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Old 03-08-2015, 01:55 PM   #351
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If you were to pronounce 星海 as hoshi umi, would the "u" be omitted to form hoshimi? If so, what is the name of this phenomenon?

(I'm just inferring this, I've seen it before with "Arima", from "ari" and "uma")
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Old 03-08-2015, 04:25 PM   #352
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
If you were to pronounce 星海 as hoshi umi, would the "u" be omitted to form hoshimi? If so, what is the name of this phenomenon?

(I'm just inferring this, I've seen it before with "Arima", from "ari" and "uma")
Q. If you were to ...
A. You wouldn't. (Correction: I could totally see hoshiumi or "star sea" being a name that an indigenous, primitive people (like the Gargantians from Suisei no Gargantia) would use to describe the cosmos. It actually sounds charming. )

Q. Yes, but if you were to ...
A. Then it would by default probably be read as hoshiumi.

Q. Not Hoshimi?
A. Well with names, poetry happens and I'm not native. I can very well imagine "Hoshimi" working in terms of possibility. In terms of probability, it doesn't seem likely to me to be a preexisting name.

Q. I just want to know if, given hoshiumi, Hoshimi could work.
A. Probably. Beyond my level to give you an answer with certainty.
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Old 03-10-2015, 07:06 PM   #353
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Does this pun work?

荷吐露 nitoro

Does it look/sound like a legit Japanese last name? Does the name make sense ("burden" + "speaking one's mind").

Phonetically, it would be pronounced the same as Nitro. Hopefully.

...

Additionally, could "arisen" be pronounced "ari sen" in katakana? Or is "arizun".
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Old 03-10-2015, 07:38 PM   #354
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I'm pretty sure nitro would be ナイットロ or something like that.
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Old 03-10-2015, 08:19 PM   #355
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Does this pun work?

荷吐露 nitoro

Does it look/sound like a legit Japanese last name? Does the name make sense ("burden" + "speaking one's mind").
The 荷 kills it for me since I associate it too strongly with 荷物 luggage/baggage, but that could just be me. The 吐露 bit looks like, all on its own, it could be a legit last name. *shrug* Assuming I didn't know the meaning of the word (and I didn't before looking it up), which again kind of kills it for me. :p

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
Additionally, could "arisen" be pronounced "ari sen" in katakana? Or is "arizun".
The English word "arisen" would be pronounced by a Japanese person probably as arizun or arizen or some such. Ari sen not only morphs the 'z' sound to an 's', which I don't think they'd do, but it also upends the intonation of the word: a-RI-zun (down-UP-down) or a-RI-ZUN technically (down-UP-UP) vs. A-ri SEN (UP-down-UP).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerichi View Post
I'm pretty sure nitro would be ナイットロ or something like that.
Burned by Japanese fickleness for loan words! ^^; Nitro's one of the ones where they aimed for preserving the English spelling at the expense of the word's pronunciation: they spell it ニトロ as Doppel guessed but obviously it becomes pronounced knee-toh-roh as a result.

Source: Pokémon!
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Old 03-10-2015, 09:05 PM   #356
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So I was looking up ways to use a last name that featured "hi" and came up with higashi, more famously associated as "east" (東):

日賀詞

The end result is "solar greeting" (with on/kun mixing) and it sounded nice enough for me to wonder if that's the actual entymology. To borrow Talon's example earlier, I could easily imagine a simpler people coining the direction after what they did in that direction.

Wikitionary doesn't provide a source for "higashi" unfortunately, but does come a bit closer:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikitionary


Phonetic borrowing – originally represented a bag tied at both ends (like a cellophane-wrapped candy with the ends twisted), and was later borrowed phonetically to mean "east". This borrowing may have been influenced by reinterpreting the character as the sun (日) rising behind a tree (木), which is the traditional (though incorrect) etymology.
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Old 03-11-2015, 08:09 PM   #357
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I want to write "Demon Mask". What sounds more fun to say, or is easier to say?

"Majin Kamen" 魔人仮面

"Majin Masuku" 魔人マスク

"Deemon Masuku" デーモンマスク

"Akumasuku" アクマスク
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Old 03-11-2015, 08:34 PM   #358
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Dunno why you're going for majin over just ma. I feel like if it's the Demon Mask it'd be 魔仮面* in the same sense that the Demon World is 魔界.

I don't see majin much if ever anyway: "demon" usually arrives in various forms like 悪魔 akuma, 鬼 oni, and 魔族 mazoku.

* Not sure if Makamen or Magamen; typed as Makamen, so ...

Anyway, of the four choices provided, I guess from easiest to most difficult to pronounce for me it'd be 2 > 3 > 4 > 1 and I guess it's the same list for fun factor to say? But as far as correct feeling goes, it'd be more like 1 > 2 > 4 > 3. (Three loses only because you've written daemon / damon instead of English "deemon". デー is the same as English "day," not English "dee.")
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Old 03-11-2015, 08:52 PM   #359
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Regarding majin, it's a bit of a pun actually. Translated in English, I'm opting for "Demon Mask". But in-story, 魔人 will be used to describe sorcerers, while 魔賢者 makensha will be wizards. Using 魔人, I can so make a play on "Demon Man Mask" and "Masked Magician", aka Val Valentino.

It's interesting to me that #2 strikes you as easy to pronounce. That was the one I wanted to use, since it captures the word play the best, but I had some trouble saying it. At least, "Tuxedo Kamen" or "Tuxedo Mask" were easier to say than the alliterative "Majin Mask".

I guess I blew it on demon. I know demon can be pronounced "daimon" but Jeffrey's Dictionary gave the katakana as "deemon", so while I'm aware of demon/daimon puns I only thought they were an approximation. Like how say, "Tatsumi Oga" isn't an imperfect approximation for "Ogre".
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Old 03-11-2015, 09:08 PM   #360
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冒険者 is boukensha (adventurer), but 賢者 is kenja (sage, philosopher). Note the character difference. You're using 賢(者) but applying 険(者)'s reading. Could be wrong but I don't think it'll work: pretty sure your 魔賢者 will have to be read makenja, not makensha.

EDIT: Well, while every use of 賢者 in other listings has it read only as kenja, the listing for 賢者 proper on WWWJDIC offers kensha as an alternate reading. A, I'll be damned. And B, I've never heard anyone read it that way before. So I'd still encourage you to check with native speakers whether their default inclination is towards ja or sha in your word and whether the non-default is still good or not. They may say that no it has to be this one particular way. Best to find out now before you put too many eggs into that pun basket.
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Old 03-11-2015, 10:06 PM   #361
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I got the "kensha" reading from vocab brought up in Eien no Aselia, where the main guy gets the title "Seikensha no Yuuto" which was translated as "Yuuto the Sage". I searched online for the kanji and that's how I got the jouyou kanji 賢, which I otherwise wouldn't have picked up for that unusual reading.

A big challenge early on was to try and get Japanese translations for wizard and sorcerer. Wizard's entymology is "one who is wise" so I felt like "magic sage" would be a good analog. Sorcerer, on the other hand, evolved from "fortune teller" so I had a lot of trouble finding something that would be a good counterpart.

魔占師 masenshi was the closest, or ma + uranaishi, in general meaning, but I felt "senshi" was too loaded a word. At best, someone would hear it as "magic warrior".

So, I feel like just plain old "majin" with the proper context would communicate amateur power and immature intent in contrast to "makensha", disciplined power and mental restraint.

In those respects, VNs have helped me a lot in narrowing down a lot of the language I'm using for my own writing - which makes me remorseful when I'm finding myself muting the audio tracks now in the interest of maintaining reading speed.

...

Let's try this sentence stuff again. I hope I've improved a bit, or at least my ear has even if my grammar hasn't. This is a catchphrase!

English, "Life's cruelty leads to happiness in the next world". 冥福 meifuku is something I found online as an idiom, kanji meaning "dark fortune" but connotation "happiness in the afterlife/next world". I also wanted to use the kanji 冥 really badly!

人世の無情が冥福につながる jinsei no mujou ga meifuku ni tsunagaru
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Old 03-15-2015, 03:20 AM   #362
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So I got this phrase:

乙女のハートが愛情 とみなぎる otome no hāto ga aijō to minagiru

The problem is I want to end it, "スイートハート!" but I think using haato twice sounds off. On the other hand, I don't want to use "kokoro" because "otome no haato", on top of being a reference to a certain something, has a kind of childish quality I want to emphasize.

Is there any other kind of word synonymous with "heart" that I could use in lieu of those two words, that would accomplish the same effect?
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Old 03-15-2015, 08:05 AM   #363
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心臓 shinzou is the literal organ of the heart, but that might be a little strange.
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Old 03-15-2015, 12:34 PM   #364
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Can't you just take this:
乙女のハートが愛情とみなぎる
And make it this?
愛情とみなぎる、乙女のスイートハート!
Clausal inversion is very common in Japanese poetry, song lyrics, and fictional characters' flashy introductions. Think Sailor Moon. "Predicate predicate predicate predicate, SAILOR MOON!" instead of "Sailor Moon, predicate predicate predicate predicate!"

The only possible hiccup is that in replacing heart with sweetheart you feel that it ruins the sentence. That is to say, that the phrase had to be "a maiden's heart" and changes meanings completely when changed to "a maiden's sweetheart." But that's why I'm asking: as, if you're happy with this the way it is, then there you go, problem solved.
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Old 03-15-2015, 06:01 PM   #365
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Thanks for the input. I made a decision, but I shall keep is secret for now!

Following that is actually a question. How difficult would it be to read all-kana? I ask because when I was thinking about how to write a visual novel in Japanese, if it's written in first person, wouldn't it be more "true to life" if the main character's thoughts were in kanji and kana, but everyone else speaks in kana?

Because, while kanji is better able to delineate what one is saying, in actual speech one would not get the visual cues from kanji and so would have to rely on context to interpret the ordinary speech. Not unlike what one would encounter just reading all kana in conversation.

I wonder how frustrating this would be for Japanese readers, or if not, because there would be opportunities to write miscommunication or misunderstandings if the characters didn't have kanji. In literally every VN, the reader has 100% understanding of all character speech due to kanji, which in a way partially suspends the illusion of being a true role-play experience.

Gotta jet but I hope that got the idea across.
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Old 03-15-2015, 09:24 PM   #366
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Reading all kana is, once you know the language, a lot harder than reading kana+kanji mix. For one, there are just too many homophones in Japanese; and since Japanese has like 0.95:1 correspondence between alphabetic spelling and word pronunciation, this translates to there being too many "homographs." (The air quotes because obviously the most obvious graphs of all, kanji, aren't homo at all.) For another, Japanese doesn't natively use spaces and so pure kana presents the challenge of determining where one word ends and the next begins. Itwouldbeliketryingtoreadthissentence,onlytentimes worsebecauseofthehomophoneproblemimentionedpreviou sly. A better example would perhaps be something like fortunetuneforthefortune, though that is nonsensical. Anyway ...

None of this is to say that you can't read pure kana. Or that learning kanji is effortless. Neither is the case. But simply that once you go black kanji it's very hard to go back. You can test it out easily enough for yourself:

はらじゅくのこがはらをたててはらわなかった。

原宿の娘が腹を立てて払わなかった。

The kanji effectively serve as spaces in English -- as they head nearly each noun, verb, adjective, and adverb, they offer obvious breaks in the string of characters, places to catch one's breath and calibrate.

I may look up a stronger example for you later as I'm sure someone's already produced one somewhere online. This weak example comes from me.

EDIT: Hey look: here's an academic team writing about what I just said. Quote:

Quote:
Interword spacing facilitated both word identification and eye guidance when reading syllabic script, but not when the script contained ideographic characters. We conclude that in reading Hiragana interword spacing serves as an effective segmentation cue. In contrast, spacing information in mixed Kanji–Hiragana text is redundant, since the visually salient Kanji characters serve as effective segmentation cues by themselves.

Last edited by Talon87; 03-15-2015 at 09:30 PM.
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Old 03-15-2015, 09:56 PM   #367
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(New post because I can see Doppel's already reading and I don't want him to miss this; stupid edits!)

From that same paper:



Right off the bat, the native speaker is tripped up by なりたく (a participle[?] meaning "want to become") that in this case is actually なりた space く(うこう), "Narita Ai(rport)". なりたく "want to become" is so much more common than any phrase leading off with Narita that the reader will and should default, before gaining additional information, to the なりたく interpretation. It's only after they trip over the subsequent characters that they become confused, go back to the start, and realize their error.

Later, we see the classic は/は trip-up where one mistakes a particle は (wa) for a は (ha) ending one word or starting another. Usually it takes only a second to figure out, as here, but that's still a second which utterly trips you up and ruins the reading flow of the sentence.

I wish the article provided more of their sample sentences. But this one is probably enough for our conversation.
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Old 03-15-2015, 09:57 PM   #368
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I can tell you that even with proper spacing, reading kana alone is pretty difficult and forces me to sound out the sentence to figure out what they want to say.
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Old 03-22-2015, 08:40 PM   #369
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I dunno where else to post this, but it was interesting and a decent challenge for my low-level language skills!

I'm too stupid to embed it.
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Old 03-24-2015, 04:05 AM   #370
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Old 03-24-2015, 07:15 AM   #371
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Hello there, specifically targeted spambot.
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Old 04-06-2015, 11:14 PM   #372
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So I was looking to spell "Torajirou" and came up with 虎二郎, but then I noticed it's an on/kun mix (which Torajirou would entail anyway). But spelled with that kanji in all-on, it's "Kojirou".

I'm wondering that if I want to emulate a plausible, yet antiquated Japanese name, if I should go with Torajirou or Kojirou, then. The "tiger" is meant to be obvious though.
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Old 04-06-2015, 11:36 PM   #373
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They both sound antiquated. Torajirou was the childhood name of Honinbou Shuusaku (19th century) while Kojirou is famously the name of Sasaki Kojirou (17th century).

As you can see from Shuusaku's article, his Torajirou was spelled 虎次郎. Indeed, 次郎 is what the IME defaults to for じろう, with 二郎 being the second suggested spelling. I don't know how many authentic Japanese individuals spell the name Torajirou the way you offered; a Google search suggests that it is very few, and Google offers no autocompletion suggestions for your spelling whereas it is more than happy to guess at historical figures for the 次 spelling.

Likewise, you can see from Kojirou's article that his name was spelled 小次郎.

But none of this is to say that you can't spell it as 二郎. Like I said: the IME offers it as a second suggested spelling. More importantly, you can find many historical and contemporary figures whose names contain -jirou and who spell it 二郎 instead of as 次郎. Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C.

An understanding of what the name Jirou means helps out: click here. As 次 means "next" and 二 means 2, it stands to reason that since "the next son" also equals "the second son" (in those cases where it is understood that "next" implies "next from first"), the 次 and 二 are semantically interchangeable.

If the tiger is meant to be obvious, then I would say go with Torajirou. Kojirou's going to be a little less obvious, mostly because of the conflation with 小次郎 of Miyamoto Musashi legend.
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Old 04-06-2015, 11:55 PM   #374
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I got the idea for Torajirou from this article, which is a really insightful read insofar as antiquated names are concerned. It even goes into the Heian Period.

I did not know Shusaku was a pseudonym (although I knew Honinbo was a title) but I probably should have known better. "Sei Shonagon" isn't a real name, either.
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Old 04-07-2015, 12:31 AM   #375
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Rambly sharing of what I've come to believe from my observations over the years. Not scholastically rigorous; could contain unintended falsehoods.

Spoiler: show
Historically, it was common for the nobility to have three or more names, including the following:
  • a childhood name, one with which they were born
  • a Buddhist name, one which they typically received upon reaching their teenage years
  • an adult name, one which they made for themselves upon becoming an actualized member of the adult nobility
The most memorable example for me is the case of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. His names were Ushiwakamaru or simply Ushiwaka as a child, Shanaou as a teenager, and (Kurou no) Yoshitsune as an adult. I'm not 100% sure about whether every noble youth received a Buddhist name or not -- Yoshitsune's life is a bit exceptional, as he was sent to a Buddhist monastery for political reasons and later left it in defiance of the one who sent him there. But I don't think it was all that uncommon, tbh, because ...

This three-name system bears similarity to the naming culture in Han Dynasty China upon which so much of early and middle Japanese scholasticism was based. Pulling from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for example, we know that ancient Chinese nobles had at the very least:
  • a childhood name
  • a style name
  • an adult name
I believe the chronological order is similar to that of the Japanese names offered above, but the meaningfulness is a bit different. Childhood ones are the same. But style names in ancient China were like ... nicknames that you picked for yourself. There was no religious connection with them. And the idea was that only a true bro could call you by your style name. People who weren't bros but called you by your style name were basically being very polite towards you. Calling you by your adult name, while not rude, was not seen as being as intimate. As for the childhood name, that was rude to call someone by once they had reached adulthood -- so long as you weren't senior family. If you were senior family, then it was fine. So like ... all of the main characters in Romance call each other by their style names when they're BFFs, by their adult names when they're neutral, and by each other's childhood names when they're bitter enemies. Example:
  • childhood name: Ahman
  • style name: Mengde
  • adult name: Cao
So the character Cao Cao was alternately addressed as Cao Cao, Mengde, or Cao Ahman by various people in the tale.

Pulling us back to Japan and fast forwarding to the 19th century, we begin to lose a bit of the samurai culture of superfluous names and cognomens. Things simplify, and -- as far as I can tell -- we keep it mostly at just the level of having a childhood name followed by an adulthood name. Buddhist names aren't completely out of the picture now, but they only show up when someone took the tonsure or otherwise entered the monastic life. So like ...
  • birth name: Okatsu
  • adult name: Atsuko
  • Buddhist name: Tenshouin
... for the uncommon example of Princess Atsu, but for the more common one we have things like:
  • birth name: Kokichi
  • adult name: Takamori
for famous samurai Saigou Takamori.

What I can say with utmost certainty is that right on up through the 19th century it was common in Japan for a nobleman to have at least two names -- one his parents gave him at birth and one someone else (himself or a master) gave him upon reaching adulthood. And I can say with certainty that this practice has all but vanished from modern Japan. People in Japan today keep the names they're born with, the same as you or I. But any male of note who lived before the 20th century, you can be almost certain that their most famous name is not the same as the name they were born with. It's either a pseudonym (as in the case of many artists) or else it's an adulthood name.
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