[Fic] "Fault Lines" and "Perspective" -- Harry Potter; fic research

[edenfalling]

Look! It's the 30th piece of "Fixation, and Other Stories," all done and posted! I will post the tag ficlet tomorrow, and then I am officially done with thirtyforthree, and Ginny/Harry/Draco will be up for grabs again if anyone else wants the pairing.

Now I just have to put the pieces in order, edit them again, and see if anyone is willing to beta them for me. Ah, the work, it never ends...

Theme: #22 - Remembering
Warnings: none

( Fault Lines )

( Perspective )

---------------------------------------------

In a totally unrelated topic, how does one say "Die!" in Japanese, where the implied 'you' is 'you fucking bastard' or something along those lines? "I'm going to rip your heart out" would be an acceptable alternate, or "I'm going to skin you alive," or even just "I'm going to kill you." But all very rude and abrupt.

(This is actually relevant for "Lemonade.")

And for "Debts," my Angel Sanctuary story, can someone give me a good Chinese translation of Summer Rain as a girl's name? Or a good name for the third son of a moderately prosperous farming family about 2000 years ago?

I will be much obliged for any help!

ETA: Thank you very much for all your help!

Comments

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

In a totally unrelated topic, how does one say "Die!" in Japanese, where the implied 'you' is 'you fucking bastard' or something along those lines? "I'm going to rip your heart out" would be an acceptable alternate, or "I'm going to skin you alive," or even just "I'm going to kill you." But all very rude and abrupt.
The version I've heard in anime was always 'Shine!', which is the plain version of the imperative form of the verb 'shinu', to die.

I suspect that there are stronger forms of the same sentiment, but I don't know what they might be... IMHO, saying it the simplest way and letting tone of voice do the rest would be on-target for Sasuke's voice, and Duo and Faith would both say it in English...

*blink* Unless Faith did say it, and Duo's trying to translate...

Hm. If nobody else comes through for you, I can pass the question on to a lady I know who works for a subtitling company.

*bustles away to research* Okay, working off of this site (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JapanesePronouns) and my own memory of Gundam Wing, you might well want 'Onore wo korosu'... I can see Duo saying that, honestly, simultaneously playing off of Heero's version of flirting and being absolutely dead serious.

Ja, -n

[edenfalling]

Nah, this is Sasuke talking, and Faith listening without benefit of translation. So I wanted something short enough for her to hear it accurately and not get lost in a jumble of syllables.

I may have Duo play off Heero's catchphrase later on, though -- that would be amusing.

[ktoth04.livejournal.com]

according to my friend:

die = "Shine" or possibly "Shinei", dunno the second, (you can use teme as a kind of you bastard although it doesn't actually mean that), and "Bukkorosu" is effectively "I'm gonna kill you

and gundam fans usually say omae o korosu (i think)... not that that makes it right... lol

[doire]

I once bought a doujinshi called "Shine" with a grumpy Sanzo on the cover.

Turned out it was refering to his hair.


I can see if I can find the imperative verb form which made my Japanese teacher go pale. But it would only work if shinu is the same verb class as the example.

[ktoth04.livejournal.com]

*shrug* idk....

[doire]

Found it. They're both group 1 so, by analogy, しねってんだ, shinettenda, would be a "very strong imperative". I'm not sure how strong; I think my teacher was nicely brought up.

[ktoth04.livejournal.com]

lol

[proanon.livejournal.com]

Hm. As far as I know, you can't mix the two imperatives - so you'd either get 死ぬんだ or 死ね, but not both.

Of course, you could say "死ねって言うんだ！", which would probably be something along the lines of "I'm telling you to DIE!" :-P

[doire]

That would explain why I couldn't work out the verb form.
I took a photcopied speech bubble, originally 冷やってんだ, to class for help, but never really got an answer.

[proanon.livejournal.com]

Ah! Well, I can give you a guess about the answer. In casual speak, if it ends in -んだ or -の, the last syllable of the preceding word - particularly -る - is slurred into ん.

So - 冷やってんだ might be 冷やってるんだ - or, if you want grammatically correct, 冷やっているんだ.

That would be my guess, at least. You sure it was a command, though? Because I don't think that particular slurring would happen with an んだ imperative form. I've always understood (X in plain form) + んだ to be "You will do X." A command, but it's a command because you're stating it as absolute fact...

...Feel free to tell me to shut up, by the way. I love words and I love comparing how words work across languages...

Unrelated

[nuclear-d-frog.livejournal.com]

Die = Shi ne

I will kill you = Omae o korosu

[baka-neko.livejournal.com]

For the girl, I'll imagine it would be Xia(4)-Yu(2).

For the guy, I'm not up to date on classical chinese, but it only matters if you're choosing the Chinese characters, I think. Off the top of my head, Yu Renjia, Jia Pingzhi, Lin Zhennan and so on.

[acyl.livejournal.com]

(Posting, 'cause valles_uf linked this LJ entry to the Drunkard's Walk Forums (http://p087.ezboard.com/bdrunkardswalkforums) and asked for advice)

I think it should be Xia4 Yu3, actually. I can't, offhand, think of any Yu2 word that means 'rain'...whereas Yu3 is the most common phrase for it.

(Xia4 Yu3 also rolls off the tongue somewhat easier than Xia4 Yu2, a consideration in picking a name)

I'm not certain which character Xia4 references, tho. It does mean summer, I believe, but I'm drawing a blank on how the actual ideogram looks. Nevermind.

That said, as tjalorak (one of the DW forum guys) noted, Xia4 Yu3 sounds exactly like the phrase for 'Raining'. A different Xia4, but still.

That doesn't mean a parent wouldn't name their child that, tho, since "pun problems" aren't uncommon with Chinese names...my own name, Yilun, sounds precisely like the Mandarin phrase: "One Wheel". It doesn't mean that, 'course, but for a while some friends called me "Unicycle" (in English).

And I had a classmate named Shi Wang. English-speaking phallic jokes aside, that sounds exactly like "Lost Hope" or "Depressed". He was stuck with various emo nicknames for four years.

Xia4 Yu3... might sound a bit masculine, though, 'cause of the fourth tone on 'Xia'. Makes it a little harsh. Then again, given the words and meaning, that's definitely a girl's name. And naming a kid 'Summer Rain' is a wee bit odd to begin with, so that's prolly not a problem.

I should sit down and think about alternatives.

Can't really speak for Chinese names 2000 years ago, I know nuts about those. If I remember, I'll e-mail someone who studied that sorta thing. I had Chinese Literature-esque classes myself, but I usually spent 'em doodling in the margins, and failing the tests.

[acyl.livejournal.com]

As a side note, when I said "Summer Rain" is a wee bit odd for a name, I didn't mean it was, y'know, totally off or unacceptable or anything...just that it isn't usual.

Most names, in my experience, tend to be...virtues, or somethin', or positive qualities. Abstract stuff. That said, it isn't unheard of to name a kid after flowers or something, so that's fine. In any case, Chinese parents can be just as spaztastic in naming their poor kids as any Western parent, and "Summer Rain" at least has a poetic meaning.

I know someone named "Good Good", which sounds just as silly in Chinese as it does in English.

[edenfalling]

Would cloud related names be more usual? Because those would be fine too; I just need a meteorological reference somewhere in the name.

[acyl.livejournal.com]

Definitely, cloud related names are much more common.

In fact, 'Yun2', the common word for cloud, is a family name.

Audio link to Yun (http://clearchinese.com/audio/pinyin/yun2.aif) , courtesy of a brilliant English/Chinese dictionary site I was pointed at.

Dunno if you'd wanna use it or not, but 's something to think about. =)

[baka-neko.livejournal.com]

Argh, yes, it's the 3rd tone, sorry, not the 2nd. It is rather masculine, and sounds exactly the same as raining, but as you mentioned, a lot of novelists love puns, or have a reason why the name is unusual, such as falling in love during a summer storm or something.

Actual ideogram here: http://chineseculture.about.com/library/symbol/blcc_summer.htm

(I had a colleague whose friend's name meant green pepper in english. and there was a classmate whose chinese name has the same intonation for goat bell.)

[edenfalling]

The 2000 years ago is just to give an idea of when that particular part of the story is set -- any standard boy's name will do, really. What do your examples mean?

[baka-neko.livejournal.com]

Surnames do have their own meaning, much like Smith/Carpenter/Baker, but you don't really play around with them quite as much. I didn't give tones, so it can be written with any characters you like:

Lin: Forest
Zhen: Upright, Suppressed/Composed, Battle
Nan: Man, South

Mix and match and you could probably have Zhen Nan = Upright Man, for example.

Yu Ren Jia:

Yu has no meaning that I'm aware of, though originates from breath.

Ren: Virtue/Benevolent, Endurance
Jia: Good person, honored person

Ping: Even/peaceful
Zhi: Mountain, Order, Aspiration

[proanon.livejournal.com]

"Die" = "Shine-----!" - curt imperative of 'to die.' (The emphasis is on the last syllable, so if you're going to drag it out, drag out the 'ne' - that's where the "-nei" bit comes from.)

"I'm going to kill you!" = "Koroshite yaru!" (If you've read Naruto - this is what Naruto is thinking/saying when Haku kills well, "kills" Sasuke, and Naruto starts going Kyuubi.) "Omae wo korosu" works, but it's much, much quieter. More a cold declaration than something yelled in a rage. Plus, the line has forever been marked by fandom with an association with Gundam Wing and Heero.

Shine is generally something that you'd yell while raining down the blows - koroshite yaru is more something that's said in the lull when all the rage is building to a breaking point (and where, if you're in an anime, you're probably starting to break out with a bad case of glowing).

Hope that helps! Sorry. But it's amazing how few chances there are to discuss the linguistic subtleties of the various ways of telling someone that you want them to die. ^_~

[edenfalling]

Is that written as one word (shine) or two (shi ne)? Or is it kind of at the writer's discretion, because I'm sure I've seen it both ways!

[proanon.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to be technical, it's 死ね! But if you're going for romanization, it's one word (a conjugated verb). So, "shine". I can see writing it as "shi ne" or "shi-ne", however, in order to keep it from being confused with "shine (giving off light)", and to clarify the pronunciation - it's "shee-neh," not "sha-een".

I'd go for the hyphenated version, though - just to clarify that it IS one word.

^_^ Words, fun fun fun...