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Linguistics, especially as it relates to translations, are Fascinating

My friends are the coolest 😎

I need my 日本語を話せられない TWST friends (non-Japanese speaking) to know that my buddy who is an L2 Japanese language teacher (with an MA in East Asian Studies) and I (who is an L2 Japanese learner with an MA in Sociolinguistics) have been dying over this colloquial grammatical construction that we keep seeing in the voice lines of History/Flight and Alchemy lessons: 朝から (asa kara)

Neither of us can figure out how to properly translate this construction, and every time TWST adds a new line with it, or we come across a line we hadn't see before, we immediately message one another in our confusion and have a conniption over it. We had questioned whether or not it was an example of "anime dialect", but after finding plenty of examples of it being used on Japanese twitter, we realized that it is definitely a colloquialism that's used in everyday speech.

For discussion purposes, keep in mind 朝 (asa) means "morning" and から (kara) is the particle causing the translation issues.

The thing you have to understand is that in Japanese classrooms and in Japanese grammar books - including Japanese grammar books FOR native speakers the particle construction ____から (kara)____まで(made) functions like "from ___ until ____" in English.

Except that's not how its being used in TWST. The まで portion of the particle construction never shows up in any of the examples that I've pulled from TWST.

Examples include (but are not limited to):

Cater (History): 朝からいい感じ (asa kara ii kanji)

いい = "good"

感じ = "feeling" (like a vibe or emotion)

Official Localization: "Off to a good start today!"

Cater (History): 朝から頑張らね (asa kara ganbara ne)

頑張らね ≈ "let's do well"

Official Localization: "Early bird gets the worm, I guess."*

*Footnote: While the translation here isn't literal, this line makes me openly question if 朝から is actually a set up for an idiomatic phrase in Japanese but I will discuss more later...

Jade (History): 朝から元気でそね (asa kara genki desu ne)

元気 = "in good health" or "well"

です= formal, present tense of the closest equivalent of "to be"

ね = equivalent tag is "right?" or "yeah?"

Official Localization: "You have a lot of energy in the morning."**

**Footnote: This localization is just painfully off from the intended meaning? But we're keeping it here to prove a point.

Malleus (History): 朝から退屈だ

退屈 = Tedium or boredom

だ = informal past tense of です

Official Localization: "It's early, and I'm already bored."

(A fun side note: This exact quote was found verbatim on Japanese twitter when we were searching for language samples.)

Sebek (Alchemy): 朝から再ないこだな

再ない ≈ not again

再ないこだな ≈ its the same again /its repeating (with a declarative verb conjugation, implying that the audience already understands and agrees)***

***Footnote: I kind of get the sense that he's basically saying "It's another morning and it's the same shit again", but not literally. Because he is clearly using a negative declaration here and the implication of the repetition "from the morning, its the same again" kind of gives me the reading similar to "Not this shit again".

Official Localization: "Someone awoke in a foul mood."

Additional translator's note: Because the subject is repeatedly dropped from each example here, and the only ones that indicate any inclusion of an outside party are Cater's second example and Jade's example because of the inclusion of the pragmatic tag, I am operating under the assumption that each student is likely speaking about themselves. This creates a bit of conflict in my understanding when compared to the localizations, because the localizers keep making a referential to an outside party ("someone").

You can tell from the official localizations that they are localized in such a way that its seamless for English speakers, but the translations often aren't or can't be literal. The localizers also repeatedly use idiomatic phrases in their translations where contrastingly, the predicate of the sentence (after the time placement) don't necessarily use phrases that I recognize as being used in idiomatic contexts. This creates an issue since we can't use them as a reference for being able to figure out what から does/how it functions in the sentence as a grammatical element that also changes the meaning of the sentence. The closest thing we've been able to guess about the use of から in these lines is that it might mean "From" or "Because of", which we pulled from one of the Grammar Books that she uses to help teach. The chart can be seen here:

But if that's the case, Cater's second line doesn't exactly make sense? Nor does Sebek's line? And for that reason, I have to wonder whether or not 朝から is used as a formulaic set up and if that set up is idiomatic in nature.

Both of us for literal months have been scrounging the internet in hopes that we can find any sort of clue as to how to understand this construction and/or to identify whether or not its specifically a colloquial usage to signify an idiomatic phrase is being used. One of the big flaws though is we haven't exactly been able to find any evidence on sites like Word Reference forums of the use of から in any potentially idiomatic way, and the localizations suggest that it could either be idiomatic or literal. We also haven't found any other site that uses or references から without まで.

At this point, it's entirely possible I'm overthinking it? But I'm genuinely confused and want to better understand it so I can improve my overall Japanese comprehension.

I honestly just wanted to share this because it's been both a fun and also frustrating learning journey, and also because I'm hoping maybe there's another person out here who 日本語と英語を話せまそ that might also recognize or know this construction and helps us understand it better. ^^;

ok but wait. is the Hamlet thing real

Yeah! It's a super interesting paper on ethnocentrism and an argument against the idea of "universal values".

Essentially what happened is an anthropologist went to spend time writing an ethnography on a rural tribe in the Indian Bush called the Tiv. During her stay she told them the story of Hamlet, and in doing so it made clear the very glaring differences in the culture of the tribe vs the culture of Europe through their interpretations of events.

I'm sure you've heard of Translators vs. Localizers right? A translator tells you what is said, and a localizer takes the information and changes it to fit a different culture.

We can see that kind of early on in the article when a member of the Tiv begins changing nouns to fit how they understand the world.

Later on it greatly affects not only the tangible aspects of the story, but also the thematic meaning behind the actions each character takes.

And it culminates in the thesis statement: most people around the world, no matter where they're from, are predisposed to seeing their perspective as universal.

It's a super cool essay.

If you'd like to read it, it's called "Shakespeare in the Bush: Diversity or Universality?"

I think localizations are stupid and prevent kids/people from learning other cultures.

I want a pangolin Pokémon :(

There's a dialogue compared to the Japanese dub and English dub that's missing here. I became aware of this from a Twitter post in Japanese though do bear with me that this is machine-translated and I'm only putting up Andromon's quote:

"I'm ashamed to say it myself, but Andromon of Justice!" - Andromon, Digimon Tamers Episode 31 Japanese Dub

But in the English dub, in a proudful and shameless manner he says:

"A humble servant in the fight for good! Andromon the Just!" - Andromon, Digimon Tamers Episode 31 English Dub

This was just me noticing again how various Digimon media greatly contradicts the Andromon species reference book lore.

Digimon Tamers - Episode 31

Original title: “Friendship with Guardromon! I’ll Fight Too, Tamer Hirokazu” (ガードロモンとの友情！僕も戦うテイマーヒロカズ Guardromon to no Yuujou! Boku mo Tatakau Tamer Hirokazu) Dub title: “Kazu’s Upgrade”

Director: Yoshizawa Takao (original) Writer: Urasawa Yoshio (original), Seth Walther (dub)

Keep reading

The weirdest part is how the Digimon Reference Book info of the Andromon (the species as whole) states "it possesses neither will nor emotion, and it is faithful to its programmed behavior." despite the various individual Andromon that had appeared in various media greatly contradicts it;

V-Pets - They have a happy and angry emoting sprites. I assume the sad sprites reuse the eating sprite, but I'm not so sure cause' I never had a V-Pet unless someone has one and corrects me on that.

Anime - Obviously the Andromon of Adventure is seen emoting, such as getting hurt (Inflicted by Biyomon's Spiral Twister; blink and you'll miss it! Taking a blow against Machinedramon/Mugendramon's Giga Cannon; he falls on the right side of his face and is shown with eyes shut as he's in pain, Surprised(?); When Birdramon when she talks about fighting Machinedramon he looks up in surprise, himself, Tai, and the others are looking at Piedmon while facing right, witnessed the catfight of Angewomon and LadyDevimon, and smiling; Episode 7 of Digimon Adventure 02. The Andromon in Tamers obviously was in fear that his Gatling Attack failed to make a scratch on Orochimon and pained expressions from taking so much damage from said Digimon. Though I'm not sure about how the two Andromon talks in the original Japanese dubs of their respective appearances (and I'm not talking about the robotic filter over their voices!) It's their speech patterns, it's possible it might be different there, so far, I'm only aware of this one from the Andromon of Tamers. Until someone can point out the Adventure Andromon's dialogue in Japanese (anyone please tell me so I can gather more in-depth info!) And the infamous Andromon that was in Digimon X-Evolution movie (that one was a jerk!)

Manga - The Andromon of Digimon Next has to be the very expressive Andromon that has ever been depicted in official media! He even sheds a tear that the Digimon that got hurt by Barbamon's army that he and the Guardromon had to take care of! The Xros Wars manga alongside the Re:Digitize manga doesn't depict any of their Andromon having expressions.

Video Games - Digital Monster Ver. S depicts Andromon's happy sprite that its smiling with its mouth open while it dances. Dialogue wise as far as I can tell from the Andromon of Digimon World, the three Andromon from Digimon Digital Card Battle (they also have expressions going on within their mugshots!), the player(s) own Andromon within the DS World/Story games and Cyber Sleuth/Hacker's Memory. There's an Andromon in Digimon ReArise in a event who regrets his actions on why he didn't ask Agumon help at first to fight against Machinedramon.

The only way to make sense of the DRB's info on Andromon is that every info of Digimon there is written in the perspective of a researcher, you know, cause' it isn't written in an omnipresent perspective, cause' if it was, said "speaker" would've known everything about them. I can think of the researcher(s) saw the first Andromon created and that one was the one that didn't possess any emotions or free will unlike the other Andromon that came after it, like the ones being raised by Tamers themselves.

Though this does make me wonder if this is one of the reasons HiAndromon never got to debut in an anime is that their respective Ultimate (Perfect) form is depicted to be self-aware, but yet said Mega (Ultimate) form's DRB info describes it that it was Andromon that became self-aware within that form...

Are these guys autonomous? Do they have thoughts and feelings? Are they sapient?

Because if so, Gennai hijacking one of them is much funnier and much, much darker.