I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

"Isabel" by Chaim Potok | English Is Not So Easy 21

Have you ever read the novel "ZEBRA and Other Stories" by Chaim Potok?

ZEBRA is a touching story of friendship between a boy named Zebra, who broke his arm, and a man who lost an arm in the Vietnam War and later teaches an art class at the school during the summer vacation. I heard that it is so well known in the U.S. that it appears in many textbooks. In fact, in Japan, a translated version of ZEBRA has also appeared in textbooks, and every elementary school student in Japan knows this story.

One day, I was curious what the "Other Stories" were, so I bought the book on Amazon. Unfortunately, the Japanese version was not available, so I bought the English version published in New York instead. I read some of it and was surprised by the content: ZEBRA could be included in an elementary school textbook, but all the other short stories are sexually explicit, possibly because they all deal with adolescent boys and girls. But that is one of the reasons I like this novel.

Among them, I really liked the story "ISABEL". The plot of this novel is as follows:

At the age of 14, Isabel lost her father and brother in a car accident. Isabel is so grief-stricken that she begins to hallucinate about her father and brother. Meanwhile, Isabel's mother met a man named Charles Magruder. He, too, had lost his wife to breast cancer and was living with a daughter, Betsy. Isabel's mother and Charles became close and eventually married, and Isabel and Betsy suddenly became stepsisters. This story is told from Isabel's point of view, from the time her mother met Charles to their wedding day.

In this article I would like to introduce a part of ISABEL, one of the other stories from "ZEBRA and Other Stories" by Chaim Potok. I have also written my Japanese translation as an exercise for myself. This may not be necessary for you, but please let me do it.

If you are interested, please stop reading this article and buy "ZEBRA and Other Stories" right now.

================================

 “What was your dad like?”

 Isabel was quiet a moment. Then she said in a low voice, “My dad was, mostly, sort of easygoing. He liked telling us funny stories.” As she talked, she heard her father’s laughter in the hallway outside Betsy’s room. “He saved people’s lives. He was always reading medical journals, and he liked listening to opera. Sometimes he and my mom would shout at each other, but they loved each other a lot. Sundays we’d all go out for long walks or on picnics or to Longwood Gardens or the zoo. He made great salads and pasta. What was your mom like?”

 “My mom had this great sense of humor and liked everyone and always said whatever came into her head. She wasn’t, well, she wasn’t all that good-looking, but everyone liked her. She and my dad, they fought a lot, mostly about his drinking. But I think they were really in love. Can I tell you something?”

 “What?”

 “Your hair, it’s so long and beautiful. Did your dad have red hair?”

 “My dad’s hair was brond,” Isabel said.

 “Can I touch it?” Betsy asked, and without waiting for reply, put her hand on the hair alongside Isabel’s forehead. Isabel felt Betsy’s fingers lightly stroking her hair and saw a strange look enter her eyes: they appeared to grow enormous, translucent, the color of watery gray ink. She ran her tongue over her lips, drew her upper lip back, and caught her lower lip between her teeth.

 “It’s like silk,” Betsy said.

 Isabel stepped back “Please don’t,” she said.

(Chaim Potok, "ZEBRA and Other Stories", Alphred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998, pp.110-111) 

[My translation]

「あなたのパパはどんな人だったの？」

イザベルは一瞬沈黙していた。そして低い声でこう言った。「私のパパは、いっつも、なんだかのんきな人だった。おかしな話をするのが大好きで…」彼女がそう言ったとき、ベティの部屋の外の廊下で父親の笑い声が聞こえてきた。「人の命を助けてた。いつも医学の雑誌を読んでて、オペラを聞くのが好きだった。ときどきママとけんかすることもあったけど、すごく愛し合ってた。日曜日にはみんなで出かけてピクニックに行ったり、ロングウッド庭園に行ったり、動物園に行ったりしてた。サラダとパスタを作るのがうまかった。あなたのママはどんな人だったの？」

「私のママはユーモアのセンスがピカイチで、みんなのことが大好きで、思いついたことは何でも言っちゃうような人だった。ママは美人なほうじゃなかったけど、それでもみんなママのことが大好きだった。ママとパパはしょっちゅう、たいていはパパの酒癖のことでけんかしてたけど、愛し合ってたと思う。それから、ひとつ言ってもいい？」

「何？」

「あなたの髪、とっても長くてきれいね。あなたのパパも赤い髪だったの？」

「私のパパは金髪だった」イザベルは言った。

「触ってもいいかしら？」ベティは尋ねた。そして返事を待たずして、彼女はイザベルの額に流れる前髪に手をおいた。イザベルはベティの指が髪を軽くなでるのを感じ、彼女の目に奇妙な表情の浮かぶのを見た。ベティの目は大きく見開かれ、透明で、水っぽい灰色のインクのようだった。彼女は唇の上に舌を這わせ、上唇を後ろに引き、下唇を歯の間に挟んだ。

「シルクみたい」ベティは言った。

イザベルは後ずさりして「お願い、やめて」と言った。

================================

Translation Note:

Unlike the work of J.D. Salinger, which I discussed in the previous article, Chaim Potok's work is written in simple English that is easy for beginners to understand, and translation is not very difficult. However, as I followed the text closely, I made unexpected discoveries.

• At first I thought the phrase "(was) quiet a moment" was a misprint, but it appears several times in other novels. I wonder what the difference is between this phrase and "be quiet for a moment"? Is it just that the former is more colloquial?
• I was curious about the presence of "this" that appears in Betsy's statement, "My mom had this great sense of humor". It seems to me that "had a great sense" would be more appropriate than "had this great sense", but "this" is used. Even I know that "that" is used for emphasis, but is "this" used in the same way?
• Does the Betsy's remark "She wasn't all that good-looking" have a different meaning than "She wasn't that good-looking"? Fortunately, someone with a similar question to mine asked a native speaker on "HiNative" (https://hinative.com/questions/12601471). According to him, using "all that" adds the nuance of "people around her say she is beautiful". I reflected this in my Japanese translation as well.
• At first I interpreted "a strange look enter her eyes" to mean something like "she saw a strange sight," but the following sentence does not describe "the sight Betsy saw," but rather "Betsy's eyes seen by Isabel." So I interpreted this "a strange look" as describing the reflection in her large eyes, is that correct?
• I have heard that "(she) caught her lower lip between her teeth" is a gesture of sexual arousal in Western society. The question here is about the relationship between Betsy and Isabel. In fact, there are several expressions that imply that she loves women.

In this part of the story, Isabel's attachment to her mother, who decided to remarry without consulting her, fades, and at the same time, Betsy, who was in a similar situation to Isabel when her mother died and her father remarried, empathizes with Isabel's emotional trauma and takes on a role in healing her heart.

================================

 Isabel stepped back “Please don’t,” she said.

 Betsy lowered her hand. “My hair feels like rope,” she said.

 “It looks pretty.”

 “It’s stringy and dry and ugly,” Betsy said.

 “It’s not ugly.”

 “Isabel, you don’t have to say things to make me feel better.”

 Isabel felt her face burning.

 “When my mom died and people were saying all those things—‘She’s at peace now, dear’ and ‘May you be spared further grief, dear’ and ‘Your mom’s no longer suffering, dear’—I swore to myself I’d never say dumb things like that, I’d say what I felt, and if anyone asked me how I felt about my mother dying, I’d say I I felt like shit. But you know something? No one asked me.”

 “I’m sorry,” Isabel murmured.

 “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Betsy said. “We got that cleared up. What I wanted to say was that your mom has nice skin and nice hair and a really cool, sexy figure. And she and my dad have slept together.”

 Isabel stood absolutely still, staring at Betsy.

 “In my dad’s bedroom. They thought I was asleep.”

 “I don’t think I want to hear about it,” Isabel said after a moment.

 “Do you have a problem with me telling you that?” Betsy asked.

 “I just don’t want to know about it,” Isabel said.

 Betsy gave her a severe look “I thought you’d want me to share everything with you, since we‘re going to be one family.”

 Isabel felt little shivers of nausea.

(Chaim Potok, "ZEBRA and Other Stories", Alphred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998, pp.110-111) 

[My translation]

イザベルは後ずさりして「お願い、やめて」と言った。

ベティは手をおろした。「私の髪はなんだかロープみたい」彼女は言った。

「かわいいわよ」

「糸みたいで、乾いてて、なんだか不格好で…」ベティは言った。

「そんなこと…」

「イザベル、私を慰めるようなこと言わなくてもいいわ」

イザベルは顔が燃えるような気分がした。

「私のママが死んだときもみんなこう言った。『ママは安らかに眠っている』とか『早く悲しみから抜け出せるといいわね』とか『君のママはもう苦しまなくていいのよ』とか。でもその時、心に誓ったの。私だったらそんなマヌケなことゼッタイに言わない。私は思ったことをきちんと言うわ。もし誰かが私のママが死んだことをどう思うかって聞いてきたら、私はきっとこう言う、そんなのクソくらえだって。でもわかるでしょ？誰もそんなこと聞いてこない」

「ごめんなさい」イザベルはつぶやいた。

「いいのよ、いいの」ベティは言った。「はっきりしてよかった。私が言いたいのは、あなたのママ、お肌もきれいで髪もきれい、とってもクールで、それから可愛い。それにママとパパ、もう一緒に寝てるみたい」

イザベルはベティを見つめて固まった。

「パパの部屋でね。私が寝てるって思ってたのかしら」

「そんな話聞きたくなかった」しばらくたってイザベルはそう言った。

「何か聞きたくない事情でもあった？」ベティは尋ねた。

「ただ単に聞きたくなかっただけ」イザベルは言った。

ベティは険しい表情をして言った。「隠し事なんかなしにしてほしいのかと思ってた。だって私たち家族になるから」

イザベルは嫌悪感からか、わずかな寒気を覚えた。

================================

Translation Note:

• This is a trivial detail, but Betsy uses the word "and" in a way that I have not seen very often. Specifically, when listing three or more things, she uses "A and B and C" when "A, B, and C" is correct. I think Betsy's use of such language in colloquial sentences is very indicative of her character, and I imagined her speaking very quickly in this part. To express her emotions, I had to be very creative in my Japanese translation.
• Betsy's comment, "I'd say I felt like shit," was quite shocking to me, and I imagine to Isabel as well. I can see from this comment that Betsy, unlike Isabel, accepted her mother's death quite early on, and yet people around her still assumed that she was grieving and threw words of sympathy at her, and she could not stand that. Personally, I think these words contain Betsy's heartfelt cry, "Adults don't care what I think, do they?!”
• I translated the part "she and my dad have slept together" very literally because the literal translation of "sleep together" in Japanese also has a sexual meaning. Isabel's mother and Betsy's father have sex many times in this story, but the word "sex" appears only once (in other words, the word "sex" does appear in this story). On other occasions, they use clever euphemisms. Incidentally, one of my favorite euphemisms in the story is "you-know-whating".

Although Betsy's circumstances are similar to Isabel's――the loss of her mother, her father's remarriage, and a change of residence――she is rarely portrayed as emotionally damaged (if anything, she only averts her face during the scene of her parents kissing at the wedding). Betsy appears, at least from Isabel's point of view, to be an independent and strong woman.

This is the end of the article. The protagonists of "ZEBRA and Other Stories" are all adolescents, and they all find their own solutions to their most difficult problems, with a happy ending. This is a good novel, and I would like to recommend it not only to the children in the story, but also to the parents of adolescent children. Thank you for reading to the end.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

The List | English Is Not So Easy 20

Lately, I have been thinking that I need to set the standard for what I am most interested in about English. I need to make sure what I want to know the most and what I don't need to learn in a hurry. If I am not sure what to ask, teachers will not give me the answers I want most. Recently, ChatGPT made me even more aware of this.

What is most important to me? As I explained in my previous article, non-native speakers learn English for a variety of reasons. In my case, for a long time, the reason was to pass the entrance exams for Japanese schools and to qualify as a teacher in Japan. After graduating from high school, some people still study English for the purpose of studying in an English-speaking country; others study English because they have a boyfriend/girlfriend who lives in an English-speaking country. But in my case, the main purpose of learning English is to be able to post my art on Newgrounds. This is an important task for me. Therefore, reading and understanding English texts perfectly and writing appropriate expressions is my most important mission.

On the other hand, I don't need to practice my speaking skills as much, because unfortunately I don't plan to (or cannot) look for a job abroad.

In conclusion, I am most interested in the meaning of English sentences, especially "what impression the sentence makes on you".

I found an interesting example of this problem in the video from Kevin's English Room (in Japanese), which is now my biggest English learning channel.

How are you の返し方: How to respond to "How are you?"

嘘乙www by 日本人: You're kidding LOL by a Japanese

I'm fine. はおかしい!?: Is "I'm fine" unnatural?!

In this video, Kevin mentioned how native speakers would feel if someone responded, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" which is the most common phrase we learn in Japanese schools:

"...First of all, 'And you?' is a very uncomfortable phrase for me. It sounds like a superficial conversation between aristocrats. Only a princess would say it!"

"...For me, 'I'm fine' has a negative connotation, like 'Leave me alone!' I feel like you don't want to communicate with me anymore."

They then discussed what we can use instead of "I'm fine" and in this part Kevin explained a lot of useful knowledge.

“I’m happy.”

The other guy suggested this phrase, and Kevin replied, "Scary. I would think you were a psycho killer. It sounds like '(*grin*) ... Happy.' Scary, isn't it?"

According to Kevin, "How are you?" is just a greeting, so the person asking doesn't care if you're happy or not. So the answer "(I'm) happy" is far from what the questioner would expect. He also said that if you want to express that you are in a happy mood, you could say "I feel good," "I'm really excited," or if you want to include the word "happy" so bad, "I feel kinda happy" would be natural.

“Quite well.”

This is a polite response you can use in a business situation. The person who asks, "How are you?" will feel that you respect them. Kevin has personally recommended this phrase. "Quite" is the key word. It sounds like British English.

“I’m doing excellent.”

Sounds like a teacher in a good mood. It is also a polite expression.

Going back to my personal question, I got a lot of interesting insight into my question, and I learned a slightly different question from the video: "Who do you think the speaker would be?" like "And you?" sounds like a princess language, and "I'm doing excellent" sounds like a teacher language.

I would also like to add another question to my list of favorite questions: "Is it appropriate to the context?" I won't say what the exact word was, but I remember a native speaker giving me this advice: "I understand what you're trying to say, and that sentence is grammatically correct, but I've only seen that word in XXX videos!" This question may look different from the previous two, but I think it is also about "how native speakers would feel", so I want to add it to my list. Of course, this problem is a little easier to solve for non-native speakers, because we can estimate the usage in big English dictionaries. But we have to be careful.

In conclusion, I have made the following list of questions that I am most interested in.

My personal list of questions:

1. How does it sound?

2. Who do you think would say it?

3. Is it appropriate to the context?

I would like to study English from this point of view from now on, and if you have interesting stories about these questions, please let me know!

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Stop It | English Is Not So Easy 19

Japanese is an "agglutinative" language. In short, this language changes the nuance of a verb by adding different morphemes after it. The best example of this is in the imperative. There is a verb "yameru" which means "to stop" in Japanese. The imperative form is "yamero" which means "stop it!" and is made up of the stem "yame" and the suffix "ro" to make it imperative. Interestingly, you can tell who is speaking in which situation by the difference in the suffix that makes it imperative.

yamero, yameroyo, yameroya, yamerotte; Used by men/boys. yamero is the easiest and most aggressive way. yameroyo is used between friends. yameroya is used as a joke by western Japanese toddlers. yamerotte is also used as a joke when your friend keeps annoying you.

yamete, yameteyo, yametetteba; Used by women/girls. yamete is the simplest style and is used between friends and family. yameteyo is mostly used in more serious situations. yametetteba is used when someone keeps annoying you.

yametekudasai; Used in doujinshi. No need to explain.

Japanese people can roughly guess the situation by reading or listening to the one expression. Then I thought there must be a similar phenomenon in English, but I cannot find so many references. On rare occasions, some native speakers tell me something like, "This language is only spoken by women," but it is very rare. But this is what I want to know the most.

Since I cannot find such reliable examples, I first wrote as many variations of "stop it" as I could.

Stop it!

The most basic way. I have heard both men and women use this phrase. This is a simple imperative form, so I understand it to be the phrase I should not use.

You stop it!

I learned that adding "you" to the beginning of a sentence makes the sentence sound more offensive. In the Disney movie Zootopia, there is a scene where Juddy's neighbors keep saying, "You shut up," and I learned that this is very offensive language, If I hear this phrase in reality, maybe I should literally freeze there.

Stop it, please. / Please stop it.

I have learned that adding "please" to a sentence does not change the fact that it is an imperative tone and I should still avoid using this phrase. But I also feel that by adding "please" we can better express that we are really annoyed by someone's action.

Can/Could/Will/Would you stop it?

After some research, I found the polite way. But there are four grammatically equivalent ways. I cannot tell the difference, but I know there is a difference. There must be some clue to feel the nuance or the situation, like "Can you..." is used by XX when XX is XXing, but I could only get a little literature to evaluate it.

I found an interesting example. "Would you please stop!" seems to be a gentleman's way of saying he does not want to talk about something. This is a line from a novel. It does not seem impossible to statistically analyze its use in context and guess the usage of the phrase, but for non-native speakers it is very time-consuming, and no matter how hard I tried, there might be some uncertainty.

I learned another interesting thing. According to this (Japanese) website, there are three levels of "stop it: "Stop it!" → (keep annoying) → "Stop doing it!" → (keep annoying) → "Cut it out!" The last phrase was new to me, but perhaps this phrase contains the clue to guessing the situation. They introduced other phrases like "Quit it!" and "Knock it off!", but I gave up trying to distinguish them.

I found another interesting example in this video.

"Native, natural English that you can't learn in school 'Stop it!'" by Hapa 英会話

https://youtu.be/14JVWiJh7YM

The English teacher, Sarah, said that "Oh, stop it!" is practically used by a woman who is being complimented by someone. So when we read or hear this expression, we can roughly guess the situation: A woman is being complimented by someone and she is embarrassed, but she doesn't really want him to stop. This is a specific and cultural example, but a good one. I learned another interesting use of "stop it."

Incidentally, I feel that only the phrase "Stop it!" covers a very wide range of situations. So I thought that especially in English, tone is also an important factor. For example, I learned many phrases that I should never use in everyday conversation, such as "I don't know," "I know, I know," and "No, thank you." However, every time I learned each phrase, my English teacher emphasized that it depends on how you say it.

"English that Japanese people tend to say but are actually rude" by Kevin's English Room

https://youtu.be/Nt4TSn3j_-A

According to Kevin, these expressions are basically not polite, but if you say them in an appropriate tone, there is a possibility to sound polite: "I...(*thinking*) do-don't know.", "Oh, I 'know (stress)', I know!", "Um,...(*smile*) no,.. thank you." But, of course, there are rude expressions no matter how you say them, such as "You'd better...". Um, I'd better be careful.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

GIRL | English Is Not So Easy 18

How you learn a foreign language differs from person to person because it depends on what you want to do with your language skills. In my case, the main purpose is to exchange ideas about pop culture, technology, and literature, so my reading and writing skills have been developed more than my speaking skills. In other words, I am particularly bad at speaking English. However, my English teacher Hironobu Takeoka said that reading aloud is the best way to learn English, so I have been practicing reading long English texts aloud for a long time, and I am actually better at reading them quickly. However, my English pronunciation is still at a low level.

Incidentally, I found an interesting question about English on Quora: "What is the English word that Japanese people cannot pronounce?" I have seen many interesting words around such questions, "rural"?, "mischievous"?, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"? Yes, these words are among them. But I think they forget the simplest word: "girl".

Even in Japan, the word "girl" is a common word, so almost all Japanese know its meaning and even use it in practice. But I remember the first time I heard the word "girl" pronounced by a native speaker. I was very surprised. I could not understand what they were saying.

girl /ɡɝl/, /ɡɝ.əl/

I cannot understand which letter starts when and when the sound changes to the next letter. And because I cannot understand the sound, I cannot pronounce it correctly.

But why is it so hard? I have come up with a clear explanation.

Let's go back to the famous fact that Japanese cannot pronounce the English "R" and "L" sounds. This is true because I am bad at it. When I speak English, I always have to watch out for the danger of "rice" sounding like "lice" and "election" sounding like "e-ection. The word "girl" contains both, so I guess the difficulty of pronunciation is at least doubled. But no, it is not that simple.

First, I would like to talk about the "L" sound. When I hear native speakers pronounce "girl," I feel that the sound of "L" becomes clearer. In general, when pronouncing other L-ending words, I think I can use the "not pronouncing it" technique. For example, these words sound a little easier to pronounce:

• national
• rational
• additional

However, when I pronounce "girl," I must clearly pronounce the American "L" sound. I still do not know the exact mechanism, but when I listened to the sound slowly, I heard the "L" sound begin before the previous sound ended. I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but this feeling is clearly explained as the "ə" in /ɡɝ.əl/. Anyway, when I pronounce "girl," the problem with the "L" sound suddenly becomes an insurmountable challenge for me.

Second, the pronunciation of the "R" is difficult on its own, but the problem becomes more complicated when the letter "I" is added.

• circus /ˈsɝkəs/
• birthday /ˈbɝθˌdeɪ/
• shirt /ʃɝt/
• skirt /skɝt/

What is "ɝ"? It sounds both "UR" and "AR" to me. In the UK that part is pronounced "ɜː" which is a little easier for me. But when I am in the USA, I have to pronounce the "ɝ" sound.

In conclusion, when I pronounce the only four-letter word "girl," I have to fight against the two evolved forms of "L" and "R"; "Clear L" and "I and R". This is the reason why pronouncing the word "girl" is especially difficult for Japanese.

I am always looking for a way to pronounce such a word more easily. For example, there are some hacks to pronounce some words like a native speaker. What I independently found is that if you pronounce the five basic vowels, e-a-i-a-o, quickly, you can pronounce "Ariel" like Eric in Disney's "The Little Marmaid," but I am not sure if this works for other people from non-English speaking countries. Also, as you may have noticed, the pronunciation is slightly off. It doesn't make any sense LOL

[for Japanese Learners]

I think the bias of the Japanese language makes the situation worse. English beginners in Japan tend to speak English with katakana sounds in their heads. And the word "girl" is pronounced as "ガール (gāru)" in Japanese.

• Girlfriend -> gārufurendo; ガールフレンド
• Black Magician Girl -> Burakku Majishan Gāru; ブラック・マジシャン・ガール

The sound of "IR" is basically pronounced as "Ā". Japanese people subconsciously assume that native speakers would pronounce it similarly, but they actually pronounce it quite differently. We try hard to correct the pronunciation, but it is also true that for a long time we recognized "girl" as "gāru". As a result, we suffer from the big difference for a long time.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Precipitation24 learned "~"! | English Is Not So Easy 17

There are many ways to learn English in Japan. Personally, I think the most effective way is to communicate with native English speakers, and the second most effective way is to watch YouTube videos in/on English.

This time, among many English learning videos, I would like to introduce a Japanese YouTube channel, Kevin's English Room.

[Japanese video] A Realistic Usage Course on Native Fxxk! It Doesn't Always Mean Bad?!

ネイティブのF××Kのリアルな使い方講座！悪い意味じゃないの！？

https://youtu.be/hTzY6WdgOJE

リアルなFxxkの使い方：The use of "Fxxk" in real life

What!? Fxxk me!っていうふうに：Just like, "What?! ~ me!"

チャンネル登録：SUBSCRIBE

Yama (left; やま): An English learner.

Kevin (middle; ケビン): Born and raised in the US. Bilingual in English and Japanese.

Kake (right; かけ): A regular Japanese guy.

There are three people in this channel, and Kevin, a native English speaker, shares with us his knowledge of English as it is actually used in the U.S., which is different from the English taught in schools. As a Japanese, this video made me realize that my image of English and actual English are two very different things.

Incidentally, I understand that this article is totally pointless because Kevin speaks English much better than I do and can easily make videos in English only. However, if their YouTube videos do not have subtitles (not automatically generated) and you do not know the channel because of that, I think it might be useful to translate the Japanese spoken in the video into English and introduce what they are saying.

This video shows how native speakers use "~" in everyday conversation. Although this word is considered a dirty word in Japan, the video explains that there are many vocabularies in which "~" is used.

1. ~ you!

Even the Japanese know this insulting word. Never use this word if you want to leave the USA alive.

2. ~!

This one-word exclamation is used to express a variety of "intense" emotions, such as joy, anger, sadness, and pleasure.

          "~! Yes!"

          "~! No, I'm so sad."

3. ~ing + (adjective)

Used to emphasize the meaning of the adjective (positive or negative).

          ~ing smart

          ~ing tasty

          ~ing slow

          ~ing sad

According to Kevin, these three uses cover 70% of all ~s in the US. Then the other two guys say, "OK, let's finish this video," but Kevin says that's where the meat and potatoes come in.

4. ~ me!

Basically, it is a soliloquy used to express one's intense disappointment in oneself for repeating the same mistakes or suffering the same mishaps. However, in rare cases, it is also used to compliment a friend who threw a surprise birthday party for you.

5. What the ~?

Used when things that are happening now are beyond one's understanding.

          "What the ~?! This was not broken 5 minutes ago."

          "Five billion dollars? What the ~?! Really?! No, I can't receive that."

6. I don't give a ~!

A phrase that indicates you are not interested in the topic being discussed. A phrase similar to "I don't care". Yes, in this phrase, "~" means "care."

          "I don't give a ~ about your story."

          "I know that you don't give a ~ about your health, but you should take more vitamin C." "Oh, no no no, I give a ~."

          "Stop giving a ~." 

7. ~ off!

Simply means "Go away!"

8. ~ face.

Words to say to someone you really dislike. This expression contains the word "face," but it can also be used to belittle someone on the Internet whose face you cannot see.

9. "the ~" + Intransitive Phrasal Verbs

          "Shut the ~ up! (= Shut up!)"

          "Get the ~ off! (= Get off!)"

          "Hurry the ~ up! (= Hurry up!)"

          "Get the ~ down! (= Get down!)"

The two sentences above would have the same meaning if the "the ~" were omitted, but including that word emphasizes your frustration.

Finally, Kevin says that if you are not a native English speaker and do not fully understand the meaning and use of "~", you should never use it. Native speakers use "~" in everyday conversation because they fully understand the dangers of this word. However, you should be aware that even if a native English speaker uses "~" a lot without knowing that you are not a native English speaker, he or she may not be angry with you or mean to hurt you.

Recently there was some good news, especially for me: DeepL has released a beta version of DeepL Write. This tool is developed on the basis of DeepL, widely known as the best AI translator in the world. It is very easy to use: enter some text in the input field, DeepL Write will check the spelling and grammar, and within a few seconds will show you the text with some words replaced by a better rendition.

I am not a native English speaker, so I cannot judge how natural the corrected text is, but maybe that is why I need such a tool. As a test, I asked DeepL Write to correct my English in the previous two articles, on the works of J. D. Salinger and Osamu Dazai, and was very surprised when it pointed out a number of elementary errors in my English. As noted by DeepL Write, these two articles have now been corrected.

With the advent of this tool, I felt that the need to learn English was more diminished, but Jaroslaw Kutylowski, CEO of DeepL, said that this tool is only an assistant to your creativity and that you should not blindly trust it. But I am convinced that thanks to this tool I will be able to communicate with you in more readable English.

Lastly, it may sound cliché in this kind of topic, but this article is also checked by DeepL Write.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Introduction of "No Longer Human" | English Is Not So Easy 16

In the previous article, I introduced "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger, which was popular among many young people in the United States. This time, I would like to introduce "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai, which was popular among many young people in Japan.

https://www.academia.edu/23537185/No_Longer_Human_by_Osamu_Dazai

After writing this work, he ended his short life by committing suicide by drowning himself and his lover. The novel clearly records what drove him to do this, which is why it moved the hearts of young Japanese people at the time.

It is also surprising to me that it was translated by Dr. Donald Keene, an internationally renowned scholar of Japanese literature. He knew so much about the Japanese language that he is considered a person who knows the Japanese language much better than the Japanese people. When I try to point out errors in his translations, there is a high probability that I will find that "I" do not understand my native language. His English translation is at such a high level that Japanese students of English are not recommended to read it, just as "No Longer Human (人間失格)" is not recommended to non-Japanese speakers of Japanese. However, I used to have enough English to become a Japanese junior high school teacher and should be able to read it!

In this article, I would like to ask him to tell me, as a Japanese person, how he has interpreted Japanese literature.

================

PROLOGUE

          I have seen three pictures of the man.

          The first, a childhood photograph you might call it, shows him about the age of ten, a small boy surrounded by a great many women (his sisters and cousins, no doubt). He stands in brightly checked trousers by the edge of a garden pond. His head is tilted at an angle thirty degrees to the left, and his teeth are bared in an ugly smirk. Ugly? You may well question the word, for insensitive people (that is to say, those indifferent to matters of beauty and ugliness) would mechanically comment with a bland, vacuous expression, "What an adorable little boy!" It is quite true that what commonly passes for "adorable" is sufficiently present in this child's face to give a modicum of meaning to the compliment. But I think that anyone who had ever been subjected to the least exposure to what makes for beauty would most likely toss the photograph to one side with the gesture employed in brushing away a caterpillar, and mutter in profound revulsion, "What a dreadful child!"

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

bland: (figuratively) Lacking interest; boring; dull.

vacuous: Empty; void; lacking meaningful content.

modicum: A modest, small, or trifling amount.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

 [Original text]

私は、その男の写真を三葉、見たことがある。

一葉は、その男の、幼年時代、とでも言うべきであろうか、十歳前後かと推定される頃の写真であって、その子供が大勢の女のひとに取りかこまれ、（それは、その子供の姉たち、妹たち、それから、従姉妹たちかと想像される）庭園の池のほとりに、荒い縞の袴をはいて立ち、首を三十度ほど左に傾け、醜く笑っている写真である。醜く？けれども、鈍い人たち（つまり、美醜などに関心を持たぬ人たち）は、面白くも何とも無いような顔をして、

「可愛い坊ちゃんですね」

といい加減なお世辞を言っても、まんざら空お世辞に聞えないくらいの、謂わば通俗の「可愛らしさ」みたいな影もその子供の笑顔に無いわけではないのだが、しかし、いささかでも、美醜に就いての訓練を経て来たひとなら、ひとめ見てすぐ、

「なんて、いやな子供だ」

と頗る不快そうに呟き、毛虫でも払いのける時のような手つきで、その写真をほうり投げるかも知れない。

================

The prologue was not written by the protagonist of the novel, but by someone who was doing research on him. He describes the appearance of a certain person in a photograph, who is the protagonist of this work and the author himself. The child in the photo is not really laughing, but pretending to do so because he understands that it pleases the adults, but the art-loving artist sees through the lie.

If "The Catcher in the Rye," introduced in the previous article, is the story of a young boy struggling to save pure children from adult deception, this story depicts the anguish of Dazai, who became aware of adult deception at an early age and learned to adapt to it.

Translation memo:

Dr. Donald Keene is certainly an excellent translator. It is an accurate translation from a Japanese point of view. I would like to make this part of this article not a correction of his translation, but a place to share my knowledge specific to Japan.

Dr. Keene translated his costume as "brightly checked pants," but the original text is "荒い縞の袴 (lit. roughly striped hakama)." Hakama is the traditional Japanese formal wear for men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama#Men's_hakama

================

          Indeed, the more carefully you examine the child's smiling face the more you feel an indescribable, unspeakable horror creeping over you. You see that it is actually not a smiling face at all. The boy has not a suggestion of a smile. Look at his tightly clenched fists if you want proof. No human being can smile with his fists doubled like that. It is a monkey. A grinning monkey-face. The smile is nothing more than a puckering of ugly wrinkles. The photograph reproduces an expression so freakish, and at the same time so unclean and even nauseating, that your impulse is to say, "What a wizened, hideous little boy!" I have never seen a child with such an unaccountable expression.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

pucker: (transitive, intransitive) To pinch or wrinkle; to squeeze inwardly, to dimple or fold.

freakish: Strange, unusual, abnormal or bizarre.

nauseating: Causing a feeling of nausea; disgusting and revolting.

wizened: Withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.

 (Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

まったく、その子供の笑顔は、よく見れば見るほど、何とも知れず、イヤな薄気味悪いものが感ぜられて来る。どだい、それは、笑顔でない。この子は、少しも笑ってはいないのだ。その証拠には、この子は、両方のこぶしを固く握って立っている。人間は、こぶしを固く握りながら笑えるものでは無いのである。猿だ。猿の笑顔だ。ただ、顔に醜い皺を寄せているだけなのである。「皺くちゃ坊ちゃん」とでも言いたくなるくらいの、まことに奇妙な、そうして、どこかけがらわしく、へんにひとをムカムカさせる表情の写真であった。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な表情の子供を見た事が、いちども無かった。

================

His self-loathing description goes on. Incidentally, there is a Japanese term, "猿真似 (lit. monkey-mimic)," which refers to the act of imitating visuals without understanding the philosophy. A well-known example is Vigneau's satirical drawing of Japan in the late 19th century, in which he imitates Western clothing.

================

          The face in the second snapshot is startlingly unlike the first. He is a student in this picture, although it is not clear whether it dates from high school or college days. At any rate, he is now extraordinarily handsome. But here again the face fails inexplicably to give the impression of belonging to a living human being. He wears a student's uniform and a white handkerchief peeps from his breast pocket. He sits in a wicker chair with his legs crossed. Again he is smiling, this time not the wizened monkey's grin but a rather adroit little smile. And yet somehow it is not the smile of a human being: it utterly lacks substance, all of what we might call the "heaviness of blood" or perhaps the "solidity of human life"—it has not even a bird's weight. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather, and it is smiling. The picture produces, in short, a sensation of complete artificiality. Pretense, insincerity, fatuousness―none of these words quite covers it. And of course you couldn't dismiss it simply as dandyism. In fact, if you look carefully you will begin to feel that there is something strangely unpleasant about this handsome young man. I have never seen a young man whose good looks were so baffling.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

adroit: Deft, dexterous, or skillful.

fatuous: Obnoxiously stupid; vacantly silly; content in one's foolishness.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

第二葉の写真の顔は、これはまた、びっくりするくらいひどく変貌していた。学生の姿である。高等学校時代の写真か、大学時代の写真か、はっきりしないけれども、とにかく、おそろしく美貌の学生である。しかし、これもまた、不思議にも、生きている人間の感じはしなかった。学生服を着て、胸のポケットから白いハンケチを覗かせ、籐椅子に腰かけて足を組み、そうして、やはり、笑っている。こんどの笑顔は、皺くちゃの猿の笑いでなく、かなり巧みな微笑になってはいるが、しかし、人間の笑いと、どこやら違う。血の重さ、とでも言おうか、生命の渋さ、とでも言おうか、そのような充実感は少しも無く、それこそ、鳥のようではなく、羽毛のように軽く、ただ白紙一枚、そうして、笑っている。つまり、一から十まで造り物の感じなのである。キザと言っても足りない。軽薄と言っても足りない。ニヤケと言っても足りない。おしゃれと言っても、もちろん足りない。しかも、よく見ていると、やはりこの美貌の学生にも、どこか怪談じみた気味悪いものが感ぜられて来るのである。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な美貌の青年を見た事が、いちども無かった。

================

In his school days, he was handsome and must have been very popular because he had developed a good fake laugh. However, the author also feels uncomfortable with the atmosphere he creates in this photo. It is as if he is an inanimate object pretending to be human. From this description, I personally believe that he hid his feelings from the people around him and communicated only through socialization techniques that he had learned as knowledge, such as how to make a smile. In other words, his laughter is similar to the laughter that "JOKER" makes, which is independent of emotion.

Translation note:

The sentences in the last part of this paragraph are so long and the sentence structure so difficult to understand that even advanced students of Japanese will have difficulty interpreting the meaning of the sentences. But again, his translation is accurate. To be more precise, he does not translate directly from Japanese, but he understands perfectly what is expressed in the original text and uses his genius translation skills to write his novel in English.

Personally, I have also learned something new from reading his English translations. In the original, "鳥のようではなく、羽毛のように軽く" is a part that I also skip because I do not understand the meaning, but when I read the English phrase "it has not even the weight of a bird. It is merely a blank sheet of paper, light as a feather," I understood that his smile did not have "the weight of blood = the weight of a bird. I have no doubt that his understanding is much deeper than mine.

================

          The remaining photograph is the most monstrous of all. It is quite impossible in this one even to guess the age, though the hair seems to be streaked somewhat with grey. It was taken in a corner of an extraordinarily dirty room (you can plainly see in the picture how the wall is crumbling in three places). His small hands are held in front of him. This time he is not smiling. There is no expression whatsoever. The picture has a genuinely chilling, foreboding quality, as if it caught him in the act of dying as he sat before the camera, his hands held over a heater. That is not the only shocking thing about it. The head is shown quite large, and you can examine the features in detail: the forehead is average, the wrinkles on the forehead average, the eyebrows also average, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin ... the face is not merely devoid of expression, it fails even to leave a memory. It has no individuality. I have only to shut my eyes after looking at it to forget the face. I can remember the wall of the room, the little heater, but all impression of the face of the principal figure in the room is blotted out; I am unable to recall a single thing about it. This face could never be made the subject of a painting, not even of a cartoon. I open my eyes. There is not even the pleasure of recollecting: of course, that's the kind of face it was! To state the matter in the most extreme terms: when I open my eyes and look at the photograph a second time I still cannot remember it. Besides, it rubs against me the wrong way, and makes me feel so uncomfortable that in the end I want to avert my eyes.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

foreboding: A sense of evil to come.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

もう一葉の写真は、最も奇怪なものである。まるでもう、としの頃がわからない。頭はいくぶん白髪のようである。それが、ひどく汚い部屋（部屋の壁が三箇所ほど崩れ落ちているのが、その写真にハッキリ写っている）の片隅で、小さい火鉢に両手をかざし、こんどは笑っていない。どんな表情も無い。謂わば、坐って火鉢に両手をかざしながら、自然に死んでいるような、まことにいまわしい、不吉なにおいのする写真であった。奇怪なのは、それだけでない。その写真には、わりに顔が大きく写っていたので、私は、つくづくその顔の構造を調べる事が出来たのであるが、額は平凡、額の皺も平凡、眉も平凡、眼も平凡、鼻も口も顎も、ああ、この顔には表情が無いばかりか、印象さえ無い。特徴が無いのだ。たとえば、私がこの写真を見て、眼をつぶる。既に私はこの顔を忘れている。部屋の壁や、小さい火鉢は思い出す事が出来るけれども、その部屋の主人公の顔の印象は、すっと霧消して、どうしても、何としても思い出せない。画にならない顔である。漫画にも何もならない顔である。眼をひらく。あ、こんな顔だったのか、思い出した、というようなよろこびさえ無い。極端な言い方をすれば、眼をひらいてその写真を再び見ても、思い出せない。そうして、ただもう不愉快、イライラして、つい眼をそむけたくなる。

================

In the third photo, he no longer smiles, and his expression is drained of life and personality. The author is interested in what made him that way and will appear next in the epilogue.

Translation note:

The part that Dr. Keane translates as "his hands held over a heater" is "火鉢に両手をかざし (lit. his hands held over a hibachi)" in the original text. A hibachi is a traditional Japanese heating device for making a small fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibachi

================

          I think that even a death mask would hold more of an expression, leave more of a memory. That effigy suggests nothing so much as a human body to which a horse's head has been attached. Something ineffable makes the beholder shudder in distaste. I have never seen such an inscrutable face on a man.

          THE FIRST NOTEBOOK

          Mine has been a life of much shame.

Word list (from Weblio and Wiktionary):

ineffable: Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.

beholder: Someone who observes or beholds; an observer or spectator.

inscrutable: Difficult or impossible to comprehend, fathom or interpret.

(Selected by Weblio, an English-language dictionary website in Japanese, with a study level of 10 or higher)

[Original text]

所謂「死相」というものにだって、もっと何か表情なり印象なりがあるものだろうに、人間のからだに駄馬の首でもくっつけたなら、こんな感じのものになるであろうか、とにかく、どこという事なく、見る者をして、ぞっとさせ、いやな気持にさせるのだ。私はこれまで、こんな不思議な男の顔を見た事が、やはり、いちども無かった。

第一の手記

恥の多い生涯を送って来ました。

================

Here the prologue ends and the chapter entitled "The First Notebook" begins. This notebook consists of three chapters, each corresponding to the three photographs introduced in the Prologue.

Translation note:

It is interesting that he used the term "death mask" to describe his "死相 (lit. dead face)". The term 死相 means the face of a dead person, as seen in a coffin, and he used the word "death mask" to emphasize the lack of life in his expression.

Finally, at the time of its translation by Dr. Donald Keene, the novel actually attracted attention in the U.S. as a novel about the "sexual abuse of boys". In this work, he was sexually abused as a child by adults, and his experience of loneliness and inability to tell anyone about it greatly influenced his personality. I would like to end this article by picking it up.

================

          ...My true nature, however, was one diametrically opposed to the role of a mischievous imp. Already by that time I had been taught a lamentable thing by the maids and menservants; I was being corrupted. I now think that to perpetrate such a thing on a small child is the ugliest, vilest, cruelest crime a human being can commit. But I endured it. I even felt as if it enabled me to see one more particular aspect of human beings. I smiled in my weakness. If I had formed the habit of telling the truth I might perhaps have been able to confide unabashedly to my father or mother about the crime, but I could not fully understand even my own parents. To appeal for help to any human being―I could expect nothing from that expedient. Supposing I complained to my father or my mother, or to the police, the government―I wondered if in the end I would not be argued into silence by someone in good graces with the world, by the excuses of which the world approved.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

My Least Favorite Scene in "The Catcher in the Rye" | English Is Not So Easy 15

The novel I would like to introduce is "The Catcher in the Rye" by Jerome David Salinger.

The novel is a first-person narrative told by Holden Caulfield, a 17-year-old boy expelled from high school, and clearly depicts society's cold gaze toward a teenage boy. The novel became so popular that many young people who read it visited Mr. Salinger, thinking Holden was themselves, which made him very tired. If I had been born in the United States or any other English-speaking country at that time, I probably would have been one of them.

This work had a great influence on Japan. For example, in "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" by Mamoru Oshii, there is an incident that refers to this work, and in "Weathering with You" by Makoto Shinkai, the main character Hotaka carries around a Japanese translation of this book.

In this article, I have tried to translate into Japanese the scene in this novel that I dislike the most. The reason is that such scenes are also the scenes that moved me the most. Please let me do it.

================================

             He still didn't say one single solitary word about Jane. So finally I said, "You're back pretty goddam late if she only signed out for nine-thirty. Did you make her be late signing in?"

[My translation]

奴はジェーンのことをただの一言も話さなかった。それでついに僕は、「あの子が９時半にサインアウトしたにしては死ぬほど遅かったじゃねぇか。サインインが遅くなるようにでも仕向けたのか？」と言った。

================================

Translation note:

• Since this story is narrated by a teenage delinquent, there is a lot of foul language in the story. Therefore, it is necessary to use as much foul language as possible when translating it into Japanese. For example, I translated "he/him" as "奴 (yatsu; he or she)" because in the following sentences it is clear that "I" really hate "him".

================================

             He was sitting on the edge of his bed, cutting his goddam toenails, when I asked him that. "Couple minutes," he said. "Who the hell signs out for nine-thirty on a Saturday night?" God, how I hated him.

[My translation]

僕がこう尋ねたとき、奴はベッドの端に座って足の爪なんか切っていやがった。「ほんの数分な」奴は言った。「土曜の夜に９時３０分になんかサインアウトする奴がいるのか？」神よ、僕はこの男が大嫌いだ。

================================

By the way, the longer the period between the publication of a book by the author and its translation by the translator, the more the translator will be influenced by the modern language and his social background. Some people may think that the translation must be done at the same time as the publication, but I want to enjoy working in the modern language.

================================

             "Did you go to New York?" I said.

             "Ya crazy? How the hell could we go to New York if she only signed out for nine-thirty?"

             "That's tough."

             He looked up at me. "Listen," he said, "if you're gonna smoke in the room, how 'bout going down to the can and do it? You may be getting the hell out of here,[1] but I have to stick around long enough to graduate."

             I ignored him. I really did. I went right on smoking like a madman. All I did was sort of turn over on my side and watch him cut his damn toenails. What a school. You were always watching somebody cut their damn toenails or squeeze their pimples or something.

[1] As you may know better than me, Holden has just been expelled from Pencey for failing all of his classes except English.

[My translation]

「ニューヨークには行ったのか？」僕は言った。

「お前頭おかしいのか？９時３０分にサインアウトして、それからどうやってニューヨークに行くんだ」

「タフだよな」

奴はこっちを見上げた。「なぁ聞いてくれ」奴は言った。「部屋でタバコ吸うくらいなら、トイレに行きゃぁいいじゃねぇか。お前はここを出ていくのかもしらんが、俺は卒業までずっとここにいなきゃなんないんだ」

僕は奴をシカトした。目いっぱいシカトした。とにかく僕は狂ったようにタバコを吸い続けた。俺がやったことといえば、奴のほうをくるりと向いて、爪を切ってる奴の面を眺めることだけだった。大した学校だ。いつだって誰かが足の爪を切ったり、にきびをつぶしたりなんかしてるのを見てなきゃなんない。

================================

It's pleasant to borrow someone else's words and speak dirty words in my mother tongue, as if I'm being seduced by a bad friend to do evil.

Translation note:

• The urban dictionary says that "can" is a word for "toilet". Their slang is very difficult to look up in a dictionary, so if I don't have it in my knowledge, the translation will be impossible.
• I also translated "You were watching..." into Japanese as "You have to watch...". This is an expression to show that the protagonist does not want to see such a scene. Am I right?

================================

             "Did you give her my regards?" I asked him.

             "Yeah."

             The hell he did, the bastard.

             “What’d she say?” I said. “Did you ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back row?”

             “No, I didn’t ask her. What the hell ya think we did all night—play checkers, for Chrissake?”

             I didn’t even answer him. God, how I hated him.

             “If you didn’t go to New York, where’d ya go with her?” I asked him, after a little while. I could hardly keep my voice from shaking all over the place. Boy, was I getting nervous. I just had a feeling something had gone funny.

[My translation]

「俺の伝言は伝えたのか？」僕は奴に尋ねた。

「ああ」

やりやがったな、このクソ野郎。

「あの娘なんて言った？」僕は言った。「訊いたんだろ？今でもキングを後ろの列に置いとくのかって」

「そんなの訊かないさ。何が悲しくて一晩中チェッカーなんかやんなきゃなんないんだ」

僕は答えもしなかった。神よ、俺はこいつが大嫌いだ。

「ニューヨークに行ってないんなら、どこで何してた？」しばらくしてから、僕は奴にそう尋ねた。声が震えまくるのをどうしても抑えることができないでいた。落ち着け自分、ちょっとばかし気分が高まってるんだ。どこかで何か手違いでも起こってるんだ。

================================

My hands tremble as I write the translation. What a fascinating sentence.

Translation note:

• The last two sentences, "Boy, was I getting nervous. I just had a feeling something had gone funny," are very English and very difficult for a non-native speaker to translate. I'm not a professional translator, so I gave up trying to translate this part accurately and used my best, light-hearted, novelistic style of expression (lit. "Calm down, boy, I'm getting a little nervous. Something went wrong somewhere."). What a shame! I would like to ask a native speaker to explain this part.

================================

             He was finished cutting his damn toenails. So he got up from the bed, in just his damn shorts and all, and started getting very damn playful. He came over to my bed and started leaning over me and taking these playful as hell socks at my shoulder. “Cut it out,” I said. “Where’d you go with her if you didn’t go to New York?”

             “Nowhere, We just sat in the goddam car.” He gave me another one of those playuful stupid little socks on the shoulder.

             “Cut it out,” I said. “Whose car?”

             “Ed Banky’s.”

             Ed Banky was the basketball coach at Pencey. Old Stradlater was one of his pets, because he was the center on the team, and Ed Banky always let him borrow his car when he wanted it. It wasn’t allowed for students to borrow faculty guys’ cars, but all the athletic bastards stuck together. In every school I’ve gone to, all the athletic bastards stick together.

[My translation]

奴は足の爪を切り終えた。パンツ一丁でベッドから立ち上がると奴はますます調子に乗りだした。僕のベッドまでやってきて、僕にもたれかかってきたり、冗談で肩にパンチを食らわせてきたりした。

「やめろよ」僕は言った。「ニューヨークに行ってないんなら、どこに行った？」

「どこにも。ずーっと車ん中にいたさ」奴はそう言うとまた僕の肩にくだらないパンチを繰り出した。

「やめろ」僕は言った。「誰の車だ」

「エド・バンキーの」

エド・バンキーはペンシーのバスケットボールのコーチだった。ストラドレーターは奴のペットのうちの一人。奴はチームのセンターだったから。奴が望むなら、エド・バンキーはいつだって車を貸してやる。本来、学生が教員の車を借りることは許されていないはずだったが、体育会系の連中はいつもそういう風につるんでいた。どこの学校に行ったって、体育会系の連中はみんなそうやってつるむんだ。

================================

There are such people everywhere...

Translation note:

• I translated "athletic bastards" as "体育会系の連中 (lit. athletic bastards)" and was very surprised to find a perfect equivalent for this word.
• "Socks" does not mean socks, it means punch. This is also slang.
• "Stick together" is a word originally used in a positive sense, but in this novel it is used in a very negative sense, so I chose the Japanese word "つるむ (tsurumu; lit. hang out)" to express Holden's annoyance.

================================

             Stradlater kept taking these shadow punches down at my shoulder. He had his toothbrush in his hand, and he put it in his mouth. “What’d you do?” I said. “Give her the time in Ed Banky’s goddam car?” My voice was shaking something awful.

             “What a thing to say. Want me to eash your mouth out with soap?”

             “Did you?”

             “That’s a professional secret, buddy.”

[My translation]

ストラドレーターは僕の肩にシャドーパンチをし続けた。奴は歯ブラシを片手に持ち、それを口にくわえた。「何してたんだ？」僕は言った。「あの子とヤってたんだろ？エド・バンキーの車なんかで」僕の声は醜く震えていた。

「ひどい言い様だな。石鹸で口を洗ってやろうか？」

「ヤってたのか？」

「そいつは極秘事項だね、相棒」

================================

Translation note:

• The Urban Dictionary says that "give her a time" is a euphemism for sex, and that it is a phrase from "The Catcher in the Rye". Yes, I am now translating Catcher in the Rye. By the way, the Japanese language also uses a euphemism for sex: "彼女とヤる (lit. to do with her)". Therefore, in order to express what the protagonist meant in the following remark, I only have to translate his remark "Did you?" literally into Japanese: "ヤったのか？".

================================

             The next part I don’t remember so hot. All I know is I got up from the bed, like I was going down to the can or something, and then I tried to sock him, with all my might, right smack in the toothbrush, so it would split his goddam throat open. Only, I missed. I didn’t connect. All I did was sort of get him on the side of the head or something. It probably hurt him a little bit, but not as much as I wanted. It probably would’ve hurt him a lot, but I did it with my right hand, and I can’t make a good fist with that hand. On account of that injury I told you about.

[My translation]

そのあとの展開はあまりよく覚えていない。僕はトイレか何かに行くみたいにベッドから立ち上がって、それから気づいたら僕は奴に全力の拳をお見舞いしてた。拳は奴の歯ブラシに当たり、のど元を切り裂いたはずだった。だが僕はしくじった。届かなかった。せいぜい奴の頭をかすめたくらいだった。多少奴に痛みを与えられたのかもしれないけど、期待したほどではなかった。もちろんそうなる予定だったけど、僕は右手を使ってしまったために上手く拳を作れなかったのだ。ところで僕が右手をケガしていた理由はさっき話した通りだ。

================================

Now, we have already reached the point where neither DeepL nor Google Translate are useful. This is a super hot scene.

Translation note:

• What does "so hot" mean in the first sentence? Does it mean that he was so excited that he doesn't remember the next part? Or does it mean something like "very much"? Hmmm, I give up.
• The word "connect" in "I didn't connect" means "to arrive at an intended target," according to Wiktionary.

================================

             Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was on the goddam floor and he was sitting on the goddam floor and he was sitting on my chest, with his face all red. That is, he had his goddam knees on my chest, and he weighed about a ton. He had hold of my wrists, too, so I couldn't take another sock at him. I'd've killed him.

[My translation]

とにかく、その次に僕が覚えているのは、僕は床に倒れていて、奴は顔を真っ赤にして、床にいる俺の胸の上にのしかかってきたってこと。つまるところ奴は俺の胸に膝を乗せやがって、それで一トンはある体重をかけやがったわけだ。それから奴は俺の腕をつかんでやがったから、俺はもう奴にパンチをお見舞いできなくなった。殺してやりたかった。

================================

Translation note:

• The phrase "he weighed about a ton" is a metaphor. As I just noticed, since a metaphor is more emotional (childish), it is a bit difficult to translate because I have to "obviously" imply that it is a joke.
• In this part of the text, the word "goddam" appears a lot, and we can read that he is describing this situation in an even more foul-mouthed way. In order to capture his anger, I should translate it as emotionally as possible. Specifically, the Japanese translation makes heavy use of the verb "やがる (yagaru; goddam)," which is only used to express emotion. Like the word "goddam," this word does not mean much.

================================

             "What the hell's the matter with you?" he kept saying, and his stupid face kept getting redder and redder.

             "Get your lousy knees off my chest," I told him. I was almost bawling. I really was. "Go on, get offa me, ya crumby bastard."

             He wouldn't do it, though. He kept holding onto my wrists and I kept calling him a sonuvabitch and all, for around ten hours. I can hardly even remember what all I said to him. I told him he thought he could give the time to anybody he felt like. I told him he didn't even care if a girl kept all her kings in the back row or not, and the reason he didn't care was because he was a goddam stupid moron. He hated it when you called him a moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

[My translation]

「何だってんだ？」奴はこう繰り返し、そのたびにあの間抜け面は赤くなってった。

「その汚ねぇ膝を下ろせよ」僕は言った。僕はほとんど泣いていた。本当に泣いていた。「ほら、どけよ、このくそ馬鹿野郎」

だが奴はどかなかった。かれこれ十時間ほど奴は僕の腕をつかみ、僕はクソ野郎を連呼し続けた。僕が奴に言ったこと全部は思い出せない。好きな時に誰とでもヤれると思ってんだろ、とは言った。女の子がキングを後ろの列に残しておくのかどうかなんてどうでもいいんだろ、てめぇみたいなクソまぬけのとんまにゃどうでもいいことだもんな、とは言った。奴はとんまと呼ばれるのが嫌いだった。とんまはみんなとんまって呼ばれるのが嫌いなんだ。

================================

Translation note:

• moron: (informal, derogatory) A stupid person; an idiot; a fool (from Wiktionary). He seems to get extremely angry when he is called "moron", so I have to choose a Japanese word that will make him angry as well. Hmm, the Japanese slang "単細胞 (tan saibou; lit. one-celled)" is a bit of an old Japanese word. It gives away my age.

================================

             "Shut up, now, Holden," he said with his big stupid red face. "Just shut up, now."

             "You don't even know if her first name is Jane or Jean, ya goddam moron!"

             "Now, shut up, Holden, God damn it―I'm warning ya," he said. I really had him going. "If you don't shut up, I'm gonna slam ya one."

             "Get your dirty stinking moron knees off my chest."

             "If I letcha up, will you keep your mouth shut?"

             I didn't even answer him.

             He said it over again. "Holden, if I letcha up, willya keep your mouth shut?"

             "Yes."

[My translation]

「黙れ、ホールデン」奴は間抜け面を真っ赤にして言った。「いいから黙れ」

「どうせお前はあの子の名前がジェーンだかジーンだかもよくわかんねぇんだろ、このとんま！」

「黙れ、ホールデン、このクソ野郎。俺は言ったぞ」奴はそう言った。俺は本当に奴を怒らせた。「黙らなかったらもう一発お見舞いしてやるからな」

「その臭ぇ、とんまな膝を俺の胸から降ろせ」

「もし俺がそうしたらお前は黙るのか？」

俺は答えなかった。

奴はもう一度言った。「ホールデン。俺がここをどけばお前は黙るのか」

「ああ」

================================

Translation note:

• "I really had him going" means that "I" made "him" angry. Even a series of words like this that you are familiar with can have unexpected meanings.

================================

             He got off me, and I got up, too. My chest hurt like hell from his dirty knees. "You're a dirty stupid sonuvabitch of a moron," I told him;.

             That got him really mad. He shook his big stupid finger in my face. "Hoilden, God damn it, I'm warning you, now. For the last time. If you don't keep your yap shut, I'm gonna―"

             "Why should I?" I said―I was practically yelling. "That's just the trouble with all you morons. You never want to discuss anything. That's the way you can always tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intelling―"

[My translation]

奴は膝をどけ、僕も立ち上がった。奴の汚い膝のせいで胸が地獄のように痛んだ。「お前は汚ねぇ薄らバカのとんま野郎さ」僕は言った。

これは本当に奴を怒らせた。奴は太い間抜けな指で俺の顔を指した。「ホールデン、この野郎、言ったからな。これが最後だ。お前が黙んねぇなら俺は―」

「黙るだと？」僕は言った。実を言うと叫んでいた。「どれもこれもお前のせいだろうが、このとんま。お前は何の議論もできやしねぇもんな。それがとんまを見分けるやり方さ。お前もちっとは学のある――」

================================

Translation note:

• The "he shook his big stupid finger in my face" part shows him pointing at his face and getting angry. The use of the word "shake" is very English.
• Maybe he was about to say "intelligent" and got hit.

================================

             Then he really let one go at me, and the next thing I knew I was on the goddam floor again. I don't remember if he knocked me out or not, but I don't think so. It's pretty hard to knock a guy out, except in the goddam movies. But my nose was bleeding all over the place. When I looked up, old Stradlater was standing practically right on top of me. He had his goddam toilet kit under his arm. "Why the hell don'tcha shut up when I tellya to?" he said. He sounded pretty nervous. He probably was scared he'd fractured my skull or something when I hit the floor. It's too bad I didn't. "You asked for it, God damn it," he said. Boy, did he look worried.

[My translation]

それから奴は俺を一発殴り、覚えている限り、僕はまたしても床に倒れてこんでいた。ノックアウトされたのかどうかは覚えていない。が、されてはいなかったんだろう。一人の男をノックアウトするのは、映画でもなきゃとても大変なのだ。ただ僕の鼻血がそこら中にまき散らされていた。見上げるとストラドレーターの野郎は俺の真上に立っていやがった。腕に洗面道具なんか抱えて。「なぜ言って黙らない？」奴は言った。奴は少々神経質になっているように見えた。おそらくは僕が床に叩きつけられた時、頭蓋骨を割ったとでも思ったんだろう。そうなってなかったことが残念だ。「お前の招いたことだぞ、くそったれ」奴は言った。マジでビビってやがった。

================================

Translation note:

• The exact meaning of "let one go at me" is not clear, as there are no other examples of its use, but I assume from the context that it means "to give a blow".

================================

             I didn't even bother to get up. I just lay there on the floor for a while, and kept calling him a moron sonuvabitch. I was so mad, I was practically bawling.

             "Listen. Go wash your face," Stradlater said. "Ya hear me?"

             I told him to go wash his own moron face―which was a pretty childish thing to say, but I was mad as hell. I told him to stop off on the way to the can and give Mrs. Schmidt the time. Mrs. Schmidt was the janitor's wife. She was around sixty-five.

[My translation]

僕は立ち上がろうともしなかった。しばらく床に寝ころんだまま、とんまだのクソ野郎だの言い続けていた。僕は本当に頭に来ていた。僕はただ泣き叫んでいた。

「聞け。顔を洗うんだ」ストラドレーターは言った。「聞こえるか？」

僕はお前こそそのとんま面を洗ってこいと言った――本当に子供じみていたけど、その暗い僕は頭に来ていた。僕は奴に、お前なんかトイレに行く途中でシュミット夫人んとこに立ち寄ってヤってればいいのさ、と言った。シュミット夫人は用務員の奥方だった。もう65になる。

================================

One of the peculiarities of the novel is that he sometimes explains situations in a joking way, but sometimes the content is so serious that the audience, including me, does not know whether to laugh or not. Either way, it is heartbreaking to translate this part of the story.

================================

             I kept sitting there on the floor till I heard old Stradler close the door and go down the corridor to that can. Then I got up. I couldn't find my goddam hunting hat anywhere. Finally I found it. It was under the bed. I put it on, and turned the old peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I went over and took a look at my stupid face in the mirror. You never saw such gore in your life. I had blood all over my mouth and chin and even on my pajamas and bathrobe. It partly scared me and it partly fascinated me. All that sort of made me look tough. I'd only been in about two fights in my life, and I lost both of them. I'm not too tough. I'm a pacifist, if you want to know the truth.

             I had a feeling old Ackley'd probably heard all the racket and was awake. So I went through the shower curtains into his room, just to see what the hell he was doing. I hardly ever went to his room. It awlays had a funny stink in it, because he was so crumby in his personal habits.

[My translation]

僕はストラドレーターの野郎がトイレに行こうと廊下に出て行ってドアを閉めるまでずっと床に座り込んでいた。それから僕は立ち上がった。僕は自分の忌々しいハンチング帽を見つけられないでいた。が、それは見つかった。ベッドの下だった。僕はそれをかぶり、古びたつばを後にやった。僕はそうするのが好きだった。それから鏡の方へと歩いて行き、そこで僕の間抜け面を眺めた。人生でこんなグロ画像を見た人間もいないだろう。口や顎が血まみれになっていて、パジャマやバスローブにも飛び散っていた。それはある意味で僕を怖がらせたが、ある意味で僕を喜ばせた。おかげさまで僕はすっかりタフに見えた。僕の人生で初めてと二回目の殴り合いをして、そしてそのどちらにも負けたんだ。僕はあまり強くない。ホントのところを言えば、僕は平和主義者なんだ。

僕はふと、この騒ぎを聞いてアクリーが目を覚ましたかもしれないと思った。それで僕はシャワーカーテンをくぐり抜けて奴の部屋に行き、今何やってんのか見に行ってみた。僕がヤツの部屋に行くことは滅多になかった。ヤツは私生活がルーズなヤツだから、部屋からはいつも変な匂いがしていた。

================================

This is the end of this article, or chapter 6 of this novel. At first I wanted to make it shorter, but the novel was so interesting that I couldn't stop writing the translation, so I ended up at the end of chapter 6. Thank you for reading this article to the end.

Finally, according to a review of the novel published in Japan, his hunting cap plays an important role in the novel.

(This is a Japanese article, please excuse me).

https://www2.dokkyo.ac.jp/esemi006/rpt01/komagata.htm

In a scene earlier in the story, he turned the old brim of his hunting cap forward because he did not want to see the world around him, but in this scene he turned it back and changed his appearance to that of a baseball catcher. To him, his purpose in life is to be "The Catcher in the Rye," which specifically means to protect "pure" children like Jane and Phoebe from adult "phonies. The review also argues that by following the fate of his hat, his change of heart becomes clear in the novel.

[for Japanese Learners]

There are many novels that describe the struggles of the people of that era. People, including me, feel that they are the protagonists of these novels. By the way, in Japan there is an Internet slang term "おま俺 (omaore; short for お前は俺か？ (omae wa ore ka?, lit. You're me?)," and I think it is the perfect word for these works. So please let me call this the "Omaore Phenomenon."

There are many works that triggered the Omaore phenomenon: "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, "The True Story of Ah Q" (Chinese: 阿Q正傳) by Lu Xun, and "No Longer Human" (Japanese: 人間失格) by Osamu Dasai. If there are other works from your country that I have forgotten to mention, please let me know!

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Translator to English | English Is Not So Easy 14

In the previous article, I evaluated the Japanese translation of William Gibson's novel. This time, I, as a Japanese, would like to retranslate the English translation of a novel written by a Japanese and study the translation method from a different angle.

In this article, I would like to introduce a novel titled "Harmony" by Project Itoh (伊藤計劃). This novel is about Japan, a dystopia created by people's excessive health consciousness. I thought it would be difficult to get the English version from Amazon, but for some reason the English version of the text was easy to find.

https://nemaloknig.net/read-319825/?page=1#booktxt

Now, I look forward to seeing how the translator have translated the isolated language of Far East Asia!

================

Part of a whole world practically tripping over itself not to offend others, to be thoughtful of others—even of me.

[My translation]

全世界の一部として、文字通り他人を傷つけないように、他人にやさしくなるように、私に対してさえそう仕向けてくる。

[Original text]

どこまでも親切で、どこまでも他者を思いやって、挙句の果てにこの私にすら思いやりを持て親切であれと急き立てるこのセカイ。そんな時代と空間に参加させられるのはまっぴらだった。

================

I think the translator did a good job, but I personally felt that this text was too complex (at least for an English learner) and at the same time oversimplified the original Japanese text. But I think that is because the original Japanese is very colloquial and not very grammatically appropriate. Then, how would I translate it? Hmmm, this sentence ends with the noun "セカイ (world; I don't know why he spelled this word in katakana...)", so how about translating it using ":"?

"The 'WORLD': infinitely kind and infinitely thoughtful of others, and even forces me to be thoughtful, to be kind to others."

I believe this is literal translation.

Also, there are two sentences in the original, but the translator only translated the first half of the sentence. Apparently, the translator forgot to translate the second sentence because the first one was too difficult. The second sentence, translated by DeepL, is "I did not want to be forced to participate in such a time and space." I think this is a good translation.

================

“Hey, Tuan, you know what?” Miach’s eyes sparkled. Miach knew everything. Of all the delinquents in our class, she had the best grades. Miach never spoke to anyone besides me and Cian—Cian Reikado, our other friend—unless it was absolutely necessary.

[My translation]

「ねぇ、トァン、知ってる？」ミァハは目を輝かせた。ミァハは何でも知っていた。私たちのクラスの中にいる不良の中で彼女は一番成績が良かった。ミァハは、特に必要もない限り、私とキアン—レイカドウ・キアン、私たちの友達―のほかには誰にも話しかけなかった。

[Original text]

「知ってる、トァン……」とミァハが眼を輝かせながら言った。ミァハは物知りなのだ。クラスで一番成績のいい問題児。ミァハは私と零下堂キアン以外の誰にも必要以外で話しかけようとはしなかった。

================

The part "Cian—Cian Reikado, our other friend—..." is stylish and I like it!

However, reading only the English translation, you might think that there are several delinquents in the class and that Miach has the highest grades among them, but the Japanese original text implies that there are no delinquents besides her in the class and that she has the highest grades despite being a delinquent. This is a subtle difference, but native Japanese speakers can easily detect this difference. And it is depressing to think that I am making a series of similar mistakes when I write English. PLEASE, please tell me the mistake.

================

I still don’t know what Miach saw in us. I didn’t get very good grades, and while I wasn’t ugly I wasn’t particularly attractive either. The same went for Cian. Sometimes I wondered why she hung out with us at all, but I never asked. Not once.

[My translation]

私は未だに、ミァハが私たちに何を見出していたのかはわからない。私は成績も特に良くないし、不細工ってわけではないけど特別に美人というわけでもなかった。それはキアンも同じだ。時々彼女が一体全体どうして私たちとつるむのか気になったこともあったけど、それを尋ねたりはしなかった。ただの一度もだ。

[Original text]

私とキアンのどこが、ミァハの気に入ったのか今になってもわからない。成績だって特に良くはなかったし、容姿だってまあ悪かないけど取り立てて目立ったところもなかった。それはキアンも似たようなもの。けれどミァハに、どうしてわたしとつきあうの、とはついに一度も訊いたことがない。

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I think this part is an accurate and good translation. The English translations, especially the latter half, "...hang out with us at all" and "Not once" are the work of a professional translator. Omisoreshimashita!

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“A long time ago, there were men who would actually pay to have sex with a couple of innocent bodies like ours. So all these girls who weren’t even poor would sell themselves as fuck toys, and they wouldn’t even feel guilty about it at all. And neither would the morally depraved men who bought them. They’d meet up in hotels and pay them cash.”

“What?” I said, giggling. “You want to sell your body?”

[My translation]

「一昔前は、私たちみたいな無垢な身体とセックスするために、お金を払う男たちがいたんだよ。貧しくもない女の子たちが自分をセックスのおもちゃとして売り飛ばしてて、しかも彼女たちはそのことに何の罪悪感も抱かなかった。彼女たちを買う、モラルに欠けた男たちも同じだった。ホテルで待ち合わせして、現金で支払うの」

「何？」私はくすくす笑っていった。「体を売りたいの？」

[Original text]

「昔はね、体を買ってくれる大人がいたらしいんだ。多少のお金で私たちみたいな子供とのセックスを求めてた大人たち。貧乏でもないのに、何の罪悪感もなく自分の方から体をセックスの道具に売っていた女の子たちがいっぱいいたんだって。買う方も買う方で、そんな風に堕落した大人が結構な数いて、実際に街中のホテルでお金を渡してたんだって」

「からだ、売りたいの……」

================

"Innocent bodies like ours" is a very erotic expression. I will use it somewhere! Incidentally, the literal translation of this part is "children like us."

I think it is a perfect translation for this part as well. In particular, "And neither would..." is a technical translation of the Japanese phrase "買う方も買う方で... (lit. men are men...)", which is extremely difficult to translate into English. This difficulty might be similar to the difficulty in translating the English phrase "Enough is enough!" into another language.

This is the end of this article. As a native Japanese speaker, I can say that the translator is certainly a professional translator, and the variety of English expressions were very technical and informative.

I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. However, that was in the past and since then my knowledge of English has been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to submit some simple questions and comments about English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) to Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may be making elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Let's relish the world of William Gibson | English Is Not So Easy 13

I have wanted to write a novel in English for a long time, and to some extent I am training to do so. But I think the ability to write a novel is totally different from what I learned as a subject in school. So what should I do? The answer is simple: just climb the mountain in front of you!

Today, please let me introduce my favorite sci-fi novel "Burning Chrome". This is a work by a pioneer of cyberpunk, William Gibson. Now that I have both the English and Japanese versions (Japanese name is "クローム襲撃"), so I can enjoy the work in two different ways. In this article, I would like to share with you the very beginning of the very first story in this collection of the short stories. This should not be against the law....

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"Jonny Mnemonic" by William Gibson

I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for:

僕は散弾銃をアディダス・バッグに収め、詰め物としてテニス靴下を四足入れた。全然僕のスタイルじゃないけれど、これこそが狙いだ。

If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude.

粗雑と思われているなら繊細にやり、繊細と思われているなら粗雑にやる。

I'm a very technical boy.

僕はとても繊細な青少年。

So I decided to get as crude as possible.

そこで、目いっぱい粗雑にいってみることにしたわけだ。

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Thank you for your patience with the difficult-to-read text. I would also like to study the translation here and break down each part into sentences.

The novelist William Gibson uses many unique words, and translating them can be sometimes very difficult. In this example, the translator must have first asked the following question: is "technical" the antonym of "crude"? We must use my imagination. In this part, the protagonist hide a "technical" shotgun by putting four pairs of tennis socks "crudely". He has to act like a "crude" boy for some reason.

As these two words are paired, so the Japanese translator must translate them as a pair. In this sentence, he used "粗雑" and "繊細". Indeed, "粗雑" is a literal translation of "crude," but I am sure that this is one of the few examples in which "technical" is translated as "繊細 (delicate, slender)". This is exactly the part in which we can enjoy the "technique" of the translator.

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These days, thought, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness.

とはいえ、この頃ではよほど繊細でなくては粗雑さを目指すことすらできない。

I'd had to turn both those twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then myself;

この十二番径薬莢二発だって、旋盤で真鍮材から削り出さねばならず、自分で火薬を詰めなくてはならなかった。

I'd had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand- loading cartidges; I'd had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers -all very tricky.

古いマイクロフィッシュを見つけ出してきて、手籠め式薬包のやり方を知らなくてはならなかった。梃子式のプレス機を作って、雷管をつけなくてはならなかった——どれもみんな、おおいにヤバい。

But I knew they'd work.

けど、これでうまくいくことはわかっていた。

 ================================

OK, the protagonist seems to have enough skill to make his own shotgun, which for some reason has recently become unavailable in stores. This boy is certainly overly "technical" but he needs to act like a "rough boy". But why? He is a hit man?

I would like to read the next part, but I have to see the skill of the Japanese translator. In this part, many technical terms appear, but translators can use the words in dictionaries, so translation is relatively easy. For example "microfiche" is a sheet in which many tiny pictures or documents are printed, and we can read them through a microscope. This was the storage medium before cloud computing, USB flash drives, and many older types of disks.

The most difficult part is the last part: "-all very tricky." First, this phrase looks grammatically incorrect to me. So this expression may be a "crude" one used by "a very technical boy". I think this part of the story expresses the frustration of having to go through such a tedious procedure when there should be an easier way to get a shotgun. We must translate this feeling, and I personally think the original Japanese translation "——どれもみんな、おおいにヤバい。" is a little too old-fashioned expression. Hmm... How about "——全てがとにかくトリッキー。"? The Japanese language has many words borrowed from English, and this is becoming more and more the case. I think we can use the word "トリッキー (trikki-)", which is just a transliteration of "tricky".

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The meet was set for the Drome at 2300, but I rode the tube three stops past the closest platform and walked back.

接触は二三〇〇に《ドローム》で、と設定されていたけれど、僕は地下鉄で、もよりのプラットフォームの三つ先まで行き過ぎておいて、歩いて戻った。

Immaculate procedure.

非の打ちどころのない手続きだ。

================================ 

What is "tube?" It means "subway"!? The word "subway" is widely used in the U.S., and the dictionary says "the tube" means "The London Underground". Since William Gibson is an American novelist, I thought this novel was set in the US, but actually the story may be set in London. However, I heard that if you are an American, when you hear the word "tube" you think of "CRT TV," which is the origin of the word YouTube.

Also, the word "immaculate" is another difficult word for me. The word "immaculate" is the antonym of "macculate," which means a stain or spot on a piece of cloth. This word shows the tense situation in which even a drop of ink on his clothing would kill him.

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I checked myself out in the chrome siding of a coffee kiosk, your basic sharp-faced Caucasoid with a ruff of stiff, dark hair.

コーヒー・キオスクのクローム張りの外壁で自分自身を点検してみる。かたい黒髪を逆立てた、基本通りに鋭い顔立ちのコーカソイド。

The girls at Under the Knife were big on Sony Mao, and it was getting harder to keep them from adding the chic suggestion of epicanthic folds.

《アンダー・ザ・ナイフ》の娘たちはソニー・マオに夢中だから、シックな内眼角贅皮らしきものをつけ加えられないようにするのが、次第に大変になってきている。

It probably wouldn't fool Ralfi Face, but it might get me next to his table.

これでラルフィ・フェイスの目をごまかせるとは思えないけれど、奴のテーブルの脇までは行きつけるだろう。

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I think the second sentence, "The girls at ..." is the first translator-killer. I could not understand what he was saying... First, "Under the Knife" is just a name of a place, but implies plastic surgery, and "epicanthis folds" is skin fold of the upper eyelid that covers the inner corner (medial canthus) of the eye (from Wikipedia - "Epicanthic fold"). So this sentence implies that the protagonist is sick and tired of the girls at his cosmetic surgeon's office recommending that he get Asian-looking eyes. Wait, he had cosmetic surgery? Wow, this is a technique of a high-level writer. In this way, without directly explaining "what was going on," we can find clues to his past and intentions by reading his daily complaints.

My complaint about the Japanese translation is that I lost the opportunity to notice that he had cosmetic surgery just by transliterating "under the knife (《アンダー・ザ・ナイフ》)". But I don't know of any good solution to this problem either.

 ================================

The Drome is a single narrow space with a bar down one side and tables along the other, thick with pimps and handlers and a arcame array of dealers.

《ドローム》は細長い店で、片側にはバー・カウンターが伸び、もう一方にはテーブルが並んで、女衒や故買屋や正体不明のディーラー連中がたむろしている。

================================ 

There seem to be a lot of underground people there. It is starting to look like cyberpunk!

But, did you know the word "pimps"?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/handler#English

pimp (plural pimps)

Someone who solicits customers for prostitution and acts as manager for a group of prostitutes; a pander.

(African-American Vernacular, slang) A man who can easily attract women.

Incidentally, "pipms" is translated into "女衒屋", but I did not even know how to pronounce these Chinese characters!

https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A5%B3%E8%A1%92-547611

女衒屋

〘名〙 江戸時代、女を遊女屋、旅籠屋などに売ることを業としたもの。遊女奉公で、遊女屋と女の親元との仲介に当たるが、女を誘拐し売りとばすことなどもあり、悪徳の商売...

OK, surely this word is equivalent to "pimps". What do you do when faced with an unfamiliar word? I will skip the word.

================================

The Magnetic Dog Sisters were on the door that night, and I didn't relish trying to get out past them if things didn't work out.

その晩は《磁気犬姉妹》がドアに張り付いていたので、ことがうまく運ばなかった場合、この二人をすり抜けるとなるとぞっとしなかった。

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With "magnetic" and "dog" in their name, they must be good at pursuit.

The word "relish" means "to taste or eat with pleasure" or "to take great pleasure in" (relish - Wiktionary). In the Japanese translation, I felt uncomfortable with the translation "ぞっとしなかった". The verb "ぞっとする" means "to shudder from fear" and this expression literally means "didn't shudder from fear". Is this an appropriate translation?

If I were the translator, how about this? "すり抜けるとなるとそそられなかった". The word "そそられる" means "appealed", so I think this word better expresses his melancholic feelings.

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They were two meters tall and thin as greyhounds.

二人とも身長が二メートルもあって、グレイハウンドのように細い。

One was black and the other white, but aside from that they were as nearly identical as cosmetic surgery could make them.

ひとりは白人、ひとりは黒人だけれども、その点さえ別にすれば、美容外科に能う限り瓜二つ。

They'd been lovers for years and were bad news in the tussle.

もう何年も愛人関係にあって、喧嘩になったら厄介だ。

I was never quite sure which one had originally been male.

もともと男だったのがどっちのほうか、僕にはついにはわからない。

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This part explains the appearance of "The Magnetic Dog Sisters". This part was very poetic in its Japanese translation. So I suppose the original text is also poetic, but I do not have sufficient ability to "relish" it. It's a shame. Frankly, the original text is astonishing and the translation picks up the feeling well. I am not even a professional Japanese writer, so I am not confident that I can produce the same literary quality.

This is the end of this article. What an attractive story! This novel is a very old novel, but it is so interesting even if I, who live in the modern age, read it. I used to think that literary ability was not very important in writing a novel, especially a science fiction novel, because in technical writing, "readability" is the primary requirement. However, this may not always be the case.

[For Japanese language learners]

For those who want to test their translation skills, please let me introduce some Japanese science fiction novels. This is the first part of a Japanese Sci-fi novel "Harmony" by Project Itoh (伊藤計劃). The novel won the Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize and was made into an animated film.

If you are interested in translating and want to know the professional answer, you can read the English version by Googling.

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どこまでも親切で、どこまでも他者を思いやって、挙句の果てにこの私にすら思いやりを持て親切であれと急き立てるこのセカイ。そんな時代と空間に参加させられるのはまっぴらだった。

「知ってる、トァン……」

とミァハが眼を輝かせながら言った。ミァハは物知りなのだ。クラスで一番成績のいい問題児。ミァハは私と零下堂キアン以外の誰にも必要以外で話しかけようとはしなかった。

私とキアンのどこが、ミァハの気に入ったのか今になってもわからない。成績だって特に良くはなかったし、容姿だってまあ悪かないけど取り立てて目立ったところもなかった。それはキアンも似たようなもの。けれどミァハに、どうして私とつきあうの、とはついに一度も訊いたことがない。

「昔はね、体を買ってくれる大人がいたらしいんだ。多少のお金で私たちみたいな子供とのセックスを求めてた大人たち。貧乏でもないのに、何の罪悪感もなく自分のほうから体をセックスの道具に売っていた女の子たちがいっぱいいたんだって。買うほうも買うほうで、そんな風に堕落した大人が結構な数いて、実際に街中のホテルでお金を渡してたんだって」

「からだ、売りたいの……」

私はくすくすと笑って訊いた。