(The increasingly less) Daily senryu thread

I can relate to you @Rrwrex . This is my current office, unfortunately :expressionless:

「ぜったいにひみつ」 / とびかう / ひるやすみ

“don’t tell a soul”
thrown every which way
over lunch break

5 Likes

Nice one! (4-6-4)

I barely seem to have time for one senryu a day somehow, otherwise I’d join you for 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ. I think I might have read the English version long ago, but I don’t remember any of it.

It saddens me how little pleasure reading I do in either language any more! I need to start traveling again (I did most of my reading on planes). It takes me long enough to decipher one of these — I can’t imagine how long it would take me to get through a paragraph of Murakami.

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It’s a 4-5-4 when I read it aloud! Does your accent happen to splice “every” into three syllables by chance? :laughing:

I can’t believe that 海辺のカフカ is already starting today. I was going back and forth as to whether to jump in, also due to reading speed. The advanced book club just has such a quick schedule.

I hope you can travel more, and thus get some reading time in too. I can kind of relate to you—my husband and I are currently away on business in the UK (for at least a year), so all of my reading-on-the-train time has been stripped away. Reading and travel go hand in hand, and is such a difficult thing to replace.

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You’re right: every is two syllables, though I do tend to pronounce it with three.

The hardest part of train/plane reading is staying awake!

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「絶対にヒミツ」飛びかう昼休み

Kana:

「ぜったいヒミツ」とびかうひるやすみ

My attempt:

So much for
Keeping it secret
Lunchtime leak

Notes:

  • I don’t think the Japanese necessarily implies that the secret is the speaker’s (just one that they were in the know about), which my translation does.
  • My version, again unlike the Japanese, implies that the secret was leaked during lunchtime. It doesn’t include the buzz about the secret that well (or at all), but I couldn’t manage that while keeping it 3-5-3. I ended up going with form over faithfulness, though probably for the worse this time around.
3 Likes

Sunday, May 29, 2022


Previous senryu

絶対にヒミツ」飛びかう昼休み
「ぜったいにひみつ」 / とびかう / ひるやすみ
“don’t tell a soul” / thrown every which way / over lunch break

Notes:

  • :confetti_ball: @Axazel (4-5-4)
  • :trophy: to @valvictorine (3-5-3)
  • Another hard decision. Both kept to the spirit of the original, but I went with the 4-5-4 as it was closer to a direct translation.

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Various settings

  1. 年齢欄「青二才」だと書いておく

I enjoyed this one after learning two new words:

  1. (らん) • 1. A column; a page; a section. 2. A blank; a column; a space (e.g. a form field). 3. A railing; a balustrade.
  2. (あお)()(さい) • A green (raw, callow) youth. A “greenhorn”. Young and inexperienced.

There should be plenty of opportunity for English wordplay today.

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.

2 Likes

This is my first time hearing 青二才 as well!

I always try to keep the words in the same order as Japanese, but any other attempt I had wasn’t as good as this one. I did get (3-5-3) though :sparkles:

ねんれいらん / 「あおにさい」/ だとかいておく

age column
to be filled in as
“burgeoning”

2 Likes

Another good one.

You also know my penchant for finding suitable multi-syllable words. :smile:

I think 書いておく means the act of writing, though. “To be filled in as” feels slightly off. Isn’t the author being a bit cheeky and filling in “immature youth” (or something similar) as his age into a form?

2 Likes

Translation attempt

  1. 年齢欄「青二才」だと書いておく

ねんれいらん / 「あおにさい」/ だとかいておく

“Age” field on form:
I filled the box with
“immature youth”

This is also a bit off, but I think it captures the spirit.

3 Likes

It is writing (書く)! It also a nuance of writing it when you’re alone for it remain there after you’ve gone (おく). Maybe “to leave it written as” would be closest… but I don’t find this wording to be particularly natural or poetic :weary:

I see that too! I went for an “Age is just a number. It’s not about how old I am, it’s about where I’m at in life!” approach, influenced by the “green” interpretation within 青二才.

But in a perfect world, there’d be an English interpretation that captures both of our ideas as the original does.

I think so too :durtle_noice:

1 Like

年齢(ねんれい)(らん)青二才(あおにさい)」だと()いておく

filling in
the form’s age column
with “young’un”

4 Likes

ねんれいらん「あおにさい」だとかいておく

3-4-3
Age in years? / “A tenderfoot” / I put down

The word origin for 青二才 is quite interesting. (The explanations for おふくろ and おやじ are equally so. A useful and handy website.)

EDIT: Yes, ておく is vexing to capture in English. Perhaps “for now,” “for the time being” and “in preparation towards…” sort of hints at the meaning, but they seem incomplete in comparison.

3 Likes

I finally remembered to bookmark that wonderful site this time! Etymology is always fascinating, and these explanations are perfect reading practice for me (difficult but doable with yomichan, and not too long). I’m going to add that site to the list of resources.

I don’t know which explanation is more likely for 青二才: I had no idea the character (しん) could be read にい, and I’ve never heard of “bora” fish before!

I love that the explanation for オフクロ starts with “dating back to the Muromachi era” like I’d have any idea when that was (right around when the Black Death was raging in Europe, FWIW). For that one, I really like the initial explanation, especially because it resonates with “purse strings” in English. That makes sense to me.

Monday, May 30, 2022

You folks really don’t make judging easy!


Previous senryu

  1. 年齢欄「青二才」だと書いておく
    ねんれいらん「あおにさい」だとかいておく
    Age in years? / “A tenderfoot” / I put down

Notes:

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Heartfelt

  1. 初孫の呼吸聞かせる娘の受話器

Break out the dictionaries for this one. 初孫(ういまご) wasn’t a reading I’d have guessed!

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. The 語源(ごげん)由来(ゆらい)辞典(じてん) is also an excellent resource for researching the etymology of various words and expressions.

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.

2 Likes

ういまごのこきゅうきかせるじゅわき

Assuming that the 受話器 in the poem is a device like this…. I’ll just call it a “handset” in translation, else it’ll get quite complicated (“handset audio amplifier” :grin:).

First grandson’s breathing / heard clear in the new handset. / My daughter’s gifts, both.

This one is tough - can’t get it any shorter than 5-7-5.

You have probably heard it before, without associating it with the kanji: 新潟県 (にいがたけん). My knowledge stems from my association with the prefecture, which is where I first saw that reading. Not that it helped me see that 新背 is read as にいせ…

3 Likes

Wow! I had no idea. Thanks!

Tuesday, May 31, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 初孫の呼吸聞かせる娘の受話器
    ういまごの・こきゅうきかせるこ・のじゅわき
    First grandson’s breathing / heard clear in the new handset. / My daughter’s gifts, both

Notes:

  • :trophy: to @LaVieQ for the only submission
  • No :confetti_ball: because the character 娘 was left out of the kana provided! I’d ordinarily ignore a simple typo, but in this case it’s too interesting. I think it’s actually read () here to keep it to a 5-8-5, and not (むすめ) as you’d expect.
  • But learning how Niigata prefecture is written almost put it over the top!

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Intense

  1. ドラマでは私住む街左遷の地

Hint:

I think the key to this one is figuring out how to translate 左遷(させん).

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. The 語源(ごげん)由来(ゆらい)辞典(じてん) is also an excellent resource for researching the etymology of various words and expressions.

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.

2 Likes

It appears that I’m not the only one struggling with this one.

Let’s give this one two days. I’ll ping my family to see if I can get some help. I’ll be amazed if anyone comes up with something short — all the English words have several syllables.

My best attempt at translation (likely wrong, and ignoring syllable counts:

ドラマでは私住む街左遷の地

ドラマでは・わたしすむまち・させんのち

In the TV drama
The town I live in
became the land of exile

I’m utterly unsure what 左遷(させん)() means here, though. Literally it means “demoted ground”.

1 Like
  1. ドラマでは私住む街左遷の地

In a drama
the town I live in
is where they are
put out to pasture

Yeah, 4 lines baby! 川柳 is about breaking the rules after all :stuck_out_tongue:

Basically I think 左遷の地 is about the thing in Japanese company when they want to punish someone, they demote them and transfer them to a dead-end position in a backwater branch office.

If it’s right, I actually had a similar though as the 川柳 when watching the medical drama Doctor X. It usually takes place in a prestigious Tokyo hospital, but in one episode almost the entire team of surgeon get punished for some reason and they end up getting transferred all over japan, in small hospitals. And there is a montage of all them looking bored out of them mind. So I thought the people living there watching the show must have complicated feeling about it :stuck_out_tongue:

Btw I didn’t know about the expression “put out to pasture”, I found it in a dictionary so I’m not sure if the meaning fit.

I heard はつまご before. :thinking:

4 Likes

Hah! Looks like I got rid of the daughter altogether because I couldn’t deal with the syllable count. :grin: But, it seems to have backfired…

ドラマでは はたしすむまち させんのち

4-5-4
Soap opera: / My home town shown as / not so worthy

The literal translation seems to be that the town where the author lives was shown in the TV program as a run down, sketchy place. But, the sentiment of this 川柳 is not clear to me. Is it said in indignation? anger? resignation? sadness? A bit of all of the above?