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.
- 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:
Volume: 強烈 (Intense)
- 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.
- 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.
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. 
- 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!
- 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:
Volume: Various Settings
- 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.
Eh, I use “guys” and “you guys” as gender-neutral all the time. I think it depends who you ask.
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.
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?
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”.
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!
When I go, I want an Irish wake and a second line!
I’m probably wrong as usual (will check with a native), but just in case:
- 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]けた」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!
It would be both funny and ironic if it was the case
The smoke spelling it out would be both magnificent and ironic, yes.
I also like the humor in brazenly ignoring a no-smoking sign, too, though. I wonder if there are any further interpretations.
Another one I could think of would be I wrote down “no smoking” perfectly, then puffed out smoke Would make sense if the person was for example a street worker, and it would use the linking meaning of the te form
The implication could be of taking a smoke break after completing the job. (Idk if that’s a spoiler i should blur out…)
一服する means to have a smoke or to take a smoke, but what job was completed?