Japanese translation
I received a set of samples of different types of green tea from Japan. The labeling is in Japanese characters which I do not understand. I would like to know the different tea types-any suggestions for figuring this out?
Oct 20th, '09, 19:18
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Re: Japanese translation
I actually took pictures of the packages with my iPhone. If I can figure out how to attach or post them here, I could do so.Otherwise, I don't know how to type the characters.
Re: Japanese translation
http://www.ippodo-tea.co.jp/en/tea/grouping.htmlRamsay wrote:I received a set of samples of different types of green tea from Japan. The labeling is in Japanese characters which I do not understand. I would like to know the different tea types-any suggestions for figuring this out?
Re: Japanese translation
yeah I too also have a bunch of things I can't read
Is anyone here fluent in Japanese?
Or is there some kind of nifty translator I can download?
Is anyone here fluent in Japanese?
Or is there some kind of nifty translator I can download?
Re: Japanese translation
Hello,yeah I too also have a bunch of things I can't read
Is anyone here fluent in Japanese?
Or is there some kind of nifty translator I can download?
If you could please post images here, I can try to help you.
Best,
R
Re: Japanese translation
Ronin,
I am curious as to why many Japanese people cannot translate the chop marks and signatures of many potters when looking at a tea bowl. Is it because they are not the actual names of the potters, but, 'logos' so to speak? Even the ones with actual characters are often not translated. So many of the signed potteries on ebay are not translated by the sellers. Just curious.
I am curious as to why many Japanese people cannot translate the chop marks and signatures of many potters when looking at a tea bowl. Is it because they are not the actual names of the potters, but, 'logos' so to speak? Even the ones with actual characters are often not translated. So many of the signed potteries on ebay are not translated by the sellers. Just curious.
Oct 22nd, '09, 11:13
Posts: 1796
Joined: Sep 15th, '09, 16:11
Location: Wilton, New Hampshire USA
Re: Japanese translation
tead off,
I'm here now so I'll jump in with a thought. I am sure Robert will add to this ....'cause he is far more fluent than I.
Written Japanese language is very differnt from what most westerners think of as writing relative to speaking. First off, the written language utilizes three distnct types of characters. And there are THOUSANDS of characters from which to choose!!!!!!
The first set of characters is basically imported from Chinese and they are the "Kanji". The Japanese however pronounce the sounds that Kanji represent completely differently than the Chinese. And Kanji typically have multiple Japanese pronunciations depending on the characters that come before or after them (in other words "in context"). Learning Kanji is a case of rote memorization of thousands of pictographic orign (but now transmorphed) characters. And how they are pronounced in various contexts. Here is the word "kiln" in Kanji ....... (Romaji "kama")....... 窯。(BUT..... when in a word location with other sounds..... it is pronounced more like "gama".)
Then there is Hiragana. This is a (somewhat cursive) phonetic syllabary that was developed by the court ladies so that they could read and write (see the "Tale of Genji") since they were not trained in reading the Chinese characters that were the only other writing method at that time. Hiragana provides a character (or pair of) for every pronunciation sound of the Japanese language. Here is a formal "thank you" in Hiragana ...... (Romaji) Arigato gozaimasu. ありがとございます。
The last part is Katakana. This is a somewhat angular looking phonetic script for the word sounds (exactly like Hiragana) that is pretty much reserved for words imported from foreign languages. My first name in Katakana is ...... ジヨン。 In Romaji it might look like "Ji yo n". If I wrote it in Hiragana (not done) it is じよん。 But pronounced exactly the same.
The written language used now is a combination of all three character sets. It is NUTZO confusing and difficult. While the structural grammer is very regular and easy..... the whole Kanji thing makes it absolutely crazy.
The crux of the matter for reading something is you either KNOW the particular Kanji .... or you don't. Unlike English, you cannot "puzzle out" the pronunciation of Kanji from the "letters". Interestingly, you can actually sometimes puzzle out the probable meaning of the Kanji due to the derivation of the source of the make up of that character...... but not the pronunciation. (Many Chinese people can "read" the basic meaning of much written Japanese based on the original Chinese meaning of the characters.)
Often in written documents when a Kanji that is not too common is used (like many times with names or more technical terms) just above the lage Kanji characters you will find a small line of Hiragana characters that gives you the correct pronunciation. Otherwise.... people can't read the Kanji characters. You then may at that point (from the correct word sound) recognize the specific word .... that you do not know the correct Kanji for but know in day-to-day conversation.
Then you add in the fact that artists often adopt signatures that are only protions of their name.... like the first Kanji sound........ and that adds problems. And artists often have their "artistic name" or a designation that is completely different from their day-to-day "name". Then you get the habit of artists to have a different name at differnt points in their career.
And of course the fact that people's handwriting can be neat or sloppy.
You probably get the idea.
best,
................john
I'm here now so I'll jump in with a thought. I am sure Robert will add to this ....'cause he is far more fluent than I.
Written Japanese language is very differnt from what most westerners think of as writing relative to speaking. First off, the written language utilizes three distnct types of characters. And there are THOUSANDS of characters from which to choose!!!!!!
The first set of characters is basically imported from Chinese and they are the "Kanji". The Japanese however pronounce the sounds that Kanji represent completely differently than the Chinese. And Kanji typically have multiple Japanese pronunciations depending on the characters that come before or after them (in other words "in context"). Learning Kanji is a case of rote memorization of thousands of pictographic orign (but now transmorphed) characters. And how they are pronounced in various contexts. Here is the word "kiln" in Kanji ....... (Romaji "kama")....... 窯。(BUT..... when in a word location with other sounds..... it is pronounced more like "gama".)
Then there is Hiragana. This is a (somewhat cursive) phonetic syllabary that was developed by the court ladies so that they could read and write (see the "Tale of Genji") since they were not trained in reading the Chinese characters that were the only other writing method at that time. Hiragana provides a character (or pair of) for every pronunciation sound of the Japanese language. Here is a formal "thank you" in Hiragana ...... (Romaji) Arigato gozaimasu. ありがとございます。
The last part is Katakana. This is a somewhat angular looking phonetic script for the word sounds (exactly like Hiragana) that is pretty much reserved for words imported from foreign languages. My first name in Katakana is ...... ジヨン。 In Romaji it might look like "Ji yo n". If I wrote it in Hiragana (not done) it is じよん。 But pronounced exactly the same.
The written language used now is a combination of all three character sets. It is NUTZO confusing and difficult. While the structural grammer is very regular and easy..... the whole Kanji thing makes it absolutely crazy.
The crux of the matter for reading something is you either KNOW the particular Kanji .... or you don't. Unlike English, you cannot "puzzle out" the pronunciation of Kanji from the "letters". Interestingly, you can actually sometimes puzzle out the probable meaning of the Kanji due to the derivation of the source of the make up of that character...... but not the pronunciation. (Many Chinese people can "read" the basic meaning of much written Japanese based on the original Chinese meaning of the characters.)
Often in written documents when a Kanji that is not too common is used (like many times with names or more technical terms) just above the lage Kanji characters you will find a small line of Hiragana characters that gives you the correct pronunciation. Otherwise.... people can't read the Kanji characters. You then may at that point (from the correct word sound) recognize the specific word .... that you do not know the correct Kanji for but know in day-to-day conversation.
Then you add in the fact that artists often adopt signatures that are only protions of their name.... like the first Kanji sound........ and that adds problems. And artists often have their "artistic name" or a designation that is completely different from their day-to-day "name". Then you get the habit of artists to have a different name at differnt points in their career.
And of course the fact that people's handwriting can be neat or sloppy.
You probably get the idea.
best,
................john
Re: Japanese translation
After reading informative JBs post and this article (after searching for indications of a nationwide movement to simplify Japanese writing),
http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writjpn.html
reading Japanese text is obviously much more difficult than many, if not most other written languages.
See the links to related articles on signs and advertising, bottom of the page.
http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writjpn.html
reading Japanese text is obviously much more difficult than many, if not most other written languages.
See the links to related articles on signs and advertising, bottom of the page.
Oct 22nd, '09, 13:13
Posts: 1796
Joined: Sep 15th, '09, 16:11
Location: Wilton, New Hampshire USA
Re: Japanese translation
So here's one on the subject of Japanese language to drive you nuts........
Written in Romaji (the westernized transliteration of Japanese), you might SAY "Watashi wa togeika desu." (I am a potter.) The "wa" phrase there is an identifier that designates the function of the word that precedes it in the sentence. Great. The Hiragana for "wa" is わ.
But in the real world, when you would WRITE that "wa" sound in a real Japanese sentence..... you write it using the Hirigana は character.... the character that is SUPPOSED to be said as "HA"!!!! But when you read it, you SAY it as "WA".
Simple, huh?
This summer I asked friend who is a Japanese reporter for NHK to expalin to me the reason for that situation. She could not explain it the first time I asked her. She just "knew" it. A couple of days later she came back to me with about five pages of handwritten notes on how the languagve convention had changed over time (see Intuit's link").
It is amazing that the Japanese ever learn to read and write!!!! And it explains why Japanese school kids are totally stressed out.
best,
..................john
Written in Romaji (the westernized transliteration of Japanese), you might SAY "Watashi wa togeika desu." (I am a potter.) The "wa" phrase there is an identifier that designates the function of the word that precedes it in the sentence. Great. The Hiragana for "wa" is わ.
But in the real world, when you would WRITE that "wa" sound in a real Japanese sentence..... you write it using the Hirigana は character.... the character that is SUPPOSED to be said as "HA"!!!! But when you read it, you SAY it as "WA".
Simple, huh?
This summer I asked friend who is a Japanese reporter for NHK to expalin to me the reason for that situation. She could not explain it the first time I asked her. She just "knew" it. A couple of days later she came back to me with about five pages of handwritten notes on how the languagve convention had changed over time (see Intuit's link").
It is amazing that the Japanese ever learn to read and write!!!!
And it explains why Japanese school kids are totally stressed out. best,
..................john
Re: Japanese translation
yes +1
I feel like I have a great deal more respect now for how complicated the Japanese language can be
I feel like I have a great deal more respect now for how complicated the Japanese language can be
Re: Japanese translation
Ronin,
I am curious as to why many Japanese people cannot translate the chop marks and signatures of many potters when looking at a tea bowl. Is it because they are not the actual names of the potters, but, 'logos' so to speak? Even the ones with actual characters are often not translated. So many of the signed potteries on ebay are not translated by the sellers. Just curious.
Interesting question Tead Off............ The answers are many. First, what type of chawan are we referring to?
If speaking in general, there always is the exception, a Mino (Shino, Oribe, Kiseto) style chawans will not be stamped with a chop (inkan - 印鑑 or hanko in Japanese) but rather "signed" by the potter with often an abreviation of his first name done in katakana rather than that of his family name. For example Tsujimura Shiro "signs" his chawan シ "Shi". Some potters will push this concept further ie. Koie Ryouji uses the Kanji 良 "Ryou" as a decorating element laid sideways across the surface of his work albiet somewhat abstract .
Raku, Hagi as well as other chawan generally utilize a potters inkan/hanko in signing their family "name" which, as John mentioned, may or may not be their name at birth. Also, the chops don't necessarily reflect kanji currently in use today as the writing system has evolved over the centuries after it was imported from China and potters may choose use kanji from an earlier era, so you can see it does get complicated.
Finally some potters choose to not sign their work especially those who work out of more of a mingei background/aesthetic.
In my own work I tend to follow Japanese traditions as my Mino style work is "signed" with a katakana ロ "Ro" from ローブ "Ro-bu" or Rob.
My chawan chop, which can be seen on my website, is an old Chinese character carved for me by a Buddist monk/ink painter friend who lives near Nara which in todays Kanji is written 炉 (pronounced "Ro"). Broken down into it's respective elements, you have the symbol for fire on the left while on the right is that of a door. It means a hearth, firebox, or smelter, which coincidentally (?) is the same meaning as my family name Fornell which is Forneau in French with the more widely known version being the Italian "forno" or oven/hearth. Evidently I have a "fire" gene in me from long ago.......
Back to the challenges of reading Japanese, John laid out the 3 intermixed writing systems concisely however something not mentioned is the fact that depending upon it's context, the kanji will be pronounced differently as their are a minimum of 2 ways to read a given kanji. for example the kanji for fire 火 can be read "ka" or "hi" or in the case of the word firework 花火 (literally flowers of fire) it is read "hana - bi" instead of 'hana - hi". Lately, Japanese are using more katakana in their language as more foreign words creep into the popular vernacular and even using katakana as a replacement for words Japanese in origin. The government is now trying to stop this linguistic creep and I wish them my best as traditional/classic Japanese is a very beautiful language revealing so very much about the culture and customs of it's people.
Best,
R
As an aside, when I lived in Kyoto in the late 80's my first Japanese teacher was the butoh dancer Katsura Kan. As none of us knew his background we were totally in awe when he came to class one day in fundoshi (loin cloth) and totally white (rice flour) and proceeded to "dance" the shapes of some basic kanji with his body.
Unforgettable....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHsiBrN2Ryw
Last edited by Robert Fornell on Oct 22nd, '09, 15:52, edited 1 time in total.
Oct 22nd, '09, 15:13
Posts: 1796
Joined: Sep 15th, '09, 16:11
Location: Wilton, New Hampshire USA
Re: Japanese translation
Nice touch!ronin ceramurai wrote:Broken down into it's respective elements, you have the symbol for fire on the left while on the right is that of a door. It means a hearth, firebox, or smelter, which coincidentally (?) is the same meaning as my family name Fornell which is Forneau in French with the more widely known version being the Italian "forno" or oven/hearth.
best,
...............john