HomeLearn JapaneseDumb question, but Japanese seems to lack a lot of specific things English has such as sarcasm and a some noises such as f or a standalone k, how often does this hinder people’s ability to communicate or create things such as lyrics?
Dumb question, but Japanese seems to lack a lot of specific things English has such as sarcasm and a some noises such as f or a standalone k, how often does this hinder people’s ability to communicate or create things such as lyrics?
I’m enjoying learning this a lot so far, but I’ve always indecisive about things like this and just want to make sure omitting to this language is a good idea.
Always wondered about this, so many annoying situations in movies where someone is trying to explain something frantically but everyone just asks if the person is okay instead of running away from a murderer or something.
Why would it hinder people’s ability to communicate? English is lacking all sorts of things that are found in other languages, yet English speakers can understand each other just fine. The same goes for every other language on the planet.
From what I can tell, Japanese actually has very poetic and beautiful lyrics. They’re able to weave sentences that English completely can’t musically. Why would this hinder their ability to write lyrics? Sarcasm is more of a conversational thing.
Considering that J-Pop is alive and well and doing pretty well even outside of Japan, as well as many other Japanese-language music genres, I’d say that Japanese has no problem in creating lyrics…in fact, because of the syllabic nature of Japanese, it might be easier to create rhymes than in English.
As for sarcasm…sarcasm’s all about tone anyway, so the format of the language doesn’t really matter. Sarcasm is all about saying something earnestly that you don’t actually mean earnestly, so there’s no reason you couldn’t do this in Japanese. I mean, watch any tv show or movie from Japan with humor in it and I’m pretty sure you’ll find examples of sarcasm.
And the lack of f seems like a weird thing to get hung up on…English doesn’t have the fu/hu sound that Japanese has, but, people seem to get along communicating in English well enough, right?
I’m surprised I get anything done in English since it lacks all the accents French and Spanish has. /s
Culturally sarcasm is way less of thing because people are just way less sarcastic. Like, I know that sounds weird but that really is all it is, cultural difference. Sarcasm is generally just seen as unnecessarily negative and/or dishonest so it’s just not used as much and isn’t a commonly used tool in communication there. Not that it never is, but certainly far less than in America for example where sarcasm is fucking everywhere lol
I don’t understand what makes you think not having a certain type of sound would hinder expression though. It’s not like they’re suddenly missing parts of their language they would otherwise have.
You asked about lyrics specifically, and the answer is simple: if standard Japanese does not use certain language features, then songs usually don’t either. However, songs aren’t always standard, so it’s not uncommon for lyricists to borrow from other languages (usually English). Songs by ZARD, for example usually has English words or phrases in most of their songs.
People that don’t think the Japanese language doesn’t have sarcasm don’t understand it well.
Eh? I’m a firm believer in the idea that lyrics are best enjoyed in the original language. You can roughly translate lyrics, but you WILL lose rhythm, rhyming, and word choice.
It’s really hard for me to translate songs in Hindi, Japanese, or English to one of the other 3 languages since you WILL lose something in the translation. That applies to all forms of media more complicated than a recipe, but I feel it’s most obvious in music. Things like connotations, specific word choices, poetic meter, rhyming structure simply don’t convert from one language to another cleanly, if at all. Especially within the constraints of a song.
I genuinely don’t understand why lyrics would be harder to create, since that’s predicated on the idea that those lyrics were originally intended for a different language. Which is very clearly not the case.
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Always wondered about this, so many annoying situations in movies where someone is trying to explain something frantically but everyone just asks if the person is okay instead of running away from a murderer or something.
Why would it hinder people’s ability to communicate? English is lacking all sorts of things that are found in other languages, yet English speakers can understand each other just fine. The same goes for every other language on the planet.
From what I can tell, Japanese actually has very poetic and beautiful lyrics. They’re able to weave sentences that English completely can’t musically. Why would this hinder their ability to write lyrics? Sarcasm is more of a conversational thing.
Considering that J-Pop is alive and well and doing pretty well even outside of Japan, as well as many other Japanese-language music genres, I’d say that Japanese has no problem in creating lyrics…in fact, because of the syllabic nature of Japanese, it might be easier to create rhymes than in English.
As for sarcasm…sarcasm’s all about tone anyway, so the format of the language doesn’t really matter. Sarcasm is all about saying something earnestly that you don’t actually mean earnestly, so there’s no reason you couldn’t do this in Japanese. I mean, watch any tv show or movie from Japan with humor in it and I’m pretty sure you’ll find examples of sarcasm.
And the lack of f seems like a weird thing to get hung up on…English doesn’t have the fu/hu sound that Japanese has, but, people seem to get along communicating in English well enough, right?
I’m surprised I get anything done in English since it lacks all the accents French and Spanish has. /s
Culturally sarcasm is way less of thing because people are just way less sarcastic. Like, I know that sounds weird but that really is all it is, cultural difference. Sarcasm is generally just seen as unnecessarily negative and/or dishonest so it’s just not used as much and isn’t a commonly used tool in communication there. Not that it never is, but certainly far less than in America for example where sarcasm is fucking everywhere lol
I don’t understand what makes you think not having a certain type of sound would hinder expression though. It’s not like they’re suddenly missing parts of their language they would otherwise have.
You asked about lyrics specifically, and the answer is simple: if standard Japanese does not use certain language features, then songs usually don’t either. However, songs aren’t always standard, so it’s not uncommon for lyricists to borrow from other languages (usually English). Songs by ZARD, for example usually has English words or phrases in most of their songs.
People that don’t think the Japanese language doesn’t have sarcasm don’t understand it well.
でも英語にはボケとツッコミがないし「おつかれさま」も「よろしくお願いします」も「お邪魔します」も「ごちそうさま」も無いじゃん？いったいぜんたい英語話者はどうやって日常会話してるんだぜ？
>create things such as lyrics?
Eh? I’m a firm believer in the idea that lyrics are best enjoyed in the original language. You can roughly translate lyrics, but you WILL lose rhythm, rhyming, and word choice.
It’s really hard for me to translate songs in Hindi, Japanese, or English to one of the other 3 languages since you WILL lose something in the translation. That applies to all forms of media more complicated than a recipe, but I feel it’s most obvious in music. Things like connotations, specific word choices, poetic meter, rhyming structure simply don’t convert from one language to another cleanly, if at all. Especially within the constraints of a song.
I genuinely don’t understand why lyrics would be harder to create, since that’s predicated on the idea that those lyrics were originally intended for a different language. Which is very clearly not the case.