Onii-Chan is watching you 😩

Comments

• BillyClark@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  “-chan” is a diminutive suffix that indicates affection when used. These two factors mean it would never be used in the context of Big Brother.

  Even with little knowledge, you should at least come up with alternatives like nii-san, onii-san, onii, nii-sama, etc. Those still wouldn’t work well. I’d think that a lot of people would also think of aniki, which is getting closer. But it’s definitely the best option to just to what they actually did and just use the English “big brother” like a loan word.

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  • FishFace@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    Why is loaning “big brother” better than any of these options?

    At this point, “big brother” has entered the lexicon, but originally it was surely supposed to convey the idea of someone you were close to but looked up to, and who would protect you. That irony is kind of lost if you don’t translate it.

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    • BillyClark@piefed.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      The primary reason that I’d put forward is that Japanese people place a lot of importance on social hierarchy, to the point that even between twins, it’s important to know which is the older sibling. Because it’s used in everyday conversation and in referring to one another (although not quite as much with twins, I just brought that up for emphasis).

      The point is that the Japanese version of these words are used a lot more and have a lot of extra meaning compared to the English phrase “Big Brother”. So, it’s actually a worse fit. Japanese people use enough English loanwords that they probably understand the English phrase, anyways. So, the meaning gets through without the extra unintended baggage from the translation.

      It’s one of the many pitfalls of translation. Often, there are words that mean “the same thing”, but they still aren’t the right words because either the extra connotations in the original language or the extra connotations in the target language can throw off the translation.

      I think the Japanese translation is fortunate that, in this case, the Japanese language already has so many English loanwords… although I’m not sure whether that was exactly the same case when the book was first translated. It was published in 1948, I think. My recollection is that the English loanword boom started after WW2, so that would be somewhat contemporary.

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  • taiyang@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    They especially like loan words that most Japanese people kinda know, so yes, definitely the best option.

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• zikzak025@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Actually had me curious. The Japanese version of the Wikipedia page is just titled ビッグ・ブラザー so it looks like they just transliterated the English term instead of translating it into Japanese.

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  • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Beegoo boo ra za

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    • FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      biggo bra-za.

      spoiler

      Image

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    • python@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Don’t give Araki any ideas

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    • Triumph@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Close enough.

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  • raman_klogius@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Aniki would’ve hit harder imo.

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  • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    So it’s like, large brother?

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    • zikzak025@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      No, just “Big Brother” pronounced with a Japanese accent.

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• Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No you can’t watch, onii-chan! Now get out of the bathroom!

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• CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Susumu Hirasawa disliked that

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