Miyamoto Musashi quote is highlighted in the brackets:
（略） 前田さんによれば、真剣同士の戦いは、実際に刀と刀がぶつかっていなくても、...
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What does 「やっぱり申告制でひとつ」mean in this context? [duplicate]
Context: MC is asking 2 of his subordinates about their desired salary/ allowance, which he will pay for them. Since he has been isekai'd , he doesn't know about the average salary/ income or ...
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Meaning and reading of 益し加える
Reading in a book by 落合淳思 I wonder about (what looks like) the compound verb 益し加える in the sentence 「自は鼻の象形であり、それに声符を益し加えた繁文である。」 (繁文 is used by Ochiai as a technical term for the modern shape of a ...
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Choosing the correct level of politeness when translating foreign material
Here is my question: how do you choose the correct level of politeness in Japanese, when translating foreign material that may not follow Japanese rules? Let's say we have a formal setting, e.g. a ...
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Why is the same English meaning of ため tied to different Japanese meanings in different dictionaries?
Jisho gives "consequence; result; effect" with an example sentence
それは、おまえの声をよく聞くためだよ。(It is in order to hear your voice well.)
Tangorin gives "consequence; result; effect" ...
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Is "Watashitachi wa, donna shigoto wo shimasu ka" the best way to ask "what kind of job are we going to do?" in a job interview?
How could I ask "what kind of job are we going to do" in a Japanese job interview?
I could just simply use something like:
Watashitachi wa, donna shigoto wo shimasu ka
But for me it doesn'...
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A story called japan vs a story called old story, their difference in japanese
So I'm learning japanese. I've put the above phrases in google translate and they translate differently.
One says, "Nihon to iu monogatari" which I understand as simply a story called japan.
...
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Disjointed dialogue in Zelda: Ocarina of Time?
Near the beginning of the game, an NPC says this dialogue, explaining some controls:
This seems to defy all conventions of building a complete sentence, which seems strange since it's supposed to be ...
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Cant understand this relative clause
There is this little article that im using to study japanese and one of its passages says:
国立感染症研究所によると、約3000の病院で6月25日までの1週間にヘルパンギーナがうつったことがわかった人は、1つの病院に平均で5.79人いました。今までの10年でいちばん多くなりました。
I cant ...
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the meaning of "のこと" in this sentence
Ohayou, please i wanted to understand the exact meaning of this definition-like sentence :
"何か、機械とかに人間っぽいことをさせる、知能を持たせるみたいなまあ広い枠組みのことをAIと言って"
And because I found it difficult to really grasp ...
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What is supposed to be first or second for ながら
So I learned that ながら means doing things are the same time, but is a certain activity specified as a main activity or the first activity? My textbook always puts the second activity first in the ...
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What is the difference between 言語一般 and 一般言語?
I was reading an article about 統語論 which was defined as follows:
言語一般において文が構成される仕組みを扱う分野｡
Now when I tried to search for the meaning of "言語一般" I could not find any thing on it.
When I ...
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Is there a single word in japanese that means "like the moon"?
In my native language, Persian, there is a name meaning "like the moon", As in "beautiful like the moon". I wanna know if there is any single word in Japanese like this.
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Meaning of shiji no hoshi
I just bought a japanese maple tree - in Oregon, USA - and the variety is listed as 'shiji no hoshi' (English letters, no kanji of course). I know hoshi is star; for shiji Google translate gave me ...
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Is 歌い踊り舞う a compound verb or something else?
I came across this line from YOASOBI's song 「アイドル」:
流れる汗も綺麗なアクア
ルビーを隠したこの瞼
歌い踊り舞う私はマリア
そう嘘はとびきりの愛だ
I'm having some trouble with the bolded part and I want to break it up grammatically.
I've tried to ...
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