You see it quite often when someone will say ‘there’s a word for that…there’s no direct translation but it’s loosely like…’ then proceeds to give it a translation.
I saw one recently of kummerspeck, I think the commenter said it was ‘food you eat when you’re sad’ or ‘grief bacon’.
I would also like to preemptively apologise for my ignorance.
In: 37
In English we have one first person singular subject pronoun “I” as in “I like cookies.” or “I went shopping.”
Japanese has multiple. Like close to 20. Some are archaic and rarely used. Others are used only in certain situations, but even in day to day life you will encounter multiple (watashi, boku, ore, uchi, atashi, etc.). They have different levels of familiarity and formality. Some are used more/exclusively by males or females, etc. Regardless, there is no ONE way to translate them to English. You’re losing some context no matter what by going to just “I”. Sometimes that context isn’t important. But when it is you have to add additional explanation, and even then there are subtleties that might get lost. And thats a pretty simple example of a commonly used word that in English we don’t think much about. Imagine for more complex words or grammar points like verbs.
Latest Answers