(I’d never actually heard that one untill a Japanese guy I met at a bar said it, and then explained it to me as a joke, after I attempted a tiny bit of actual Japanese with him).
Also, barely related, but kind of related:
A month before that, I’d gotten a tan hat in the style that Japanese soldiers hats were made in WW2, and was wearing some other clothes that vaguely had a somewhat similar style, but not the same colors, as the rest of the Japanese … summer/hot weather outfit during WW2.
So I’m a white dude, walking up a hill to a store one day, and a guy walking down the hill…
Is Japanese, but wearing basically a full getup of 80s/90s era US milsurp stuff, even a helmet (or at least the liner).
We got to each other, noticed each other at about the same time, fully stopped in our tracks, realized the absurdity of the situation, laughed for about 10 seconds, then went on our ways.
It means “You’re welcome”, but is maybe slightly more formal than it is casual.
The joke is that it is maybe what a native English speaker would hear, when a native Japanese speaker says “You’re welcome” in Japanese.
… It does not hardly make any sense in text alone, it makes a lot more sense if its actually spoken aloud.
The reverse of this kind of thing… is how a bunch of English terms /phrases have been oddly/poorly translated or transliterated into ‘Engrish’.
Most Japanese people I have met have a very good sense of humor about this kind of thing, they think its funny that, without a lot of practice speaking English, they suck at speaking English, and vice versa, native English speakers with no practice speaking Japanese, suck at speaking Japanese.
Like, uh, ‘Engrish’ itself as a term… is a thing, because in Japanese, they do not have such a distinct difference between ‘L’ and ‘R’.
They use a sound that is roughly in the middle, in between L and R, they usually never learn or use the two as distinct sounds, if they grow up speaking only Japanese.
(Though this could be changing somewhat due to modern internet culture / communications?)
So… they often struggle to learn these two distinct phonemes, sort of how a native English speaker would struggle to learn maybe some of the phonemes in other languages, that either are not present or are very rarely used in English.
You tend to learn phonemes, the building blocks of words, distinct mouth sounds… you learn them best when you are young, its much more difficult to get your brain and mouth to learn new phonemes when you are older.
I mean the guy I met had different facial hair, was maybe 10 to 20 ish years older than this person, but … maybe?
Maybe there are more ‘Ameriboos’ than we realize.
EDIT:
I should probably clarify that the guy I met in the bar, and the guy I met on the hill were totally different people.
Don’t know much about hill-sama, but bar-kun was… well lets just say most of our conversation was about karate, he claimed he was a fifth dan black belt… i am a first dan black belt, a novice in comparison… and he demonstrated his credentials rather convincingly.
He also said was exiled/former yakuza. Had a busted knuckle, told me that he’d fucked something up, and that his boss, instead of taking the finger, hit him with the blunt side of the… presumably a wakizashi… and then basically exiled him from Japan.
My nickname for him was ‘yokai’, which he found very amusing.
Seattle is wild place if you just walk around everywhere.
… Is there any kind of way to translate the uh, intent, of the phrase ‘brother from another mother’ into Japanese, without it being extremely literal, lol?
I doubt that the sing-songiness of the phrase can be kept in translation… but maybe that is possible?
Don’t touch-y my moustache!
(I’d never actually heard that one untill a Japanese guy I met at a bar said it, and then explained it to me as a joke, after I attempted a tiny bit of actual Japanese with him).
Also, barely related, but kind of related:
A month before that, I’d gotten a tan hat in the style that Japanese soldiers hats were made in WW2, and was wearing some other clothes that vaguely had a somewhat similar style, but not the same colors, as the rest of the Japanese … summer/hot weather outfit during WW2.
So I’m a white dude, walking up a hill to a store one day, and a guy walking down the hill…
Is Japanese, but wearing basically a full getup of 80s/90s era US milsurp stuff, even a helmet (or at least the liner).
We got to each other, noticed each other at about the same time, fully stopped in our tracks, realized the absurdity of the situation, laughed for about 10 seconds, then went on our ways.
Okay my Japanese is not good enough to get the joke. Please explain?
It is a… comical approximation of:
どういたしまして
Dō-i-ta-shi-ma-shi-te
Roughly:
Dough Ee Tah She Ma She Tay
… but all said rapidly, together.
It means “You’re welcome”, but is maybe slightly more formal than it is casual.
The joke is that it is maybe what a native English speaker would hear, when a native Japanese speaker says “You’re welcome” in Japanese.
… It does not hardly make any sense in text alone, it makes a lot more sense if its actually spoken aloud.
The reverse of this kind of thing… is how a bunch of English terms /phrases have been oddly/poorly translated or transliterated into ‘Engrish’.
Most Japanese people I have met have a very good sense of humor about this kind of thing, they think its funny that, without a lot of practice speaking English, they suck at speaking English, and vice versa, native English speakers with no practice speaking Japanese, suck at speaking Japanese.
Like, uh, ‘Engrish’ itself as a term… is a thing, because in Japanese, they do not have such a distinct difference between ‘L’ and ‘R’.
They use a sound that is roughly in the middle, in between L and R, they usually never learn or use the two as distinct sounds, if they grow up speaking only Japanese.
(Though this could be changing somewhat due to modern internet culture / communications?)
So… they often struggle to learn these two distinct phonemes, sort of how a native English speaker would struggle to learn maybe some of the phonemes in other languages, that either are not present or are very rarely used in English.
You tend to learn phonemes, the building blocks of words, distinct mouth sounds… you learn them best when you are young, its much more difficult to get your brain and mouth to learn new phonemes when you are older.
Also “Eat a duck I must,” which at least carries a similar thematic meaning of eating as the original phrase.
In your story are you sure you didn’t meet Rawhide Kobayashi?
Oh my god, ‘Eat a duck I must’, I’m using mouthwash atm and that almost made me do a spit take, that’s amazing lol!
Unfortunately I cannot see the image, ita not loading/displaying right for me, and I’ve also not heard of Rawhide Kobayashi.
maybe a direct link
https://copypastatext.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Urmtgl9-768x390.png
Ah that works!
Yes a… reverse weeaboo, hahah!
I mean the guy I met had different facial hair, was maybe 10 to 20 ish years older than this person, but … maybe?
Maybe there are more ‘Ameriboos’ than we realize.
EDIT:
I should probably clarify that the guy I met in the bar, and the guy I met on the hill were totally different people.
Don’t know much about hill-sama, but bar-kun was… well lets just say most of our conversation was about karate, he claimed he was a fifth dan black belt… i am a first dan black belt, a novice in comparison… and he demonstrated his credentials rather convincingly.
He also said was exiled/former yakuza. Had a busted knuckle, told me that he’d fucked something up, and that his boss, instead of taking the finger, hit him with the blunt side of the… presumably a wakizashi… and then basically exiled him from Japan.
My nickname for him was ‘yokai’, which he found very amusing.
Seattle is wild place if you just walk around everywhere.
Peak Human experience. That’s an unnamed brother for life.
… Is there any kind of way to translate the uh, intent, of the phrase ‘brother from another mother’ into Japanese, without it being extremely literal, lol?
I doubt that the sing-songiness of the phrase can be kept in translation… but maybe that is possible?