(The increasingly less) Daily senryu thread

Hokay, in consideration of the criteria, let’s take a second stab:

  1. 目の前に違う教師がいる目覚め
    めのまえに ちがうきょうしが いるめざめ

On waking,
Before my eyes
Is a different teacher

6 Likes

On waking,
Before my eyes
Is a different teacher

I’ll make the final call tomorrow in case there are more submissions or additional comments, but I like this second version better.

In some senses it might even be better than the original.

You’ve put the punchline of a different teacher at the end. This is a different nuance, but I think it works well. The original Japanese hides that the writer was asleep until the end, and makes awakening the punchline. This is possible because of how Japanese grammar works.

But a literal translation (“Before my eyes / a different teacher / upon awakening”) doesn’t work quite as well in English to my ears.

Adding words or changing the emphasis like:

Before my eyes / a different teacher / startling me awake

or

Before my eyes / a different teacher / I’m wide awake now

or

Before my eyes / a different teacher / I’m no longer asleep

(or something) might work, but requires new/different words.

I like your version better.

2 Likes

@JazzFuneral I liked the playfulness of the first one you did, but the poetry of the second - so I swapped out one word (in italics) to make what would be my favourite version of your translation:

5 Likes

Translation attempt

  1. 目の前に違う教師がいる目覚め

めのまえにちがうきょうしがいるめざめ

Right in front of me / that’s a different teacher / I just woke up

I think it’s fine. The difficulty so far seems to be less about translating and more about capturing the nuance. So the later posts have the advantage of riffing off of the earlier.

2 Likes

I assure you this was entirely accidental. I didn’t realize that the word at the end constituted a punchline, and you provided some interpretations that I hadn’t even thought about, but which I quite like, like

the idea of being startled awake being the kicker here.

I played with both of those and ultimately went with the other one. I’m glad you liked that word choice, though, because I was kind of partial to it myself.

4 Likes

Tuesday, April 26, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 目の前に違う教師がいる目覚め
    めのまえにちがうきょうしがいるめざめ
    On waking / before my eyes / is the wrong teacher

Notes:

  • Congrats to @JazzFuneral with an assist from @mitrac :confetti_ball:
  • I could be wrong, but the 目覚(めざ)め wording makes me feel the sense is being startled awake, realizing that you’d slept through class and woken up in a different one.
  • Mitrac’s suggestion allows it to work in English with the original order, too: “Before my eyes / upon waking / is the wrong teacher”.

Current senryu challenge

Volume: 強烈(きょうれつ) (Intense)

  1. 誰かじゃなくて何かに似ている人

Hopefully another fairly easy one suitable for even beginners. Tomorrow will be a hard one.

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

2 Likes
  1. 誰かじゃなくて何かに似ている人

だれかじゃなくてなにかににているひと

Rather than looking like someone, that person looks like something.

3 Likes
  1. 誰かじゃなくて何かに似ている人

だれかじゃなくてなにかににているひと

My attempt:

Dude looks like
Not someone,
But something

I’m of course going with the gender neutral “dude” here. :stuck_out_tongue:

7 Likes

Translation attempt

  1. 誰かじゃなくて何かに似ている人

だれかじゃな・くてなにかにに・ているひと

It’s not so much who,
but what
that person looks like!

5 Likes

Wednesday, April 27, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 誰かじゃなくて何かに似ている人
    だれかじゃな・くてなにかにに・ているひと
    Dude looks like
    Not someone,
    But some thing

Notes:

  • @JazzFuneral is on a roll :confetti_ball:
  • Nod to my previous coworkers that “you guys” is apparently not gender neutral (maybe I should have used “dudes”)

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Various Settings

  1. 禁煙と見事に書けて一服す

It’s not the words that are hard, but I’m not 100% certain of my own translation. I’ll be interested to see if others’ translations match my own.

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

1 Like

Eh, I use “guys” and “you guys” as gender-neutral all the time. I think it depends who you ask.

4 Likes

Interesting. My take was that the writer was taking a puff while standing next to a beautifully written/displayed “No Smoking” sign.

Oh yeah, there’s that, too. When I was looking up 見事 to be sure I knew it, I saw a note on the second definition of “complete; utter” that it’s usually seen as “見事に,” so my brain went there

This is where “y’all” excels as a 2nd person plural for us southerners.

  1. 禁煙と見事に書けて一服す

Is there some wordplay here with 一服 meaning both “to take a puff” and “to rest”? And with 服す meaning to observe, wherein observe can mean both “to obey (policy)” and “to look (carefully) at”? Or am I way off base?

1 Like

So am I the only one that read it as ‘a puff of smoke beutifully writing out “no smoking”’?

Reasoning:

For me す at the end could be a cut off です, so
禁煙 “No smoking”
と書けて writing out
見事に beautifully, magnificently, pick your poison
一服 puff
(で)す is
It is a puff beautifully writing out “no smoking”.

5 Likes

Like I said, I’m not at all confident in my interpretation. I don’t know if any of these are correct. I’ll forward it to the fam in Japan tonight to get some native takes.

Curious if you’re actually from New Orleans?

I’m a navy brat who’s traveled a lot, but I’m born and raised in Virginia, am still a property owner in North Carolina, and have kin on my father’s side in Kentucky. “Y’all” is definitely part of my vocabulary.

It’s interesting to see it morph as you move around the east coast: “you guys,”, “you’se guys,” even “you’ns” (pronounced “yunz”) in parts of Pennsylvania I think. And yes, it’s perfectly normal to refer to even an individual as “y’all.”

I’m not actually, I’m a native of the Carolinas (We definitely have some yinzers up in the western NC mountains too!) I just like the theatricality and joy of a jazz funeral. I think too often Americans, in all their funerary solemnity, forget to celebrate life. The way death/funerary practices vary from culture to culture is a fascinating topic unto itself. Forgive the momentary off-topic tangent!

3 Likes

When I go, I want an Irish wake and a second line!

2 Likes

Translation attempt

I’m probably wrong as usual (will check with a native), but just in case:

  1. 禁煙と見事に書けて一服す

きんえんと・みごとにかけて・いっぷくす

Magnificently written: / “No Smoking” / — I take one puff

Reasoning:

I think it would be 「と<書>[か]け」or, more likely, 「と<書>[か]いた」if it was the puff itself that spelled out “no smoking”. My grammar is terrible, though.

We both think the original basically says 禁煙と書けている, but just leaves off the いる. The question is whether there’s a “no smoking” sign, or if the smoke itself spells it out. I’ll try to find out what a native thinks. I’ve seen some of those crazy vape tricks, but

Is the す somehow turning いっぷく into a verb (short for する maybe?) or is it short for です as you surmise?

Could it possibly be 吸?! That is, is the writer sucking-in a puff after seeing the sign?

If it is the smoke spelling out 禁煙, that’s one heck of a trick! 26 strokes!

So many questions!

2 Likes

It would be both funny and ironic if it was the case