The "OMG WHAT DOES THIS MEAN" Translation Help Thread.

[Arakis]

Teishou - Yes, I saw that page. That was the main reason I figured it was probably 律儀. That's what I went with, and I've already delivered the script. Either it was a typo, or the artist was trying to be unconventional.

elweeks - くらい can be tricky to deal with. In this case, I think the key is that it's followed by なら. That gives it a nuance of "If X, I'd sooner Y." Like, "I'd sooner die than give in." It's sometimes similar to どうせなら. So in this case, my advice is to phrase it along the lines of "I'd just as soon quit writing altogether, if anybody else was my editor."

[elweeks]

Excellent--that fits a lot better.

Thanks so much!

[coatimundi]

See, I knew I'd be back. With two questions from two consecutive pages no less.

Question 1--
background: A has been getting close to B in order to do away with him, but B is oblivious and thinks they really are friends. Now a third party is explaining B's thoughts to A.
The line that has me stuck goes (this is how the line is broken up inside the speech balloon),
我等は同一
心の中など
手に取るようさ
What confuses me is that I'm not sure whether this is one clause or two, and if two, where does it split?
我等は同一
心の中など手に取るようさ
or
我等は同一心の中など
手に取るようさ
for now I'm sort of sitting on the fence and rendering it
"We're of one mind","I'd put my heart in his hands" and so on.
with the third party quoting B. Any thoughts?

Second question: handwriting, of course.

I have this down as
IN THIS SERIES, I MOVED THE STORY FORWARD WHILE LEAVING THE CHARACTERS' RELATIONSHIP UNCLEAR JUST AS LONG AS I COULD.
I'm just not sure whether I have the correct meaning for 我慢により、 because I've had a hard time finding explanations/definitions/usage examples for it.
Assuming of course that that kanji really is 我慢...

[Shroud]

hmmm...
looks to me like it is indeed split as
我等は同一
心の中など手に取るようさ We are one -in heart and hand in hand. (Just the way I read it, but then, I don't have the rest of it to get the nuances and i am so tired I'm kinda punch drunk so ... )

[ano_hito]

Hi, all! My first speed bump is on a string on kanji found on hakama. it reads: 悪童瀬武運帝院 and what we've got so far is "Bad Boy Emperor Kazu Setake". Any other ideas?

The second bit is some chicken scratch we can't quite make out. We think it says 尚経学 (Neo Confucianism), but the kanji is....well.... handwritten. Enough said. I added the picture as an attachment instead of linking it as a picture. I hope that's ok....

Thanks in advance for the help!

[coatimundi]

The first kanji looks like it could be 高, which might make it "High School [something]ology" if this is a textbook. That middle kanji has me stumped though.

I've got another conundrum myself. To set the stage： My protagonist is a middle school "quarter" (quarter-foreign, that is) and he just whupped a guy several years older. Another guy who witnessed this says,
さすが　クウォーター老けてんな
I can't figure out what 老ける is supposed to mean here. "Grow old" doesn't really make sense, unless it's something like "quarters really do grow up faster."
I checked on other words read ふける　just in case there was a kanji-choice error here, but didn't find anything obvious. Is there some slang usage I don't know about?

Edit: here's another. Anyone familiar with the phrase 勢いを取る？Just a general idea of the meaning would help.

[HiroPon]

@coatimundi

May be use "Damn, he's tough for a guy his age".
"勢いを取る" - I'd need to a more thorough example but my guess would be "pumped up" or "fired up".

I hope this helps.

[coatimundi]

Thanks HiroPon, it does!
I'll make some adjustments but I think I was generally on the right track

[ano_hito]

Yeah, still stumped on it, but thanks for the help, coatimundi.

[coatimundi]

I've got another handwritten-kanji check here. I can make out 死 but I'm not sure about the second kanji. Or are there three?


This is the face of a character who is slumped over his school desk after staying up too late the night before, so "good as dead" or "dead to the world" seem reasonable to me; I just don't want to assume when I can't read the whole word. What does it look like to everyone?