I know there are direct translations, but I’m writing a novel with a Japanese protagonist and I’m curious what you call your grandparents, to make it more authentic. So I’m not looking for direct translations, per say, unless that’s the majority of what people use.
Also the translation subreddits seem really inactive? That’s why this isn’t posters there. Literally no one’s posted in years, it’s dead.
6 comments
Your answer is easily found on a search engine.
Just a word of advice, but I wouldn’t recommend writing a story with a Japanese protagonist unless you have a really good understanding of their culture and language. You don’t want to misunderstand it or misrepresent them.
If its set in Japan, I’d advise against that even more unless you have lived there, which I am assuming you haven’t.
If its not set in Japan, think about why the protagonist is Japanese, is it essential to the plot or character? He could always just be a 2nd/3rd etc. generation Japanese American(or wherever the story is set) if you really want him to have a Japanese name and ethnicity but not want to worry about the Japanese language.
Obviously do what you want especially if this is just for yourself and not something you are interested in publishing or etc. but if you plan on showing it to people they will question the intent and purpose of that
Why are you writing a story with a protagonist you can know nothing about? That’s a better question. Is the point inclusivity brownie points? Does the character need to be Japanese for the story to exist?
Did you check the one the AutoModerator linked to? Because that is active. As in “there have been a handful of questions in the past hour and plenty of them have already been answered” kind of active
Though much like everyone else, I’d advise against insisting on a Japanese character if you couldn’t navigate an issue as shallow as the one you just asked.
There’s only one real translation subreddit and it is /r/translator and it is very active… any other similarly named and/or purposed subreddits are dead because there’s really no need for more than one.
I’m not quite as knee-jerk negative on your questions as the other posts here, but I would counsel you to turn it around and ask what that question would sound like in the other direction.
“What do Americans call their grandparents?” for example.
The answer is… there is no consistent answer. The fact that English contains the word “grandmother” does not mean that’s what people actually call their grandmother.
You have grandma, granny, gram gram, grandmama, nana, mammy… many families even have special in-family names for them. My niece calls her grandma “sita”,” for example.
And to make matters more complicated, people use different terms to refer to their grandparents in the second person vs. the third person, or depending on which side of the family they’re talking about to disambiguate, which you need to account for.
So your question is overly simplistic, and people might be getting mildly offended because it sounds like you’re assuming Japanese people are simple and consistent on this question in a way that comes off more like a caricature.