Japanese Help Questions/Translations

[Nagoyankee]

最初の投稿者：mofl16

Is there a literal translation for the word 吟遊詩人.

No, there isn't. If I were to make one up from the kanji, it would be:

"Sing-Travel-Poetry-Man"

Many Japanese themselves tend to think that the scond kanji 遊 to mean "to play" but its original meaning is "to travel".

最初の投稿者：mofl16

What are the connotations when it's used today?

The better writers would not use the term 吟遊詩人 very easily to refer to something other than what it originally means, which is the "troubadour" in
medieval Europe.

Yet if it's used for something else, the connotations would be that the person
is a singer of some sort that is on the road for much of the year. The type of music s/he sings would not be popular music. The person would do this for a religious or philosophical reason, and not for money. If the person appears on TV occasionally or has released CD's or something, s/he shouldn't be called 吟遊詩人 at all.

[mandalina]

こんにちは!

私のこれらの文章は正しいですか。

今日は、市で雨がありました。今朝は仕事に行く途中、 ぬれました。ただし、病気にならないと思います。

よろしくお願いします!

[Nagoyankee]

最初の投稿者：mandalina

こんにちは!

私のこれらの文章は正しいですか。

今日は、市で雨がありました。今朝は仕事に行く途中、 ぬれました。ただし、病気にならないと思います。

よろしくお願いします!

おはようございます！

No comma needed after 今日は.

市で　＞　街で (for a larger town). 町で (smaller town). The pronunciation is the same.

市で means something entirely different. It means "at the market". 市 is an open-air kind of a market (flea markets included).

雨がありました is fine only if it rained for a short period of time. If it rained for longer than a few hours, we say 雨が降（ふ）りました.　　

ただし is too heavy a word for this. I would use でも with no comma following.

病気にならない > 病気にはならない. This は is fairly important but is very often omittted by Japanese learners. It serves as emphasis for a negative ending.

[mandalina]

最初の投稿者：Nagoyankee

おはようございます！

No comma needed after 今日は.

市で　＞　街で (for a larger town). 町で (smaller town). The pronunciation is the same.

市で means something entirely different. It means "at the market". 市 is an open-air kind of a market (flea markets included).

雨がありました is fine only if it rained for a short period of time. If it rained for longer than a few hours, we say 雨が降（ふ）りました.　　

ただし is too heavy a word for this. I would use でも with no comma following.

病気にならない > 病気にはならない. This は is fairly important but is very often omittted by Japanese learners. It serves as emphasis for a negative ending.

おはようございます、 Nagoyankee-san！

ありがとうございました。

[Mangafan12]

Quote:
I did this on JF last year but can't find it....

三大神、その使命を終え、彼の国へ去り行きたもう。

The Three Great Gods completed their missions and left to return to their country.

神々の去りし地に、黄金の聖三角残し置く。

On the land that the Gods departed from, they left behind permanently the Golden Sacred Triangle.

What do 去り行きたもう and 残し置く translate to on their own (literally)?

I've tried researching everywhere about what 去り行きたもう means, but I cannot find any other examples of a sentence with もう at the end. Please help.

[Nagoyankee]

最初の投稿者：Mangafan12

I've tried researching everywhere about what 去り行きたもう means, but I cannot find any other examples of a sentence with もう at the end. Please help.

This may shock you as you're obviously a fan, but you're trying to read a terrible piece of writing. Any honest native speaker would tell you that. I'm one so I have to say this.

This writer mixes Classical Japanese with Modern Japanese, which would simply be written off as trash in literature. This is a manga/anime/game genre, isn't it? That's why we're seeing this ugly-looking writing style.

大地を 創る modern
法を与える modern

創造せり classical
去り行きたもう failed classical! たもう is merely the pronunciation of the classical verb たまふ. It should never be written たもう. This is like saying "Let's write 'daughter' 'dauter' because that's how we pronounce it."
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

去り行く just means "to go" or "to leave". The connotation is that the person/thing won't probably return.

たまふ is the classical verb that makes the preceding verb an honorific. This is because you're talking about the gods, naturally.

Therefore, it would be nearly impossible to translate 去り行きたもう into English, for me at least. Does your language even have honorific forms of verbs? This is beyond my rudimentary English proficiency. But since I explained the components above, I'll have to leave the work to you now.

[KyleGoetz]

最初の投稿者：Nagoyankee

病気にならない > 病気にはならない. This は is fairly important but is very often omittted by Japanese learners. It serves as emphasis for a negative ending.

I'm going to second this. It's very important to learn this rule when you're first exposed to it. I was never explicitly taught this in class, and when I learned it once, I didn't make sure to commit the rule to memory. To this day, I still forget it because I didn't force myself to learn this when I should have. I think this is one of those things teachers will never correct you for in class. Thus, there are few opportunities to learn this rule.

Take the bull by the horns here!

[Mangafan12]

This may shock you as you're obviously a fan, but you're trying to read a terrible piece of writing. Any honest native speaker would tell you that. I'm one so I have to say this.

This writer mixes Classical Japanese with Modern Japanese, which would simply be written off as trash in literature. This is a manga/anime/game genre, isn't it? That's why we're seeing this ugly-looking writing style.

Thankfully, this was the only Zelda quote I've found that uses this writing style.

大地を 創る modern
法を与える modern

創造せり classical
去り行きたもう failed classical! たもう is merely the pronunciation of the classical verb たまふ. It should never be written たもう. This is like saying "Let's write 'daughter' 'dauter' because that's how we pronounce it."
＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

去り行く just means "to go" or "to leave". The connotation is that the person/thing won't probably return.

たまふ is the classical verb that makes the preceding verb an honorific. This is because you're talking about the gods, naturally.

Thanks for clearing that up. That sentence makes a whole lot more sense now.

Therefore, it would be nearly impossible to translate 去り行きたもう into English, for me at least. Does your language even have honorific forms of verbs? This is beyond my rudimentary English proficiency. But since I explained the components above, I'll have to leave the work to you now.

No, English doesn't have honorific verb forms. Honorifics can't really be translated into English, so I'll leave them out.

Thanks again for your help.

[berrypie]

最初の投稿者：mofl16

Very short one today:

Is there a literal translation for the word 吟遊詩人. What are the connotations when it's used today?
Thanks a lot!

Just wanna share my experience: when I play RPG games, the job 吟遊詩人 is often translated to "Bard".

[chryuop]

最初の投稿者：KyleGoetz

I'm going to second this. It's very important to learn this rule when you're first exposed to it. I was never explicitly taught this in class, and when I learned it once, I didn't make sure to commit the rule to memory. To this day, I still forget it because I didn't force myself to learn this when I should have. I think this is one of those things teachers will never correct you for in class. Thus, there are few opportunities to learn this rule.

Take the bull by the horns here!

I remember once I gave the exercises to the Japanese teacher helping me and he corrected me a phrase saying since it was negative I needed to use は (I don't recall the exact phrase, but I am sure it was not a direct/indirect speech case). However other times I ended up not using は for negative phrases and he didn't correct me.
I had never figure out if there was a rule or what since in my grammar book I had never seen anything about it.
So for example in my signature, should I write 気にはならなくて?