Comments on: Japanese, The Borrower Language Part 3: Why They Do It

By: フィル

フィル — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 05:15:00 +0000

I saw a couple in Namba (Osaka) walking around with matching t-shirts that both said “F%^$ Summer.” Thought that was pretty hilarious.

By: aba

aba — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 06:38:00 +0000

not that it matters much,
but the fart sexy style was photographed in China.

By: HokkaidoKuma

HokkaidoKuma — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 02:14:00 +0000

Let me get this straight, Japanese use English words to soften an otherwise blunt / too direct of a statement? I always thought English was the “harsher” of the two languages. Mind blown!

On a side note, if I ever make a commercial, it’ll just be like that McDonald’s CM. Hilarious.

By: Christopher Stilson

Christopher Stilson — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:11:00 +0000

It works if you imagine Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie doing it.

I’m wondering whether it just works for some of us in English because of the connotations with invocation: ‘o (insert something majestic here)’. Then again, it just sounds funny to me – reading it made me go ‘snerk’. ジュス by itself sounds kind of silly (Azumanga Daioh did an entire extended gag about how funny the word is).

Same with the word ‘o-chibi-san’ that I came across in my translating the other day… just the sound of it made me giggle, quite independent of the context it was used in (I ended up translating it as ‘honorable midget,’ which was the only English equivalent I could think of which sounded just as funny).

By: Pepper_the_Sgt

Pepper_the_Sgt — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 08:38:00 +0000

I scrolled back up to the look at the picture. Now my mind is consumed by trying to figure out the logic of that giant, golden “A.”

By: Pepper_the_Sgt

Pepper_the_Sgt — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 08:36:00 +0000

I think I’d chuckle at that once, but I don’t know how you can have a whole bit about it. Maybe I just don’t get Japanese humor.