Japanese Help Questions/Translations

[munchmunch]

Hi there, so I'm trying to translate a book from Japanese to English and I only have a basic dictionary and Jishop to aid me plus various online places. For little bits, I've been using IME Pad to help me get the right Kanji typed up on my computer, however, it just doesn't seem to recognise this one kanji, no matter how many times or different ways I try to draw it.

I've got some pictures here of it, one is my drawing (sorry, I'm not the best at writing kanji), and also from the book (above か)


So if you know what that is and could type it up for me, I'd be really grateful! I've got the rest of the sentence down so I could probably take a guess at it, but I want to be thorough and translate the book for myself properly.

Also, is there any advice you could give on translating long texts? Is the method I'm using bad or good, or is there a more efficient way of going about this?

Thankyou in advance ^_^

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by munchmunch

Hi there, so I'm trying to translate a book from Japanese to English and I only have a basic dictionary and Jishop to aid me plus various online places. For little bits, I've been using IME Pad to help me get the right Kanji typed up on my computer, however, it just doesn't seem to recognise this one kanji, no matter how many times or different ways I try to draw it.

I've got some pictures here of it, one is my drawing (sorry, I'm not the best at writing kanji), and also from the book (above か)


So if you know what that is and could type it up for me, I'd be really grateful! I've got the rest of the sentence down so I could probably take a guess at it, but I want to be thorough and translate the book for myself properly.

Also, is there any advice you could give on translating long texts? Is the method I'm using bad or good, or is there a more efficient way of going about this?

Thankyou in advance ^_^

That is 静 .

Type しずか and change it to the kanji.

You would need to know much more Japanese than you do now in order to translate a book. You would need to be able to write pretty much what you want to say in Japanese. Any second-grader knows the kanji 静 here.

[TerenceLau]

How would you say "pants"?

I've learned the word ズボン but not all pants are trousers. There are a few instances when I say パンツ to Japanese customers, they would deny and say that they aren't looking for underwear. I looked up "pants" on jisho.org and it gave me a bunch of entries for different types of pants; like ~パンツ. I wonder, must I be fully descriptive about pants when I don't have the physical item in my hands to play "show and tell" with my customers?

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by TerenceLau

How would you say "pants"?

I've learned the word ズボン but not all pants are trousers. There are a few instances when I say パンツ to Japanese customers, they would deny and say that they aren't looking for underwear. I looked up "pants" on jisho.org and it gave me a bunch of entries for different types of pants; like ~パンツ. I wonder, must I be fully descriptive about pants when I don't have the physical item in my hands to play "show and tell" with my customers?

If you want a single word to use at your store, that would be スラックス, period. It would by far be the safest (and easiest) choice.

You can use パンツ with those who look clearly fashion-concsious, but the pitch accent is different for it than when it means "underwear". If you can pronounce it correctly, this is the word that would help you sell more pants than when you use スラックス because it would make YOU look more fashion-conscious.

I would never use ズボン at The Gap. It sounds too old and unfashionable.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

You can use パンツ with those who look clearly fashion-concsious, but the pitch accent is different for it than when it means "underwear". If you can pronounce it correctly, this is the word that would help you sell more pants than when you use スラックス because it would make YOU look more fashion-conscious.

Guess: So underwear is パンツ with the pitch being HL, while the fashionable word for things worn below the waistline with two leg pieces is パンツ with the pitch being HH? (maybe it's HHL vs HHH, I'm not sure how to mark the pitch of ン)

This is just a guess since I don't have access to a dictionary that has pitch accent markings. (Wish I knew of one online.)

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

Guess: So underwear is パンツ with the pitch being HL, while the fashionable word for things worn below the waistline with two leg pieces is パンツ with the pitch being HH? (maybe it's HHL vs HHH, I'm not sure how to mark the pitch of ン)

This is just a guess since I don't have access to a dictionary that has pitch accent markings. (Wish I knew of one online.)

It is difficult to talk about pitch accents with words but what you stated looks good. For "underwear", the パ receives a clear high pitch accent. For the other meaning, it is kind of flat all the way.

パンツ (underwear) :　Same pitch accent as　「ライス」「合図」「ライム」 「債務」

パンツ (pants) : Same pitch accent as　「あいつ」「パイプ」「こいつ」「とんち」

As for an online pitch accent dictionary, I found a fairly comprehensive one many months ago and gave it to Maxwel in a thread. I failed to keep it for myself and now I cannot seem to find it.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

It is difficult to talk about pitch accents with words but what you stated looks good. For "underwear", the パ receives a clear high pitch accent. For the other meaning, it is kind of flat all the way.

OK, that's what I was thinking. I think the convention is that an all-flat word is considered nothing but high pitches.

As for an online pitch accent dictionary, I found a fairly comprehensive one many months ago and gave it to Maxwel in a thread. I failed to keep it for myself and now I cannot seem to find it.

I was wondering about that. I recalled seeing one online somewhere very vaguely. I bet I have it written down somewhere.

I actually just did a Google search for only things that appear on Japanforum.com for threads where you and Maxful both posted on the same page and the word "pitch" appears (the specific Google query is site:japanforum.com +maxful +masaegu +pitch).

Doing this search, I have come to a startling conclusion that explains why, twice, you haven't been able to find where you made some comment on JF. Namely, When a thread reaches something like 36 pages in length, it starts having pages go missing. Here's a link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PJeU0ttbroAJ:www.japanforum.com/forum/japanese-language-help/25439-japanese-help-questions-translations-78.html+site:japanforum.com+%2Bmasaegu+%2Bmaxful+%2Bpitch&cd=1&hl=en&ct=cln k&gl=us&lr=lang_ja|lang_en&client=firefox-a

That's Google's cache for page 78 of this "Japanese Help Questions/Translations" thread. Now try to click on another page at the bottom—say, page 79. You'll find you get redirected to page "36" of this thread, which is the last page, the one on which we're carrying on our most recent conversation.

So JF has a memory hole where it forgets things!

This upsets me. The site has gone down for long periods of time before, there is absolutely no way of contacting the owner (I've asked MMM and Nyororin, two MODS, and they don't know how to contact the owner, either!) to report problems, and now I find out that it throws pages away!

I'd set up a board just for Japanese language and invite everyone there if I weren't sure it'd be futile (a forum is worthless without a critical mass of people).

New thread to replace this one: Japanese Help Questions/Translations II