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No, やれ{HL}やれ{HL} is not an onomatopoeia but an interjection. It doesn't symbolize any sound or state, and cannot used like other onomatopoeiae:
× やれやれという音を立てて
× やれやれした様子で
But as you said, it's true that this word has no fixed translation in English.
For example, Haruki Murakami is known to use this expression repeatedly as one of his signature style, ...
answered Jan 8 '16 at 12:51
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20
It's a pun. In fact, many, many of Dragonball's characters are puns on food (or food-related) items:
サイヤ人 Saiyajin from [ヤサイ]{野菜}人 "vegetable people"
ベジータ Vegeta from ベジタブル "vegetable"
ウーロン Oolong from 烏龍 (type of tea)
ピラフ Pilaf
ランチ Lunch
ヤムチャ Yamcha from 飲茶【やむちゃ】 (snacks & tea)
カリン塔【とう】 Korin Tower from 花林糖【かりんとう】 (type of sweets)
バーダック Burdock from 牛蒡【...
14
救われん is made of 救われる and the archaic suffix ん, which came out of む. む・ん had similar roles to よう・おう today; that is to say, 救われん in modern style would be 救われよう or 救われるだろう. It is not related to the ん that comes out of ぬ, which is a strong or dialectal way of stating a negative.
Additionally, as chocolate says in the comments, 祈り信じよ means 'Pray and believe', ...
14
いい年して「友達【ともだち】」って、ちょっと照れるけど。
The word tomodachi ("friend") itself is not really embarrassing, although there is a more formal word for this concept. In this case, this tomodachi also represents the whole exchange he has just made with the tsundere dragon. Indeed, innocently and directly saying 友達にならないか ("Let's be friends!") is not something a typical middle-...
13
It's fairly common for both ai and ae to be slurred to ee in colloquial speech.
For example:
じゃない → じゃねぇ janai → janee
のみたい → のみてぇ nomitai → nomitee
おまえ → おめぇ omae → omee
てまえ → てめぇ temae → temee
Your example has an additional contraction. When a vowel is dropped between r and n, you end up with rn. This isn't pronounceable, so it ...
12
Adding a peculiar "sound" at the end of almost every sentence is an idiosyncrasy of many characters in Japanese anime/manga/games.
Most of these sounds are simply omitted after being translated into English, but there are a few exceptions. For example even in the English version of Final Fantasy, moogles speak like "How are you, kupo!", and this kupo means ...
12
The safest neutral phrase is ○○ファン (e.g. アニメファン / 漫画ファン / アニメやゲームのファン / etc), which is widely used both by otaku and non-otaku people. This can be safely used with non-otaku hobbies, too (e.g. サッカーファン, 将棋ファン). This is definitely the first choice, for example when you write a news article introducing (favorably) an otaku event in mass media. Other common ...
12
やれ、やれ is an interjection often uttered when ① you are relieved from a burden or mental pressure, or ② when you have some burden or a little problem ahead, for example:
①やれやれ、[一仕事]{ひとしごと}終わった - Oh boy, I’ve finished this job.
やれやれ、やっと[飯]{めし}が[炊]{た}けた - Here we go! Rice is done.
やれやれ、借金も終わって[肩]{かた}の[荷]{に}が[下]{お}りた - Thank God. I settled the loans. I'm now ...
11
It very much depends on what anime. For example, an anime about daily life in the modern world would have generally "normal" Japanese. Conversational snippets sound totally normal, for the most part. You start to have "unnatural" Japanese when the writers, trying to make characters unique, give those people special "quirks" such as always referring to ...
11
This function of this か is not purely phonetic, but rather serves to make the sentence less of a outward statement and more of a self-directed or self-reflecting one.
It makes the information value of sentence primarily be “I had considered ~ previously but wasn’t sure, but in the end it indeed it is 〜, huh...”
It’s often is accompanied by やっぱり (or 予想通り ...
10
ニコニコしとれば 悪さは しねえし いつの間にか いねくなっちまうんだ。
This is the same as the following sentence written in the standard Japanese.
ニコニコしていれば悪さはしないし、いつの間にかいなくなってしまうんだ。
If you keep smiling, they won't do bad things, and they go away before you notice.
The original sentence is not in a particular "dialect", but a typical role language of an old man/lady (aka 老人語).
しとる ...
10
Official as opposed to fanfiction/dojin is simply 公式.
But do you want to refer to the canonical story line as opposed to that of a spin-off based on an alternative/what-if story? Like "main" Attack on Titan as opposed to Attack on Titan: Junior High, or "main" Dragon Ball as opposed to That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha? In this case, both are 公式, so to ...
8
Is it otaku version of -さん?
Yes...sort of.
Originally, -氏【し】 is a honorific and highly formal name suffix used to refer to someone with high social status. There are several existing questions regarding its non-otaku, "proper" usage on this site:
What criteria decides whether to print 「氏」 or 「さん」 at the end of a person's name in newspapers?
What does ...
7
I think 「〜[好]{ず}き」 is a common expression in Japan these days.
If someone likes anime very much, s/he is 「アニメ[好]{ず}き」. The usage example is
http://news.mynavi.jp/articles/2015/06/21/ibayashi/
If someone likes manga very much, s/he is 「マンガ[好]{ず}き」. The usage example is
https://www.booklista.co.jp/feature/harajyuku/
Edit:
アニメ[好]{ず}き does not mean exactly the ...
7
の[方]{ほう} is just a way of emphasizing "about".
Apart from that, what about the public safety department?
Literally, it means "direction". A similar way of saying Xの方 in English would be with "on the X side of things", i.e.
Apart from that, what about the public safety department side of things?
P.S. There was a similar question where the OP confused ...
7
Made-up words are generally based on the existing Japanese naming convention. I generally recommend that you familiarize yourself with a lot of Japanese existing compounds before wondering about this problem at this level. Especially distinguishing on- and kun- readings is critical. Please read this section carefully.
三刀流
If you already know a word 二刀流, ...
7
In a light novel, manga or such, 「……っ！」 without any preceding kana describes the speaker is speechless or breathless for a moment. Usually it expresses a strong surprise, anger, confusion or any "breathtaking" feelings.
"Tch" to express one's irritation is usually ちっ or ちぇっ.
7
It is true that Japanese people use a larger number of words on a daily basis. According to one survey introduced here, the number of words needed to understand 90% of English sentences is 3,000, but you need to know 10,000 words to achieve the same level of proficiency in Japanese. As you know, Japanese has tons of onomatopoeic words, wago-kango pairs and ...
6
"Hikarian" is a proper noun, and unique to this anime. Ordinary dictionaries don't have this word.
In the Wikipedia article, I can see almost all of the characters are named after Japanese trains or famous stations. English Wikipedia article has many links to the original Japanese trains.
According to the Japanese article, "Hikarian" is the name of a ...
6
This type of ね is a filler particle meaning nothing. Such fillers can appear in many places within a sentence. ね is one of the typical "girly" filler particles.
You don't have to translate them, although English fillers such as "you know" or "er" may be used if you fell they're appropriate.
See the following answers, which are closely related.
https://...
6
Both of your examples appear to be typical 擬人化 to me. "There is no word for the former" is probably not correct. Simply, the Japanese word 擬人化 safely covers both the former and the latter.
I don't know any formal pair of words to distinguish the two in Japanese. If there are such words, that must be ones recognized only by professional researchers. 擬人観 is a ...
6
これは儀式だ！ This is a ritual!
これは[Vする]ための儀式だ！ This is a ritual to [verb]!
これは[S]が[Vする]ための儀式だ！ This is a ritual for [S] to [verb]!
これは[お互い]が、[「深まった」と了承しあう]ための儀式だ！
This is a ritual for [both of us] to [mutually acknowledge that (our relationship) has been deepened]!
A simpler example would be これは子どもが読むための本です。 "This is a book for children to read."
I ...
6
While there were many blog entries on keigo usage that said both 参る and 伺う are 謙譲語 for 行く, all of the dictionaries I checked (広辞苑, 新明解, 大辞林, etc.) agreed that 伺う is a 謙譲語 for 訪問する／訪れる, not 行く.
So the quiz segment is technically correct, even though it seems like a lot of people think 伺う is also a 謙譲語 for 行く. This is probably because 参る and 伺う are often ...
6
This appears to be an onslaught of wordplay.
The character's name is 丹生谷【にぶたに】 森夏【しんか】. Her given name is made up from two kanji, 森 and 夏 which both have more than one reading — a kun'yomi (kun reading) and an on'yomi (on reading).
森 "forest" has on'yomi しん and kun'yomi もり
夏 "summer" has on'yomi か and kun'yomi なつ
森夏 is also called モリサマ, which is a play on ...
6
It's a sentence-end な followed by a quotative-って.
すげー本物っぽいなって
(I was thinking) this looks so real.
Without this って (and the implied verb 思ってた), this sentence doesn't work as a response to her(his?) sister.
なる ("to become") is not relevant because なる must be preceded by the ku-form (連用形) of an adjective (or adjective-like auxiliary).
5
The titles are non-standard Japanese (they are creative sentences). I for one think the translations are as good as it gets.
In normal contexts they are used like this:
受験失敗したのは自分のせいじゃんよ
(Lecturing) The reason you failed was your own fault, isn't it hey?
安っぽい店で飲みたいこともあるじゃんよ
(Defending) Sometimes you wanna drink in a cheap place, don't we hey?...
5
If we uncontract 振んなきゃ, we find that it's undergone these three contractions:
振らなければ → 振らなけりゃ (eba → ya)
振らなけりゃ → 振らなきゃ (erya → ya)
振らなきゃ → 振んなきゃ (/ran/ → /rn/ → /Nn/)
In other words, the full form of 振んんなきゃ means "If [you] don't swing [the bat]". That's conditional, though, so something should come after it; and if nothing does ...
5
Isn't this "ワンピースは実在する！" from this anime/manga? It's not related to dresses or swimsuits.
http://youtu.be/bFb5h9hl9Ig?t=2m3s (at around 2:03)
http://opwymtk.sakura.ne.jp/mystery/tcotop.html
In this manga, ワンピース is a name of "ultimate treasure" searched by pirates, and very little is known about it. Characters in the manga even do not know whether ワンピース is ...
5
The omitted verb is a bit different from what you have in mind:
世間では警察も無能、Lも無能と思われている。
In the society, it is thought that both the police and L are incompetent.
Note that I used the passive form here. The sentence is not saying "society thinks ～" with the society as the subject. で here is a simple location marker, "in the society" (or "in the public ...
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