Post: #1

This is for a commercial T-Shirt print. I need to make sure that the designer has written something that makes sense and my Japanese skills have waned markedly since leaving high school.

Is there anyone here who speaks Japanese to a high level that is able to do me a favour? I need an accurate English translation of these two phrases. Need confirmation that "Unknown Discovery" is accurate.

Que

Post: #2

I don't know Japanese, but if you go to OneHourTranslation and use the "expert translation" and "proofreading" options you are guaranteed to get two very accurate opinions on this matter. And because your translation is just 2 words, it would cost you very little, maybe a few $.

Disclaimer: I gain no benefit from you using that website for this purpose.

Post: #3

I have a kanji dictionary.

1st character: KI “desire, rare, scarce”

2nd character: Not sure, but I recognize the “king” and “moon” radicals, might also have to do with desire.

3rd character: hiragana TO, probably a preposition.

4th character: EI “prosperity, honor”

5th character: KO “shine, light”

btw, google translating “unknown discovery” back into Japanese will give you something different. Am sure there are variations on this phase, like any other.

Anyway, hope this is of help.

Post: #4

I'm pretty sure the one on the right 『 希望と栄光 』 is read "Kibou to eikou" and means 'Hope and Glory'.

I even googled it and found a Wikipedia entry 希望と栄光の国, Which literally means The land of hope and glory and is the Japanese translation of a book with the same name.

I can't exactly tell you what the one on the left says, I hope someone with better Japanese skills chimes in and offers more help.

Post: #5

(06-11-2014 03:53 PM)Sombro Wrote:  2nd character: Not sure, but I recognize the “king” and “moon” radicals, might also have to do with desire.

The third radical means 'Deceased' or 'Perish', and the whole Kanji means ambition or desire and it's read Bō.

Post: #6

Had to look the left one up because the first character is simplified. It means dragon or imperial. The other two mean love and loyal/faithful. So, loyal dragon love? Loyal love of empire? Dunno. Here are the characters so you can do a search with them: 龙愛忠

http://www.nciku.com/

Post: #7

The characters on the left (龙爱忠) appear to be Chinese. A person's name perhaps?

Post: #8

Alright, I did some more digging and turns out the one on the left is not written in Japanese, it's simplified Chinese.

I suspected it but couldn't make any judgement because of my limited Japanese knowledge.

(06-11-2014 05:57 PM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  Had to look the left one up because the first character is simplified. It means dragon or imperial. The other two mean love and loyal/faithful. So, loyal dragon love? Loyal love of empire? Dunno. Here are the characters so you can do a search with them: 龙愛忠

Nice find but it's not completely right. Although they are similar the character for love in Japanese is 愛 (also found in Chinese with the same meaning), while the character found on the tee is 爱 which also means love but only in Chinese. so the one common character is 忠 which means loyalty in both languages.

The Word/Phrase written on the left is 龙爱忠, maybe someone with Hanzi knowledge can give us his take on it.

Post: #9

My Japanese isn't good enough to say if it is a grammatically correct phrase or not. You probably should post a link to this thread in the Bang Japan! thread in the Travel section. Some of the regulars there speak very advanced Japanese.

Post: #10

(06-11-2014 06:31 PM)Enki Wrote:  Alright, I did some more digging and turns out the one on the left is not written in Japanese, it's simplified Chinese.

I suspected it but couldn't make any judgement because of my limited Japanese knowledge.

(06-11-2014 05:57 PM)Feisbook Control Wrote:  Had to look the left one up because the first character is simplified. It means dragon or imperial. The other two mean love and loyal/faithful. So, loyal dragon love? Loyal love of empire? Dunno. Here are the characters so you can do a search with them: 龙愛忠

Nice find but it's not completely right. Although they are similar the character for love in Japanese is 愛 (also found in Chinese with the same meaning), while the character found on the tee is 爱 which also means love but only in Chinese. so the one common character is 忠 which means loyalty in both languages.

The Word/Phrase written on the left is 龙爱忠, maybe someone with Hanzi knowledge can give us his take on it.

The character I posted is the traditional character for love, the character above is the simplified version of the same character, I think, by doing a reverse translation through Google. I actually drew the character in the picture, copied it, and then put it through another website and then through Google, so maybe it changed it from the simplified to the traditional on my computer (which is set up for traditional) and it was too small that I didn't notice at the time. In fact, if you put "love" into Google translate and change back and forth between traditional and simplified characters, it changes that character only, so they're the same word. It still means the same thing I think: loyal love.

The first character means dragon/imperial. The three together could be a person's name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_(surname)

Given names often have what seem to us to be cheesy meanings, so it could be that Loyal Love is a given name.

Post: #11

希望と栄光(Kibou to eikou) - Hope and Honour/Glory

The bit on the left is the (author's?) name.

Unknown discovery translated literally would be something like 「未知の発見」(Michi no hakken) though you should run that past a native speaker to make sure.

Post: #12

Just asked a colleague. It's a name and it does mean Dragon Love Loyal.

Post: #13

Skotch from the Bang Japan thread here.

'Unknown Discovery' is a weird translation for 希望と栄光, but it's pretty typical for things to be entirely different in English, especially movie titles and stuff. Is it like a game or something? If you want a direct translation it would be "Hope and Glory."

The three characters on the left are some Chinese dude's name. Hope that helps.

Post: #14

Thanks to everyone that chipped in on this thread. It was really helpful!

Post: #15

One more. Anyone?

Post: #16

(06-26-2014 02:42 AM)Que enspastic Wrote:  

One more. Anyone?

The first two kanji in the upper section is the generic word for "city" and the second two mean "district". It appears to be clarifying for the reader what the words in English are exactly referring to, i.e. downtown Osaka. The four kanji in the white area are saying "Osaka, Japan."

Post: #17

(06-26-2014 07:23 AM)Carlos100 Wrote:  

(06-26-2014 02:42 AM)Que enspastic Wrote:  

One more. Anyone?

The first two kanji in the upper section is the generic word for "city" and the second two mean "district". It appears to be clarifying for the reader what the words in English are exactly referring to, i.e. downtown Osaka. The four kanji in the white area are saying "Osaka, Japan."

For bonus points translate all of the signs in the background. (I might need glasses as I can't even make some of them out.)

Post: #18

I'm seeing Chinese characters all over the place. Does Japan use Chinese characters in their writing system?

Post: #19

(06-28-2014 01:16 AM)Switch Wrote:  I'm seeing Chinese characters all over the place. Does Japan use Chinese characters in their writing system?

Post: #20

Is this your own private T-shirt business?