UPNetwork  

Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > The Misc

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 11-12-2014, 02:11 PM   #326
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerichi View Post
One thing I've noticed over the course of my studies is a tendency for kanji to swap around readings depending on where they are in the compound. I'm not talking about rendaku or the little tsu reduction, but rather a pretty significant shift in sound.

The first one I noticed is compounds with 力, which is generally read as リキ or リョウ. However, I found that words like 力作 (りきさく) tend to take the former while words like 努力 (どうりょく) take the latter. 色 is the same way, reading as シキ in front (色調 「しきちょ」、色彩 「しきさい」) but as ショク in back (原色 「げんしょく」、特色 「とくしょく」). I wonder if this is a relatively common thing or if there's a pattern with it? I've already noticed it in maybe 3-5 kanji but it doesn't seem to be talked about anywhere or even necessarily the case most of the time, even with these kanji.
I'll admit I don't know enough to be able to answer your question myself. I tried to do a little research into it to see if there was some sort of "_い_い when in the lead, _お_う when in the back" rule or similar, but I couldn't find anything. Closest I could find was a guy asking for tips on Chiebukuro Yahoo! Japan and being told in one part of the answer:

Quote:
「職」は「しょく」だが、「色」(しき・しょく)、「力(りき・りょく)」のように呉音と漢音のどちらかが 使われているので、ワンセットと考える。
He isn't exactly talking about what we're interested in*, but the fact that he specifically singles out the same two characters that you did is either a coincidence or else speaks to these two characters' prominence in natives' minds regarding the phenomenon you've observed.

* His answer made me consider the possibility of a temporal pattern, but since we see instances of both go'onyomi and kan'onyomi in 19th- and 20th-century vocabulary using 色 or 力, I think that theory's a no-go.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-15-2014, 07:21 PM   #327
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Whats a balbaloi?
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2014, 07:07 PM   #328
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
I found this particularly amusing example sentence in imiwa that I thought was worth sharing:

Quote:
神よ、最初にキスをは発明したのは、どんな馬鹿者であったか私はいぶかる。
Translation under the spoiler:
Spoiler: show
Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2014, 07:39 PM   #329
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Going out on a limb and guessing that you were looking up いぶかる.

I find that sentence most fascinating for the interesting temporal salad it is. You've got archaic and/or poetic-sounding speech (神よ, であった), standard speech (最初, 私), speech mentally associated with technology and brilliance (発明), speech that conveys crudeness/simplicity (馬鹿者), gairaigo (キス), and then for the cherry on top we've got いぶかる/訝る.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2014, 07:55 PM   #330
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
I found that sorta strange myself, which is part of the reason I posted it in the first place.

But these example sentences are from the Tanaka Corpus, which is sort of notorious for being a little bit off here and there.
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-26-2014, 12:43 PM   #331
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
Sorry for the doublepost but this merits its own post I think.

I'm doing some research in Japanese syntax this semester and I'm looking for some native Japanese speakers to do a quick survey in order to get some data for my thesis. If you know any native Japanese speakers that wouldn't mind taking a 7 question survey real quick so I can gather some data, that would be awesome!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1UnZ...I_2Do/viewform

どうもね!
__________________


私のことを消して本気で愛さないで 恋なんてただのゲーム 楽しめばそれでいい
閉ざした心を飾る 派手なドレスも靴も 孤独の友達

asbwffb

[jerichi]
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-08-2014, 10:56 PM   #332
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Today, I was discussing foreign languages with someone when a third person wanted to join in the conversation. I discovered that he had taken three years of Japanese in high school (which for him, at 33 years of age, would have been about fifteen years ago). And I soon discovered that he fancied himself knowledgeable about the language. Which made the following two things somewhat painful. ^_^;

First, he expressed the viewpoint that Japanese doesn't have curse words. I don't know where this myth comes from, and I've heard it from all manner of people, but in my personal opinion it's just plain false. Many people try to argue that Japanese curse words aren't as offensive as ours. For example, even characters in children's media like Naruto can be found using words like kuso (shit), chikushou (lit. a beast, but used the way we would use "God dammit!" or similar), fuzakeruna (lit. a crude way of saying "Don't kid with me" / "Don't make fun of me," so it approximates the English equivalent of "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" or similar), and so on. But I don't think that that changes the fact that these are still curse words, words that are considered impolite and that people turn to when in situations like the ones we find ourselves in when we turn to our own curse words. But even if you want to put these examples aside, there are words which are considered so offensive in Japan that they are censored by Japan's equivalent of the FCC. These include such terms as katawa (lit. "one wheel," it represents the English equivalent of "cripple"; but unlike cripple, which in English is considered outmoded and somewhat impolite, katawa is considered a slur on the level of English "nigger" or "kike") and bakachon kamera (lit. "an idjit Korean camera," this is a slang term for disposable cameras that contains a racial slur for Koreans, the chon bit). People who argue that Japanese contains no curse words would probably claim that since curse words and slurs aren't necessarily the same thing, proving the existence of slurs and other censored language in Japanese media does not necessarily prove the existence of curse words. But in my book, "curse words" refers to the set of words within which slurs are a subset. Anyway ... point is, I disagree that Japanese lacks curse words. Next point.

Second, the guy proudly mentioned that he has a tattoo on his arm of some Japanese. When I politely and sincerely showed interest and asked him what he had gotten, he said that he had gone to the tattooist and gotten an authentic tattoo of his own making. He explained how, as we are all much aware, many people get tattoos in Chinese or Japanese that do not really say what they think that they say and how he was not going to fall victim to this. When the tattooist asked him, "Are you sure that's what you want me to put on your arm?" he answered, "Yes, I guarantee it. " He was confident that he knew Japanese better than the tattooist and that he was getting the right thing placed on his arm.

The message he wanted was "A New Beginning."

What he got tattooed onto his arm was 新たな始まる.

... Good on him for knowing 新たな, but what he should have gotten next was 始ま, the noun form. ^^; 始まる is the verb.

The moral of the story is, never get a tattoo if you absolutely must get a tattoo, confer with no fewer than five different, unrelated native speakers before you get anything tattooed onto your body in a language you yourself do not speak at native level.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-24-2014, 01:39 AM   #333
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Are cemetaries in buildings (like the Pokemon Tower) a thing in Japan at all?
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-24-2014, 05:54 AM   #334
ROFLMAO
Thunder Badge
 
ROFLMAO's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: 日本・岡山 Okayama, Japan
Posts: 727
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Are cemetaries in buildings (like the Pokemon Tower) a thing in Japan at all?
I live in a fairly rural part of Japan, so I can't really speak for the bigger cities, but I've never heard of it. As far as I know, the vast majority here are cremated when they die and then interred in a fairly normal cemetery (in a green area usually, in extreme cases I've seen places where the train tracks run literally no more than a metre from gravestones)
__________________
PASBL Record-
TL- 3
Ref Grade- C
Wins- 24 ~ Losses- 14 ~ Draws- 1
TP- 154 KOs- 52 SP- 15
Current Number of Pokemon on the Squad: 38


Friend Codes:
Spoiler: show
Y/Smash Bros- (I pay more attention to this one :P) FS- Gabite, Noibat, Druddigon; 1993-9521-9013

X- FS- Gyarados, Bibarel, Poliwhirl; 0645-5911-9507
ROFLMAO is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-01-2015, 11:37 PM   #335
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
The YGO card, "Shaddoll Fusion" has the kanji 影依融合

What, exactly, is 影依 supposed to mean?
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2015, 12:19 AM   #336
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
So 影 is かげ, Shadow. 依, however doesn't have as simple of a translation. My handy denshi jisho glosses it as "dependent on" and similar things with a reading of i or e depending. My guess is that it would be something roughly like "[Something] Dependent on Shadows". It's really a pretty abstract kanji and doesn't have a super clear definition.
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2015, 07:41 AM   #337
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
I fell asleep in bed trying to explain the second character's oddness; Jeri beat me to it. :p It's obvious on sight (but only thanks to context) that 影依 is meant to be Shaddoll, but whereas 影 is the standard word for "shadow", kage, 依 carries no meaning I can find that is even remotely close to "doll". Instead, it is most commonly seen as one of several spellings for the Japanese verb よる:

Quote:
よる 《因る(P); 拠る(P); 依る; 由る》 (v5r,vi) (1) (uk) (esp. 依る; 拠る) to be due to; to be caused by; (2) (esp. 依る) to depend on; to turn on; (3) (esp. 因る; 由る) to be based on; to come from; (P)
Thus, despite the fact that even the Japanese call them Shaddolls (シャドール), it appears that when they went for the kanji writing that they opted for some lore-based poetry: "those which come from shadow" or (given Breen's indication of kanji preference) "those which depend on shadow" or some such, a reference to the Shaddolls' genesis and/or functionality.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-07-2015, 10:31 AM   #338
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
An interesting case of lent idioms and how idioms adapt to fit the psychology of the recipient language:

Quote:
ケーキ一切れ食べるより簡単ね♥
"That was easier than eating a piece of cake." So they took the "that was a piece of cake" expression of ours but turned it into a comparative statement ("easier than") as well as clearly attaching it to a verb (食べる "to eat"). This second alteration comes as something of a surprise to me since Japanese is so much more fond of omitting information, even verbs, than is American English. That the writer felt the need to insert a verb where, in the original expression, none had been before is a fascinating look into the Japanese mind.

To be clear: this sample comes from a comic written by one man. What we see here could be more a reflection on how his mind operates than on how all Japanese minds operate. Furthermore, a Google search for "ケーキ一切れ食べるより" with quotes reveals only two hits: and neither of them terminate with 簡単 or other adjectives implying ease. So it is not as though this expression, or at least not as written above, enjoys widespread use throughout Japan.

But when I ask myself, "Would a fanboy of English be likely to borrow an English idiom for his readerbase if there was a high probability of them not being familiar with the idiom beforehand?" I have to conclude "No. " I imagine that enough Japanese readers are familiar with the expression from exposure to English that the author is free to translate it over to Japanese without losing them.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-15-2015, 06:28 PM   #339
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
I want to make a pun between "Faust" and "First", as in "Faust Fusion". With some better context I could probably make it work, but with Fusion as the only other word I'm at a loss for forcing it.

ファースト faasuto
ファウス fausu

I'm surprised "Faust" is "ファウス", although this isn't the second time I've seen an intuitively odd pronunciation. "punch", as in "fruit punch" is pronounced "ponchi", so the pun in English of punch the drink and punch the strike don't carry over as cleanly.

Does this work? Or are the words too different to confuse?
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2015, 11:58 PM   #340
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
So I'm making another pun!

The original name is "Midorikawa" (緑川), which means green river. The character's full name is Midorikawa Nao.

My named character is "Kikai Gao", the kanji I picked are 木海 which translate to tree ocean. It features the same on-kun mixing, lack of rendaku, a similar Chinese-sounding first name, similar meanings and is a pun to boot. If you reverse "Gao Kikai" it's "Gao Machine"!

Now here's the problem. I dunno if "Kikai" is very lyrical. I also fear the name appears too obviously masculine. I dunno about "Nao" though. So questions:

1. Does Midoikawa Nao sound masculine?
2. Does Kikai Gao sound masculine?
3. Would Kigai Gao or Kiumi Gao sound better?
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-02-2015, 07:46 AM   #341
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Kikai is already "taken" in the sense that anyone hearing kikai is going to first think of 機械 / 器械, the word for "machine." So unless you intend for everyone to keep trying to analyze the machineness of Kikai the character, I'd suggest changing the name altogether. The English analogy would be if you found, etymologically, that wa meant fire in Old English and ter meant child and so you opted to name your "fire child" character Jonas Water.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:20 PM   #342
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Alright, I've settled on "Senjougawa".

Which kanji for Sejou would be a better choice for straight?

線状川がお
線条川がお

The idea for "senjou" is to capture the idea of a "straight blue line", reminiscent of the Shinkansen 500 series trains. It's also a pun because you'd connect that to line or liner, and there's a machine in GaoGaiGar called "LinerGao" (based on the Shinkansen).

状 means "form" or "appearance" and appears as per the dictionary definition of "linear". 条 means "stripe" and appears as per the dictionary definition of "line/stripe".
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 10:32 PM   #343
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
The second one seems a little more artistic (my dictionary says "a line, a streak"); the first one just means linear.
__________________


私のことを消して本気で愛さないで 恋なんてただのゲーム 楽しめばそれでいい
閉ざした心を飾る 派手なドレスも靴も 孤独の友達

asbwffb

[jerichi]
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 11:18 PM   #344
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Can you just make up a meaning for a kanji?

Like write 直 and pronounce it Senjou?

Clarification, without the use of accompanying kana. I don't know how people with weird names do it, but I'd think it would be tedious to write out "senjou" in kana constantly to explain a kanji.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 01:44 AM   #345
Kindrindra
大事なのは自分らしいくある事
 
Kindrindra's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Determined
Posts: 5,840
Couldn't you just use furigana for that, or am I mistaking something?
__________________
PASBL(TL: 4 RL: B-) --- FB (Kin Blackstone) --- WF (Adelie Fleur)
Quote:
Originally Posted by captainmisato View Post
People should watch what they enjoy regardless of what others think, even if it's a terribad guilty pleasure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Though, I also dislike the concept of lamenting the current day while wishing to re-experience the past. At least, my modern attitude is to try and make each new day magical even if it's not, since exclusively reminiscing about the past is too pathetic.
Kindrindra is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 07:17 AM   #346
Jerichi
プラスチック♡ラブ
 
Jerichi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: 蒸気の波の中
Posts: 14,766
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Can you just make up a meaning for a kanji?

Like write 直 and pronounce it Senjou?

Clarification, without the use of accompanying kana. I don't know how people with weird names do it, but I'd think it would be tedious to write out "senjou" in kana constantly to explain a kanji.
With names, kanji are often chosen to approximate the reading, even if they're meaningless in combination. But you can't really just write a random kanji and give it a new pronunciation. There are obscure readings for kanji that are only really ever used in names, but I really doubt any Japanese person would just select a random kanji and pronounce it totally differently from how it's read normally.

And that kanji isn't really "straight" in the sense of a line as much as it is "straight" in the sense of morally correct.
Jerichi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 07:59 AM   #347
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Massugu is one word which means straight i.e. shortest path between points. Suguha is a girls name made popular by SAO. The onyomi for blue is sei, kunyomi ao. 1 + 2 + 3:

You could opt for a name like Seima Suguha or Aoyama Suguha. (Latter sounds especially authentic.) Contains the blue, contains a ready-made nickname via contraction that implies straight. Aoyama Suguha, "Massugu."

It loses the train line connotation of Sen though. If the train line is just as important as the other information, then perhaps never mind.

----------------

You can't really write 青山直葉 and say it's read Nekoyama Iori just because you want to. English equivalent would be naming your kid Jackson Smith and insisting it's pronounced Jameson Bradley. Sometimes a character has poetic readings or antiquated readings that the parents aim for in choosing their child's name, e.g. 紫 can be read as either Murasaki or Yukari, but like ... you can't just grab a kanji because it looks purty to you and you want its meaning but affix a radically different reading to it. Like, you couldn't name your kid Akiko but spell it 猫 because "I want the brightness meaning from Akiko and the cat meaning from 猫."

To give you an English approximation of what Japanese parents sometimes do when giving their children a name that requires the child to correct others on how to pronounce it, think about American children with Gaelic names. "It's spelled Siobhan but pronounced Sh'vahn." "It's spelled Seamus but pronounced Shaymis." It isn't quite the same thing, but it's the closest I can give you. No one can get away with writing Bradley Jones and insisting it's pronounced Broodley Jooness, but it's conceivable that they might be able to get away with convincing others his given name is Braidley and that it's spelled Bradley. *shrug*

Last edited by Talon87; 03-04-2015 at 08:10 AM.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 07:40 PM   #348
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Well, it was worth a shot. =3=

Would you guys say 線条川がお is alliteration heavy? I do think that as "straight river" it makes sense as a last name, rather than just Senjou, but to my ears it isn't very pleasant saying gawa Gao.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Massugu is one word which means straight i.e. shortest path between points. Suguha is a girls name made popular by SAO. The onyomi for blue is sei, kunyomi ao. 1 + 2 + 3:

You could opt for a name like Seima Suguha or Aoyama Suguha. (Latter sounds especially authentic.) Contains the blue, contains a ready-made nickname via contraction that implies straight. Aoyama Suguha, "Massugu."

It loses the train line connotation of Sen though. If the train line is just as important as the other information, then perhaps never mind.
Now that is pretty dang cool. I had done something similar but looks like a kiddie version of what you just demonstrated:

栗林むつみ / クリーム

...

The train analogy isn't essential, but it helps. In GaoGaiGar, all the GaoMachines are name + Gao. So PhantomGao, DrillGao.

Two machines are LinerGao (Shinkansen 500) and StraightGao, which mean close to the same thing. I figure a literal sense of "straight" might implant the idea she's a Gao Machine with the right suggestive hints in the story writing.

As for the moral straight, the Midorikawa Nao from PreCure's primary "virtue" appears to be 直, but she also seems to have courage as her secondary motif, as seen in her transformation line:

勇気リンリン直球勝負!キュアマーチ!

Green/courage are almost instantly associated with GaoGaiGar in Japanese anime circles, from what I've found. When I first saw Smile, that's what I thought as well. So Nao > Gao is perfect and works great spoofing both GGG and Smile. It's just a matter of finding a punny last name that also sounds nice as a part of the full name.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 08:14 PM   #349
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Senjou sounds like something that could be a last name, though it isn't one I can recall ever having heard before. Senjougawa doesn't. But I could be wrong, so ...

Why do you want 川? Is it to connote the blue, via association with water? Is it something else?

Tangent: Miyazaki had fun with Sen in Spirited Away. Spoilers for the film's climax.

Spoiler: show
The heroine is named Chihiro; the chi in Chihiro is 千, which means 1,000. This same character is also read as sen; so when the old matron of the spirit hot spring resort names Chihiro "Sen," Japanese viewers are in on the joke.

But the joke has layers, and it foreshadows the climactic reveal of the film: that Haku was a river spirit on the outside and that he is the one who saved Chihiro from drowning when she was a child. River, 川, is normally read as kawa. But it can also be read ... as sen. (Indeed, 川 and 千 are taught side by side in Grade 1 if you teach the characters in onyomi alphabetical order for this very reason!)

So when the matron gives Chihiro the new name of Sen, is she referring to 千 ... or to 川? Officially it's 千, as clearly evidenced by the title of the film, but I think you can see the artistic pun Miyazaki is going for here. The idea is that Chihiro, "Sen," bears a connection with the river in multiple ways, one of which is (indirectly) her name.

Other common sens include 泉 "spring" (the body of water, kunyomi izumi), 先 "ahead" (kunyomi saki; you know it best as the sen in Sensei), and 戦 "war" (kunyomi ikusa).

Tangent 2: listing off examples of 戦 sens I think you might know (or I know you've come across): 聖杯戦争 seihai sensou, "Holy Grail War"; 戦国 sengoku "Warring States"; and 対戦 taisen "match (as in sports)".
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2015, 08:47 PM   #350
Doppleganger
我が名は勇者王!
 
Doppleganger's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Emina Isle
Posts: 14,198
Send a message via AIM to Doppleganger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Why do you want 川? Is it to connote the blue, via association with water? Is it something else?
There's three parts to that. The major is euphony. "Senjou Gao" doesn't sound very nice to my ear. "Midorikawa Nao" does, and another Green PreCure, "Akimoto Komachi" also has a nice sounding name. It isn't a matter of symmetry of mora either, since the first has six and the second has seven.

The second is I want it to sound like a plausible last name, or have some clever meaning, or if neither be an obvious homage. A great one I'm proud of is:

明星院ルクレティア myoujouin rukuretia

明星 is another name for Venus. Another girl I have is named "Kasei" for Mars, so the names are complementary.

But there's a PreCure character named 明堂院 いつき myoudouin itsuki, so if you're familiar with the franchise the reference is immediate. And then I got the name Venus in there to boot.

The final reason is 川 appears a PreCure in every recent season has a name ending in -gawa or -kawa:

Suite PreCure - 黑川 エレン (purple)
Smile PreCure - 緑川 なお (green)
Dokidoki PreCure - 菱川 六花 (blue)
Happiness Charge PreCure - 氷川 いおな (purple)

Although I like the name 星川 a lot, so this isn't a deal-breaker for me. Especially since the main girl of Smile is 星空 みゆき.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87
Tangent 2: listing off examples of 戦 sens I think you might know (or I know you've come across): 聖杯戦争 seihai sensou, "Holy Grail War"; 戦国 sengoku "Warring States"; and 対戦 taisen "match (as in sports)".
Related to that, I did find a place name called "Senjougawa". But there's also "戦場ヶ原" which is likely where the famous Bakemonogatari character got her name from.

The "ga" names have always been a bit perplexing for me, I've never actually asked for it even when faced with names like Sekigahara or Sadogashima but it seems intuitive-ish with similar phenomenon in English.
__________________
あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて
Doppleganger is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Lower Navigation
Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > The Misc


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:42 AM.


Design By: Miner Skinz.com
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.