May 23, 2006

  • Impending doom?

    This one is an idiomatic English statement that's translated (by me, or course). There's no
    future tense in Japanese (日本語), so instead of making it unfortunately
    complicated, I've just left the tense present. To be honest, I think it
    Japanese the future would be inferred anyway. がんばって　(ganbatte = try your best/good luck)

    あの彼女は私の
    薨去でしょう。
    Ano kanojo wa watashi no koukyo deshou.

    PS. if you don't know what this is about, I'm offering a prize to whomever can translate this. Use online stuff. Seach for WWWJDIC. ^_^

Comments (5)

  • This one was a bit harder, but I think that I've figured it out. So, I'm going to give the definitions/translations that came up and then my English translation.

    Ano - that over there
    Kanojo - she/girlfriend/sweetheart
    Wa - indicates emotion/admiration (at the end of the sentence)
    - could also mean werewolf with another character or two ;)
    Watashi - I/myself
    No - indicates possessive/verb & adjective nominalizer/indicates a question
    Koukyo - death/demise
    Deshou - (I) think/(I) hope/(I) guess/don't you agree?/I thought you'd say that!

    So, using all of that info...here's my best guess at a translation:

    "I think that girl will be the death of me!"

  • I hesitated to use the "(I) hope" version of the verb.
    But, I suppose to make it more like the English version of what is generally said, it should be, "That girl [or person] will be the death of me!"

    Anyway, thanks again for the fun. You've made my coffee break very enjoyable.
    Later days.

  • Once again correct. You even looked up the particles! Particles like no and wa don't actualy transate to english, they are sort of like gramatical markers. Wa marks the topic of the sentence, while no (like you said) makes something posesive.

    Deshou is the 'tentative' form of desu. Where you would transate desu to 'x is q' deshou is more like 'x is probably q'. I felt this expressed the meaning of the statement better then the more definate desu. The transation you have is how it often gets used in real Japanese.

  • i'm amazed. work just got ten times more interesting.

  • I consulted some more experienced individuals and I think there ought to be a couple changes.

    あの彼女は私の薨去でしょう。(ano kanojo wa watashi no koukyo deshou)
    ought to be:
    あの子は僕の命取りになりましょう。(ano ko wa boku no inochitori ni narimashou)

    Apparently if you say 'that kanojo', rather then just using it alone, it implies the girlfriend meaning rather then just she. Ko is more like girl.

    Boku and watashi both mean I. However, boku is a little more masculine, and fits the context a little better.

    Though it wasn't in the dictionary, apparently koukyo can only be used for high ranking officials. Inochitori works just as well.

    And lastly, I switched from desu to naru. Naru is the verb 'to become'. I've still got it conjugated to the (polite) tentative. Rather then 'girl (tentatively) is demise', it's now 'girl (tentatively) becomes demise'.

    ni... well, it marks the result of the verb. (in this context, anyway)

    So:
    that girl (ano ko wa) will become (narimashou) the death of me (boku no inochitori ni).
    ano ko wa boku no inochitori ni narimashou.

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