Using DeepL Translate for ふしぎ wonder, or mystery
Why am I here
Sipping tea, bitter tea
With this person
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このひとと しぶちゃすすって いるふしぎ
3-4-3 translation:
Amazing!
Having bitter
tea with him/her…
NOTES:
Is this about the charm of someone’s company, so much so that the tea pot sits forgotten to the side, making the tea go bitter? The translation doesn’t quite catch the mood, though.
I searched for 渋茶をすする as an idiomatic expression, but found nothing. So, I guess the meaning is literal. However, I discovered the interesting expression 茶々を入れる, which means to interrupt (presumably by pouring tea often, distracting the interaction). Which makes me wonder if the bitter tea is a reference to being so engrossed in whatever is going on with the 相手 that the tea sits neglected and goes bitter.
The website for proverbs ＆ expressions is also handy. See their explanation for 欲の皮が突っ張る。
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Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Previous senryu
- 「この人と渋茶すすっている不思議」
このひとと・しぶちゃすすっている・ふしぎ
slurping bitter / tea with this person / is something else
Notes:
-
to @Axazel -
As usual, I’ve taken some liberties (apologies). For some reason I think “slurping” fits better here. At least I kept it a 4-5-4.
-
to @Linda0r (welcome!) -
Another
to @LaVieQ for a late entry. I’m unsure, of course, but I still don’t think 不思議 has positive connotations here. I think it’s an unusual word choice for explaining being engrossed/distracted .
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Heartfelt (しみじみ編)
- 「その夢にあんたもいたと妻が泣く」
This is becoming a pattern! Once again, I can read the words without assistance. Still wondering about the meaning, though.
Hints/musings:
-
あんた (you) implies either rudeness or extreme familiarity
-
Does the と mean “if”? Or is it setting up a scenario (like quoting)?
- My initial interpretation (likely wrong as usual) is something like, “If you were also in that dream, my wife would cry”.
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 語源由来辞典 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.
3 Likes
Administrivia:
I’ve changed the order of the OP to put today’s assignment (and the prior translations) at the very top instead of the bottom.
This makes it slightly easier for me to edit every day (I might also start marking the current assignment as the solution every day, but since I want to include prior translations it won’t really save me much work).
Hopefully this makes the top post more useful to others, too, but don’t hesitate to let me know if you don’t like the change.
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Sorry, left town before I could respond to your message.
I was in Hillsborough, near SFO for the last 3 days visiting friends. It was indeed a fun long weekend filled with wine, movies and all sorts of conversations.
Just noticed that you are also based in the Bay area… I live in San Diego, btw. It’ll be nice to do a 川柳 meet up up there (or down here). Wonder if there’s anyone else here from the West Coast…
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Oh, hey! Sorry I missed you. I’m in the south bay (Los Gatos, border of San Jose).
My youngest graduated from UCSD and is considering moving back down there at some point. We may indeed cross paths at some point.
A f2f meetup sometime would definitely be fun. 
I’m not going to submit an official entry, but my thought on this was You should also go after that dream, my wife cries. The meaning is the wife is tearfully telling the person to follow their dreams?
That could be way off base, I think the different ideas come from different interpretations of いた, and I’m not totally sure which is right. I thought maybe it could be shoot for (射る) because being in a dream didn’t make much sense to me, but honestly who knows.
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I wondered for a second about this too… but I don’t think literally translated “shoot for” your dreams is an expression used in Japanese. It’s usually 夢を追い(かける) or 夢を叶える.
Using と like this is a grammar point that means “whenever x occurs, y also happens” So I think “if” is totally fine, along with “when” or “whenever”. Grammar point here!
I have the same interpretation! So here goes my attempt:
—————————-
そのゆめに / あんたもいた / とつまがなく
in that dream
if you’re there with her
my wife cries
OR
whenever
in her dreams you’re there
my wife cries
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I‘m not gonna submit a translation either, but と is definitely a quotation here, such as と言う, just with 泣く as the verb in question.
I don’t think a past tense verb is logically possible before a conditional と, so it must be quotational. The verb fits as well.
The use of あんた also sounds like spoken language → it’s a quotation of something the wife said.
夢に出る should mean „to appear in a dream“. I don’t think there’s an alternate interpretation.
My first thought was something like: my wife crying „you were there in my dream, too!“ 
Context being maybe a nightmare, and something bad happened to people in her dream, including her husband? (also based on the fact that it’s the しみじみ category so I suppose it’s about something rather cute and innocent)
Another (more likely and research-based) interpretation: Googling 夢に出る 夫 sent me down the path of 夢占い and that apparently your husband appearing in your dream means that the opposite of the dream will happen in real life (逆夢). Maybe this is why the wife is crying; she had a happy dream, but her husband appeared in it as well and now she fears that the dream won’t come true and something bad will happen.
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My native-speaking husband agrees with you guys! Maybe I should go back and brush up on my basics…
That is really cool, and definitely fits the しみじみ theme much more than anything I could have thought of. Nice research!
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Being wrong is embarrassing, but it’s even more fun to learn something new I think! Based on feedback from @Myria and @KJules , here’s my revision:
そのゆめに / あんたもいた / とつまがなく
in that dream
you were there too my
wife cries out
I feel like it’s still missing something…but at least it’s more accurate now??
4 Likes
Your googling seems really important here, I think that gives some much needed context. I thought いた couldn’t possible be existence because why on earth would that matter? But with that cultural context, it makes so much more sense!
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This is really well stated and helped me understand. Initially, I thought there were three people involved, the author, maybe a girlfriend, and the wife. But as a quotation, あんた now makes much more sense: “you were in my dream” is what the wife was crying. “My wife cried, ‘you were in my dream’!” This makes much more sense than “if you were in her dream, she would cry”.
あんた is often used between husband and wife, but is weird/rude with others, which is why I was so confused trying to make it work with three people!
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そのゆめに あんたもいたと つまがなく
3-4-3 translation
“In the dream
you too were there!”
wept my wife.
I guess it was an emotional dream? Regardless, 妻 seemed to be touched that hubby managed to stay close by her side even in a dream.
I read と妻が泣く as a shorthand, poetic version of と言って妻が泣く. I tried “cried” for 泣く, but it doesn’t work as well as “wept,” even if the latter is a bit overwrought. But then, the whole thing is しみじみ melodrama and, therefore, I decided that copious weeping is fine. 
Ah, so, that’s how it works. Makes sense.
The 客夢 is also a great find and something that I didn’t know about. It clears up my doubts.
4 Likes
This was my first interpretation, then I read the discussion and thought I was wrong, then I rolled back around to thinking maybe I was on the right track after all, haha.
その夢にあんたもいたと妻が泣く
“you were there
in my dream as well”
cries the wife
As far as interpretations go, a lot of these seem to be about relationship drama, so my first thought was that the wife was talking about a dream she had (if it’s a literal dream, maybe it involved some hot celebrity or something), and she had to clarify to her spouse that they were in fact also included in the dream so that the spouse didn’t get upset or offended.
I like the explanation being that your husband appearing in your dream means the opposite of the dream will happen in real life, though. I prefer that one 
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every polyamorous person ever
Erm. On a more serious note:
Don’t forget that the conditional と is normally used for factual when-then statements, and it wouldn’t be natural to use it to express what you thought it means.
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Thursday, June 23, 2022
Previous senryu
- 「その夢にあんたもいたと妻が泣く」
そのゆめに・あんたもいたと・つまがなく
"You were there / in my dream as well” / cries the wife
Notes:
-
to @fallynleaf
-
Too many to thank for some really great discussion! So many terrific thoughts and explanations by all. I’m going to go back and highlight some of the better discussions in the “past translations” section of the OP (this one definitely gets a highlight).
-
After thinking about it, I realized my confusion wasn’t really about と at all. The root of my confusion was that I unconsciously thought of 泣く as purely intransitive. This was why I thought there were three people involved. I’d have understood 「◯◯」と叫びました instantly, but using the plain form of 泣く, and inserting 妻が between the と and the verb really threw me! As usual, it makes perfect sense in hindsight, but once again it highlights just how “puzzle-like” these poems really are!
-
That’s why I especially liked @fallynleaf and @Axazel’s versions: they capture the verb inflection correctly with “cries” rather than making it past-tense with @LaVieQ’s admittedly poetic “wept”. I ended up going with @fallynleaf as that version also captured the と perfectly with quotation marks. Literal translation for the win!
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Global Truths (世の真理編)
220: 「がんばろう生きているから悩めるの」
No serious hints but this somehow reminds me of several aphorisms from my past
-
Keep breathing. That’s it. Just. Keep. Breathing. (Quoting my closest friend.)
-
From an old “Sales engineer rules of life” tee-shirt from a company now long gone:
- Speed does not kill, but rapid deceleration can be dangerous
- If you live, have kids. Improve the gene pool.
- You can sleep when you die.
- Beer is good food.
(There were ten rules, but these are the only ones I remember.)
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 語源由来辞典 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.
3 Likes
I’ve highlighted three past translations with a gold star (all three had a fairly lively discussion). If you have any others you think we should highlight, please let me know!
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Really fun waking up on my birthday to the news that my translation was chosen! Unfortunately I don’t feel confident about today’s, haha, so I will wait to read other people’s attempts and see if that sparks anything
5 Likes
Okay, I’ll bite. Here’s my attempt:
220:「がんばろう生きているから悩めるの」
がんばろう・い気ているから・なやめるの
Keep it up!
That I’m troubled means
I’m alive
Oddly, this seemed easy to understand at a glance to me. As usual, this probably means I’m way off base!
Notes/comments (I might even be right one of these days ):
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This does seem a little difficult to translate literally into English.
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悩める is the potential form of 悩む which means to be troubled/worried/distressed.
-
The trickiest thing to parse is the の at the end.
-
I saw two possibilities:
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It’s an interrogative, like 「どうしたの？」which is a shortened, colloquial form of 「どうしたのか？] or “What’s wrong?”.
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It’s a poetic re-ordering/shortening of 「悩めるのは生きていることだ」or ”Too worry is to be alive" (roughly). This is the interpretation that makes sense to me.
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Oh! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 
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