走行の翻訳について話題。

WKは走行という言葉を"travelling"として翻訳されていますが辞書によるとー

自動車などが走ること。
走行距離 distance covered
時速100キロで走行する to drive at a speed of 100 kilometers an hour

大事なニュアンスは機械だと思います。けど”travelling"そいうアスペクトを通じないんです。もっとふさわしい翻訳を見つかればどうでしょうか。

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I think traveling is certainly possible as a translation now and then. This particular word probably comes from one of the EDICT glosses, because WK seems to take things from there when in doubt. But yeah, “running a wheeled vehicle” is the most accurate way to describe 走行.

BTW email is a more appropriate way to ask them to make a change to the site, despite that a Feedback forum exists. hello@wanikani.com

I’m not sure what this sentences means.

Thanks James for a prompt and accurate response :slight_smile:
By that ill-formed sentence I meant that important nuance in word 走行 is a mechanical nature of subject. My speculation is that 行 here conveys “performing action” so it isn’t combination of two motion verbs but rather something like “performing running action” which should point to non-living nature of actor. EDICT has “travelling” as tertiary option , however I failed to find relevant examples. If we would use compose words
走行性能 (そうこうせいのう)とは、主に[鉄道車両]の車両において、動力性能や、走行時の安定性、能力などについて総合的に加味した能力のことである。
we could deduce something like “driving” which is similar to your proposal. Probably it would be easier to study composed words like 走行距離、走行性能、走行中.
I will forward this topic to hello@wanikani.com :slight_smile:

I think I disagree a bit about the 行 part meaning 行う.

Remember that the definition of 走行 in Japanese is just 自動車などが走ること (an automobile runs / moves forward). There’s nothing about operating the vehicle.

走行する is intransitive, unlike 運転する (which does mean to operate a vehicle).

The “drive” and “run” meanings come from, I think, just the way the word is used. It is used to refer to vehicles by some quirk of history, not by the constraints of the kanji that make it up. At least that’s how it appears to me.

As such, “travel” is fine depending on how you want to translate it, but I do agree that having other words (and even making them the primary meaning) is appropriate.

As an aside, “James Craburn” is what’s called a “sect name” here. It’s kind of confusing, but without getting too into it, it’s fine to call me Leebo.

Wouldn’t it roughly work out to “transiting”?
As in a wheeled vehicle of some description is moving in some fashion.

Although I think it probably applies to monorails and mag-lev, not sure about cablecars…

Roger, Leebo :slight_smile:
Yeah, personally speaking - I would stick to definition provided by Japanese dictionaries and translate according to specific context. The conundrum here is how to choose single word for memorization & verification purposes. In a way, WK is a victim here :wink:

Good idea :slight_smile: The problem is how to limit it to objects which contains 車 kanji in them, btw trains contain this kanji so this word is applicable. But things like TESS - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, uses katakana word トランジット, exoplanets transiting in front of their star from point of view of earth based observer, while exoplanets definitely hasn’t wheels. After tackling a bit this problem, I came to trivial conclusion - in many cases it’s impossible to find simple single word correlation between all conceptions in any given two languages. How to remember such words in our memory - so far I used two methods - or japanese definition or set composed from several example sentences.

I would not say there is a problem, the term “in transit” has a very strong contextual association to transportation.
While it can be expanded to even include the stars as they cross the heavenly host, I think it just needs to be taught with the correct context, like everything else, and it matches quite well.

The definition has など in it. I don’t it has to be limited to things with 車 in it. For instance バス is fine.

Yep definition does not contain direct reference to ”車”, 宇宙船 is fine as well but I have doubts about 惑星、小惑星、彗星、星 and other non-artificial stellar objects. Somehow from all examples & japanese wikipedia articles I got feeling that 走行 is limited to machines.

Since a spaceship probably flies, I’m inclined to think it would use 飛行 rather than 走行, but I don’t have much experience reading about spaceships.

Actually, that was my speculation only. So far regarding spaceships -
at first they launched - 打ち上げる
after they 乗る or sometimes indeed 旅行
and when they entering orbit 軌道投入
and sometimes 着陸
So far I never seen usage of 走行 in a space context :frowning:

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