二番目に好きな男といる気楽
にぱんめに・すきなおとこと・いるきらく
Being with / Mister Second choice - / so carefree!
Notes:
I get the sense of “no pressure”, “stress-free” with this one (as opposed to trying to live up to having “caught” #1). Female chauvinism!
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Ladies
探してたハンカチが出る夏バック
No hints because I’ve no clue!
Does バック mean background or does it mean “summer’s back”? Why 出る rather than 出すと? I noticed on the second read-through finally learning to slow down) that it was 探してたハンカチ (“handkerchief I was searching for”?) and not 探したハンカチ (“searched-for handkerchief”) but I’ve no idea if that little subtlety is important or changes the meaning. Nope. No clue.
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! Questions and comments are as valued as translation submissions.
Please try not to be disappointed if your translation isn’t selected or if you disagree with the daily choice: the judge isn’t terribly consistent with his grading (and has awful taste!).
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.
What the heck is 夏バック? (Note: It is not a バッグ - “bag”). The best I got from Uncle Google is that it is something like this and these - a hamper? Is 夏バック a picnic hamper?
Spoiler/ネタバレ:
夏バック is a wide hamper used in summer and it is easy to find things in it. So, something to the effect of “The usually hard to find handkerchief comes easily out of a hamper” But that is hardly poetic and leads to more questions.
Why is a handkerchief so important in summer (the 蒸し暑い summers of Japan?).
Why put it in a hamper (if that is what it is?). Why not in the ハンドバッグ?
The spirit of the senryu is missing in the above reading/interpretation.
Maybe the thought is you’ve been looking for that damn handkerchief all winter and spring, and now finally in June when you haul the summer picnic hamper out from the back of the closet – there it is! you must have left it lurking in the bottom there when you put the hamper away in autumn ?
[spoiler]Am I correct in thinking the entire thing is just a noun phrase? Everything before 出る modifies 夏バック?
In that case the meaning is just The summer bag that the handkerchief I was looking for came out of[/spoiler]
Not sure what it actually means though. This is the same gripe I had with a previous translation, if it can’t be understood in English by English speakers to have some meaning outside of the original Japanese, then the translation probably sucks
Yup. I, too, think you and @KJules have nailed it.
Searching for 夏バック images on google, though, turns up images for ladies summer handbags (lots of woven hemp bags like the image below) not picnic baskets. Most of the linked sites convert バック to バッグ but a few still omit the だくてん for some reason that still mystifies me.
As always, katakana-go is the hardest part of Japanese.
One other thing caused a bit of confusion for me. It may be related to being the son of a US navy officer, but to me a “handkerchief” is a square of plain white cotton cloth that men keep in their back pocket. In Japan, though, ハンカチ are definitely available for either sex, are almost invariably patterned or dyed, and are available in many different materials (those targeted for women often in silk). I’ve known this, but still think of my dad’s cotton handkerchiefs whenever I hear the word.
探してたハンカチが出る夏バック
さがしてた・ハンカチがでる・なつバック
Missing hanky / emerges from my / summer handbag!
Notes:
Good job gang. This one was weird.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that the missing 濁点 is a typo, albeit a pretty common one. It appears that 夏バック is a summer handbag, regardless.
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Various settings
二番目に好きと言われて終わる恋
Hmm. Another one involving 二番目に好き！
I think this one seems more straightforward though (which I suspect means I’m about to be proven wrong).
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! Questions and comments are as valued as translation submissions.
Please try not to be disappointed if your translation isn’t selected or if you disagree with the daily choice: the judge isn’t terribly consistent with his grading (and has awful taste!).
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.
I’m not sure how to parse 言われて終わる. Is it something like “to end [something] by saying”?
I’m also thrown by the category “various settings” and my inability to discern notable clues about what has finished. My first instinct is to think of it as a breakup - like, the flip side of the last 二番目に好き, where now being second place is the excuse for a breakup? But I’m not sure that tracks. Or maybe its the end of a job interview and the candidate says the company is their second choice?
Strange, to end it / by saying “this is / my second choice”
As always, I’m unsure and likely wrong, but I understood it as “He told me he liked me second best - that was the end of love”. That word has a strong connotation of sexual love as well as romantic love…
Edit:
I suppose it could also be interpreted as ”love is being told afterward that he liked me second best”. I can’t think of another interpretation for that wording, though. This way seems far less likely to me.
My interpretation is After being told about being second choice, our love ended which could have either participant as the main actor. But to me it seems more likely that the writer was told, just from my interpretation of the passive voice.
Damn I just check this thread for the very first time and y’all translating some heavy shit lol.
I see some right answers and wrong answers, so while I’m here:
Summary
It means “love that ends after being told ‘you’re my second choice’”. (I.e. there’s someone I 好きmore)
There is only one other possible interpretation, but it doesn’t make sense so its easy to tell that’s not what they were going for. The other possible interpretation is “love that ends after your second choice tells you they like you”. This would be essentially parsing it as 二番目に、「好き」と言われて終わる恋
二番目に好きと言われて終わる恋
にばんめに・すきといわれて・おわるこい
He tells me / “I like you second best” / Loving ends
Looks like nobody wants to submit another attempt, so you’ll have to suffer with my translation!
Current senryu challenge
Volume: Life in one page
こりゃ誰だこの歌なんだ大みそか
Hmm. I understand the first part of this, but I’m mystified what it has to do with the end!
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! Questions and comments are as valued as translation submissions.
Please try not to be disappointed if your translation isn’t selected or if you disagree with the daily choice: the judge isn’t terribly consistent with his grading (and has awful taste!).
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.
Yes of course that is a 恋 not a 変, I can read kanji, really I can 
