To be honest, we might just be having a cultural communication issue. Phrases like “not worth worrying about” or “doesn’t matter” probably vary somewhat in negativity and intensity from region to region. They seem different to me, but I’m not sure they’re universally different
Maybe kind of like some New Yorkers can come across as rude to Americans from some other parts of America due to differences in conversational styles and what phrasing is considered rude
Probably lol. I have something to say but it’s too late to express it properly
YW! I actually hadn’t heard it before either but I happened to guess right + a quick Google search confirmed it
Special “I just had my eyes dilated” edition (I was in for a checkup on my self-diagnosed CSFS*1). Apologies in advance for any typos or other mistakes — everything on my screen is even blurrier than usual.
Previous senryu
更にヤな事ありどうでもよくなった
さらにヤな・ことありどうでも・よくなった
Here yet again / unpleasant business / I just don’t care
Notes:
It appears that any time I think something is pretty straightforward we will be sure to have lots of discussion proving me wrong!
Apologies for choosing my own interpretation. The 4-5-4 made me happy and I think it captures the spirit pretty well. It just ekes out a win over @GearAid’s “A bad event on / yet another bad event / Don’t care anymore” 5-7-5.
to @GearAid for much well-researched and well-argued commentary (and for teaching me クッション語) and to @alo for connecting this to Linkin Park. Now there’s an unexpected connection. (God I love this thread!)
@Arzar33 and @Axazel for also submitting very strong contenders.
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Seniors
恋かと思っていたら 不整脈
I’ll be curious if GearAid gets a chuckle out of this one like I did (we’re in somewhat different age brackets!).
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!
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.
It’s not fair that I get a jump on everyone else, so I usually try to wait before submitting an entry, but I was too pleased with how this 4-5-4 came out to wait!
But, that’s what makes the thread lively and stimulating. Not to snicker at the effort that all put into translation, which is in itself rewarding…
4-5-4 attempt:
こいかとおもっていたらふせいみゃく
“My! I’m in love!!” / I thought - it was just / my arrhythmia
Still, many thanks for the effort and time you put into answering my question.
When I started studying Japanese, I used to bitch about the need to learn kanji, given Japanese had two kana. But, it became clear soon enough that kana running together can be quite confusing and confounding. Long strings of kana can cause all sorts of optical and word boundary illusions. Plus I could see kanji elucidated meaning further: (as in 見る vs 観る). And thus, here I am learning kanji without further 文句や愚痴.
So true! As irritating as it’s been misreading these things, it’s actually incredibly heartening that I’m now reading Japanese so quickly. I never thought I’d get to this point. Even when I was a teenager first learning the language, kanji seemed like an insurmountable hurdle. I thought it required utter devotion for an impossible amount of time. I thought I’d have to give up all my other interests and study for many years. After all, even Japanese natives need several years of primary and secondary schooling to become literate.
Wanikani made what seemed impossible almost effortless. I just had to devote about 30 minutes per day — for about 2.5 years so far. Admittedly, two or three years seems like a trivial span of time to me now. When I was a teenager — not so much.
At the risk of becoming maudlin, finally learning to read Japanese has had a profound impact on my life (both personal and professional). My only regret is knowing how much better my spoken Japanese would be if I’d only learned to read back when I was in my teens!
I must say that whoever wrote that article that @fallynleaf found suggesting that 3-5-3 or 4-5-4 English syllables are a closer match to 5-7-5 音 really knew what they were talking about. The shorter form feels much closer to the originals.
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Seniors
誕生日 ローソク吹いて 立ちくらみ
It should be obvious why I picked this 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!
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.
Fortunately, the judges are feeling equanimous and charitable today (especially since you can replace the “and” with a period.)
But the third stanza may still be challenged. They do like the 3-5-3 you intended:
My birthday:
blew out the candles
– vertigo.
THAT word I knew, it was the end I had to look up! I’ve given up trying to understand when/why they use katakana, though. Doubtless it refers to some deep, historical, nuanced, and comical pun that we 外人 can never hope to understand.
In theory, senryu aren’t as difficult to interpret as haiku. I’m starting to have my doubts, though.
I tried doing both a 3-5-3 and a 4-5-4, but ended up preferring the 4-5-4 because the truncated grammar felt too distracting to me in English. Here’s my attempt:
誕生日 ローソク吹いて 立ちくらみ
happy birthday!
blew out the candles;
got lightheaded
4-5-4 version
たんじょびろーそくふいてたちくらみ
Blowing out all / those birthday candles / made me dizzy
A more straightforward translation:
Birthday candles: / blowing them all out, / I feel dizzy
Agree & thanks to @fallynleaf for referencing it. That article made several observations that I had not really thought about. It seems that the 4-5-4 forces an economy of words that makes the translation feel closer in mood to the Japanese version. That said, a 3-5-3 translation may prove to be a challenging beast, mainly due to the need to directly mention the subject (i.e. nouns & pronouns) in English sentences, thereby losing the economy that is inherent to the Japanese language.
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.
Ah…redial!
Apparently not
Listening for the announcement
I’ve used considerable artistic license with this based on my potentially wildly inaccurate understanding of the Japanese (explained below).
Translation notes
リダイヤル - redial
されない - negative passive of する (?)
リダイヤルされない - it doesn’t redial
時報 じほう announcement
聞き audible/listening
Most literal translation I can manage:
It seems it doesn’t redial
Listening for the announcement
As far as I understand, the passive implies annoyance or having been inconvenienced. I’m imagining (but could be wrong) a humourously annoying situation where an announcement was missed, and the first instinct is to want to redial to hear it again.
Sorry I couldn’t try to encourage more attempts yesterday, I was driving most of the day. I was also rushing to get out of the house yesterday and didn’t have time to leave the hints below.
So I’m going to leave this one open for one more day. More attempts are encouraged.
Hints:
I’m not certain about this, but I think
リダイヤルされないように means “to avoid being redialed” or to avoid having someone call you back.
Further, I think
時報聞き might refer to the time service available back before mobile phones and GPS made the service obsolete and unnecessary. The older among us will remember dialing a number on our landlines to hear a recording saying something like “At the tone, the time will be eight oh four and thirty seconds … BEEEP … At the tone, the time … .
I used to travel to and from Tokyo a lot — on the order of six to ten or more times per year from about 1989 to ~2015. I’ve probably heard her announcements a couple of hundred times by now going between the airport and whatever hotel.
The second announcement at 1’27" was the one that taught me the form: お客様にお願い申し上げます。携帯電話のご使用は他のお客様のご迷惑となりますので、ご遠慮くださいますようお願い申し上げます。(I think I’ve finally captured that correctly!) Because she uses keigo, she doesn’t say 〜かけないように directly, but the よう in the last bit is still asking you to avoid making calls. That’s about as close to a direct command as you can give in keigo! (laugh)
I never thought of the Airport Limousine Bus as an SRS system before, but if you want proof that sufficient repetition will teach you anything, that’s not a bad example!
Just a straight translation, which still doesn’t make sense:
リダイヤルされないようにじほうをきき
Listening carefully to the time announcement so as not to redial
This one’s a tough nut to crack - no wonder it is under the “intense” category. Must be a reference to some quirky characteristic to the Japanese time announcement service of yore that I am not aware of. My (labored) guess:
Perhaps each time you called the service, you had to listen to a bunch of ads before they told you the current time? Which might force you to listen carefully, so that you don’t have to redial if you miss the time announcement?
Perhaps each time you called the service, you had to listen to a bunch of ads before they told you the current time? Which might force you to listen carefully, so that you don’t have to redial if you miss the time announcement?
My take from @Rrwrex 's hint is a lot different, that the person has called the time signal service in order to avoid an incoming call. I believe these things were made before people came up with the idea to put ads on everything.
As for getting a poem out of that, here’s another attempt, but it’s also likely to be as far off as my first one.
Avoiding the redial coming through
Listening to the time signal
to 
Still, many thanks for the effort and time you put into answering my question.
