At 02:26 PM 1/11/99 EST, you wrote:
Hiya...
How would you say 'mother' in the affectionate? Somehow, 'okaachan'
doesn't seem right, but I'm not sure...
Believe it or not? 'Mama' would work best. 'Kaachan' is also correct.
*nod* Mama does rather work best. using the o- prefix with kaachan is odd,
because the -chan is used more for situations w/less formality and more
affection, and the o- denotes some sort of respectful address.
Actually the familiar term for mother in proper Japanese is "ha ha" for
father it it "chi chi"c
Yes, but you would _never_ use it to their face it that manner. Maybe
hahaue or chichiue, but never just haha or chichi. You use it to refer to
your parents when talking to other people, but never when addressing them.
little sister it is "imooto" little brother it is "itooto" for older
sister it
is "Ane", for older brother it is "Ani",
imouto and otouto for little sis and little bro. Usually, though, you use
their name when talking to them, and imouto or otouto if you're talking
about them (and maybe not even then.)
for grandmother it is obaba, or
obaba-san or obaba-chan that is all I can think of at the moment, and I am
not
sure but I might have the older brother and sister mixed up, I'd have to get
my Japanese book out to find out.
Actually, it's obaasan for grandmother and ojiisan for grandfather. If
you're talking about them, Sofu and sobo might be okay (they're used the
same as haha and chichi)
Now here is my question for the list. Why on earth do you people wish to
use
words from a language that you don't understand?! If you don't know the
words, will your reader? What is the point of writing a fic that over half
the phrases are lost to your readers level of comprehension?! Isn't the
point
of the written word to communicate? If that is your aim and you wish to
communicate with your readers, then do so in ENGLISH!
I agree with this. I think unnecessary japanese is jarring, especially if
the japanese word is used in a sentence with english grammar construct.
Japanese sentence construction and english ones are quite different, so
using japanese in that case just sounds wrong. However, chan, kun, san etc
are hard to translate, so I usually leave it in. It's usages of
words/phrases like hajimemashite and arigatou that throw me, because there
are perfectly acceptable english words which can be used in their place.
Monica
-----
Monica/Akira-chan/Heero/Hayama/Naga/Kircheis no Miko- Proud TABBE! Member
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