(The increasingly less) Daily senryu thread

Speaking of dads, conversations with them shift as much as masks do.

Interesting take!

I know first hand, though, that it’s common to refer to your own father as お父さん, especially when speaking to them directly or when speaking to other family members. Nicknames and 父ちゃん are also common, in this situation, of course.

I agree, though, that it’s common to avoid honorifics when speaking about your own family to others.

And マスクはよくずれる definitely means a mask often shifts or becomes askew.

But I’m still leaning toward my interpretation:

  • It’s not clear who the speaker is speaking to (inner circle or not) and 私のお父さん doesn’t sound off to me even when speaking to others.
  • 5-7-5 constraints may have prevented the use of (ちち) or whatever
  • それはちょっとずれてるよ would normally be translated: “That sounds a little off”.

Translation attempt

お父さん マスクも会話も よくずれる

Like his mask
Dad’s conversations
Often drift

12 Likes

I don’t think so. Is there grammar there? Then it’s tricky.

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Posting to tell you I like your post without liking your post. :joy:

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:grin:

After more thought, there’s no sense in cautioning people not to like others’ submissions. You can’t like any given reply more than once, and even if everyone was able to like their own submissions, it would just add one to all of them (which wouldn’t change the outcome).

Anyone that wants to like multiple submissions: have at it!

4 Likes

Thursday, April 21, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. お父さん マスクも会話も よくずれる
    おとうさん・マスクもかいわも・よくずれる
    Like his mask / Dad’s conversations / Often drift

Notes:

  • Congrats to @Kumirei :confetti_ball:
  • This was a play on words: ずれる can mean askew or shifted, but it can also mean out-of-place or not quite right.

Current senryu challenge

  1. グーを出す孫の癖知りチョキを出す

グーをだす・まごのくせしり・チョキをだす

This one is not too tough, but it requires some context. Here’s a hint if you are completely lost:


Hint (only open if necessary)

The child’s game rock/paper/scissors or Rochambeau is known as じゃんけん or じゃんけんぽい in Japan. You say グー for rock, チョキ for scissors, and パー for paper.


Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts!

Everyone is encouraged to participate, no matter your level!

Online tools like dictionaries, sentence databases, and even AI translation engines are fair game and can be extremely helpful. Yomichan is particularly handy if you use the Chrome or Firefox browser.

Here’s the link to the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

3 Likes

Translation attempt

  1. グーをまごくせりチョキを

Knowing my grandchild’s habit of throwing rocks, I’ll throw scissors.

Reasoning:
グー and チョキ in this case is rock and scissors respectively.
グーを出す to throw rock
グーを出す孫 rock throwing grandson
グーを出す孫の癖 the habit of my rock throwing grandson
グーを出す孫の癖知り knowing the habit of my rock throwing grandson
チョキを出す I’ll throw scissors

7 Likes

Translation attempt

  1. グーをまごくせりチョキを

Knowing my grandchild
They’ll throw rock
So I’ll throw scissors

My first attempt at one of these :sweat_smile:
Not very sure, but I understood it as something like that! I did omit explicitly saying the word “habit” though, so it’s not a very literal translation.

9 Likes

Translation attempt

@Hubbit200 gets the credit for any likes I might receive for this submission. The sense of the translation is identical, I’m just riffing.

My grandchild / is prone to “rock” / so I show “scissors”

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I love this topic :heart_eyes: My initial ideas for translations are SOO bad that I can’t post it here… It’s a bit like a RorschachTest and would reveal too much about my subconsciousness :rofl:

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Me, too!

I still struggle mightily with the language, but I have a decent amount of cultural context from having spent so much time in Japan. Several of the coming entries are still completely mystifying to me, though, even if I can look up and understand every individual word.

I’ll try to pick one of the ones that puzzles me most tomorrow to see if we can work it out as a group.

4 Likes

It’s the same for me, maybe too much context or the wrong context.
For example I was convinced that グーを出す孫 is talking about the people who don’t like the vegetables (taking them out) in the Miso soup reading 孫 as 系 because of personal frustration with cooking for a family :upside_down_face:
Usually I don’t misread Kanji if there is more context.

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I think the “ingredients” word in 味噌(みそ)(しる)() is pronounced ぐ, though, not ぐう / グー.

These things are really making me pay attention to every single syllable!

I’m not following how (けい) relates to cooking, though. Oh! Did you mean (さい)?

2 Likes

I don’t see 具 written in Kanji often, if I would think about it longer than probably I would recall that it is 具 and would also know it is written as ぐ, but people around me often use it when talking about how to make the family eat more vegetables (putting a lot of usually rejected things in the Miso soup anticipating that the taste of Miso and Dashi overrides everything else) and when they do it is pronounced like ぐーー but this might be a try to emphasize how much they stuff into the soup :joy:

系 is often used to describe ‘that kind of people’ like in 草食系. So I thought it is talking about ‘that kind of people who are conservative about Miso soups and only accept it with a bit of Wakame and Tofu but definitely not asparagus and fancy mushrooms which is more to the like of most Japanese females who are fed up with eating the same limited five ingredients every single day’ which happens to exists in reality a lot actually :smile: (ask your wife…)

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Gewwwwwww!

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Translation attempt

((edit cause I forgot the heading you’re supposed to use))

Tried to make it 5-7-5 in English

I know my grandchild
Will habitually throw rock
So I throw scissors

Or a shorter version:

Knowing my grandchild
Trends rock, → (or maybe “is keen on rock” or “leans toward rock”)
I throw scissors

7 Likes

Woah. Bonus points for 5-8-5. I like that first one a lot.

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Thanks! Although I guess the syllable counting website I was using must not be working lol

I debated for a bit between “throw” or “show”, and I’m still not sure which is best! My first instinct was “show”, but “throw” seemed to be more common online. Even being a native English speaker I guess I haven’t played rock paper scissors enough to know which is best :laughing:
Your variation is pretty good, although maybe the middle sentence could use something extra? Such as “my grandchild / is prone to choose rock / so I throw scissors”?
Like you say though, all just variations of the same meaning!

@GearAid great translations! I like the first one, although not sure if habitually flows that smoothly spoken? I personally quite like your “leans toward rock” variation

2 Likes

One comment:

Maybe the following with quotation marks?

I know my grandchild
Habitually shows “rock”
So I show “scissors”

Reasoning:

  • Throwing rocks has the connotation of physically tossing a stone, “show” avoids this
  • Is “habitually” five syllables or four? I pronounce it “ha • bit * chew * a * lee” but I think some might drop the “a”.
5 Likes