(The increasingly less) Daily senryu thread

Ok, I see where you’re coming from… but what’s the 言う’s function here? :thinking:

I thought it would mean someone has to say something in this case… I guess it would be something like 俺の方ばかり見て「と」言う「人は」注意事項 if it was not a senryu but a regular sentence.

Or is it something other than this? Can it be ommited in this case?

No translation attempt, because I can’t find a fun way to translate 注意事項.

At first I was baffled by the て-form + 言う, but after looking at your daughter hint, I think I got the meaning.

I think 俺の方ばかり見て qualify 言う, it’s the manner of how the 言う is done.

A 注意事項 that {someone} say looking straight at me.
Who is {someone} ? Volume is “husbands”, so the stereotypical complainer would be the wife. I guess the joke is that a 注意事項 is normally a generic warning, not addressed to someone in particular?

I’m completely relying on my daughter here, but it’s implied that there are other people receiving the warnings/getting scolded, but that the author is the only one getting looked at.

The 言う means they are verbal warnings here I believe. It “belongs” to the second half, not the first if that makes sense. (That’s my understanding - I’m 100% confident in my daughter’s translation, but I didn’t ask her about 言う here specifically).

Unsure why this is in the husbands volume — other than we are always getting in trouble. :slight_smile:

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Exactly. It translates as: A verbal warning spoken while looking at me and only me.

言う(た)注意 • spoken/verbal warning (not 100% sure about the omitted た, but I think that’s basically what’s going on)

From the website of the Hawaii branch of Don Quijote:
“Our company stores were named after the hero in Miguel de Cervantes novel, whose style corresponds to ourselves defying unfair restrictions and regularity, bravely and aggressively offering challenges to the conventional retail industry.”

“Challenging the conventional retail industry” seems to include late hours, discount prices, and amusement. I must admit, “We deeply identify with this addled and deluded old man character” is a bold business ethos.

5 Likes

Saturday, May 14, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 俺の方ばかり見て言う注意事項
    おれのほう・ばかりみていう・ちゅういじこう
    Verbal warnings / while only looking at me

Notes:

  • @LaVieQ and @Arzar33 were closest to understanding, I think.
  • This one was difficult I think because of the 5-7-5 (err 5-7-6) constraints put on the author. Japanese grammar is tricky since entire clauses can modify other clauses, but I think this one was basically two halves: “(someone) was looking at me alone” and “spoken/verbal warnings”.

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Children

  1. パトカーが付いて来るよと子ははしゃぎ

Hints:

  • This one should be pretty easy.
  • パトカー means “patrol car”. I learned this many, many years ago rather comically when I was a passenger in a car and someone said something like そこにパトカーがあるよ. It might even have been the exact phrasing above. As is often the case with 外来語(がいらご), I just assumed it was yet another Japanese word I didn’t know. I’m looking out the window trying to figure out what on earth they were pointing at while saying in ever louder voices パトカー、パトカー、英語(えいご)だよ! English?!! I was completely mystified. Eventually my wife took pity and said ぱ と ろ る か あ — “patrol car”.
  • (はしゃ)ぎ doesn’t appear until level 51. Nice to get a jump on it!
  • Don’t let the よ throw you. Remember the function of と.

Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts! Also, please include the reading in kana with your submission.


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 are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

  1. パトカーが付いて来るよと子ははしゃぎ

ぱとかーがついてくるよとこははしゃぎ

“Ooo! A police car
is following us!” exclaims
my child, gleefully.

I feel you there.

Tangential personal anecdote

英語だよ!is a familiar phrase from my time in Japan. This has happened with (among others)
シトラス - citrus
ウルフ - wolf
ツイスト - twist,
and my personal favorite, ホン コール - えぇ? 本凍る???..oh, a PHONE CALL, Jesus,
and my confusion was always met with an insistent “英語だよ! 英語!”

3 Likes

Outstanding 5-7-5. :clap: :clap: :clap: Well done.

I wonder if it was a child that announce the following or the spouse? I interpreted it as the spouse or other passenger saying it, and the child/children getting excited, but it totally works (probably better) with the children saying it, too.

2 Likes

Ohh, it hadn’t even occurred to me to think of it that way, but you’re totally right, the と could apply to anyone in the car.

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ぱとかーがついてくるよとこははしゃぎ
“Wow! A police car / just to escort us!” squeals / my excited kid

Maybe the choice of the word “squeals” is overwrought, but it fits with the mood of 燥ぐ to get me to the all consuming 5-7-5 objective. Well, that’s my excuse…

:smiley: A classic attack of カタンギリス (Katakana English), wherein the English word is written down in kana and then pronounced in kana, causing the English speaking listener much consternation. The worst such confusion I had was with 「シドニー」 when I heard it the first time. :thinking: After a couple of attempts at getting through to me verbally, the speaker wrote it down in English and I was like, “She-doe-knee= Sydney? なるほどね!!” I was pushed into a deep meditative state as my mind went blank before he wrote it down. A very powerful koan, it was.

Then there’s the ホーム at the railway station…

3 Likes

I am further edified and uplifted. :slightly_smiling_face:

The Japanese can sometimes seem so mysterious in their choice of words and names. Who else would think of saying「サボ」 for skipping classes? Not to mention the kind of nonsense phrases that adorn t-shirts… :upside_down_face: But, I suppose that’s also the charm of Japan…

3 Likes

Sunday, May 15, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. パトカーが付いて来るよと子ははしゃぎ
    パトカーがついてくるよとこははしゃぎ
    Ooo! A police car / is following us!” exclaims / my child, gleefully.

Notes:

Current senryu challenge

Volume: various settings (not ”children”!)

  1. 乾杯のグラス持たされ三十分

Hints:

  • Another fairly straightforward poem to translate
  • Some people do like to hear themselves give a speech!

Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts! Also, please include the reading in kana with your submission.


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 are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

1 Like

TiL that this word has a fascinating history. Obviously, it’s a French word for Dutch footwear that came to Japan via English due to a French railway strike in 1910. Not sure why I didn’t intuit this immediately.

I’d heard the word before but it never dawned on me that “sabotage” and “slipshod” were at all related, much less “ciabatta”!

2 Likes

Translation Attempt

  1. 乾杯のグラス持たされ三十分

かんぱいの・グラスもたされ・さんじゅっぷん

Time to do a toast
And then made to hold the glass
For thirty minutes

Honestly, the hardest part was trying for 5-7-5, and it’s almost always impossible to get the English split to mirror the Japanese one.

Although I suppose you do have to know a bit about how drinking culture works in Japan.

2 Likes

I’m not sure why this senryu is in category children according to your post :thinking:.
I think your category is borked ^^

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Hello guys! I’ve been checking in to admire all of your hard work for a while. Thought I’d take a stab at this one :sparkles:

cheers! we raise a glass
made to hold it like that for
thirty odd minutes

3 Likes

This was the part that was confusing me most about this one. I was like, “Are they…making toast speeches at some kid’s birthday?..Is a kid giving a long speech?”

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Whoops. Fixed.

Edited on the road this morning - just a cut-n-pasto.

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Welcome!

I’m so happy that people seem to be enjoying these as much as I am. :partying_face:

It’s not making it any easier to pick a winner, though, especially with the number that have even accomplished 5-7-5 in English recently!

I’m still going to try to select just a single translation every morning. I think it’s worth it for future readers of the complete list. Maintaining the links to each day’s discussion with all the entries makes me feel better about this decision.

Hopefully, I can just count the likes when there are two excellent submissions like this (so far).

3 Likes

I just had an ad for this app show up, and it immediately reminded me of our 4/30 translation for 雑草の名前わかると抜きにくい!

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