Use Of Japanese Words: A Complete Turnoff?

[fallenangel]

Hate it. Same people that run around saying "Kawaii" on everything. You're not Japanese, stop it. Though same goes for all fanfiction that features some element of another country. A character/person who grew up somewhere else, for example, and can speak another language. People try to throw in phrases in that language to try and sound "authentic" (like when a person/character gets extremely upset and slips into a string of profanity in their first language) but more often than not it ends up completely wrong.

Kinda ruins the effect if your character/person who knows the language fluently butchers it. Plus most readers have no idea what the character is saying, anyway.
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[VR_Jay]

[quote="akutatsu_no_kuno_hi (zinovia)"] Okay, I am not even sure what arigatou and enki means. And doesn't that prove that quite a few people wouldn't know either? [/quote]
Arigatou means "thank you", but I only know that b/c of that song. "Domo arigatou Mr. Roboto..."

heheh, i am the uber cool
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[color=black]"Your toast is burnt and no amount of scraping will remove the black stuff!" ~ Caboose, Red vs. Blue[/color]

[Stratadrake]

[quote] Hate it. Same people that run around saying "Kawaii" on everything[/quote]

Speaking of which, what does the word "kawaii" [b]mean[/b]?
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[VR_Jay]

I have no idea. I don't think any of them know either. ^_^
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[color=black]"Your toast is burnt and no amount of scraping will remove the black stuff!" ~ Caboose, Red vs. Blue[/color]

[DG-sama]

Kawaii means cute. I don't really like the use of Japanese in English fanfiction either. I do see an exception for the many suffixes the Japanese use at the ends of names because many of them have either no direct translation into English and they have varying degrees of repect which is sometimes helpful in portraying character personalities.
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God damn you signature WORK!

[OctoberBreeze]

I hate it when people use Japanese in fictions. I mean, I have nothing against Japanese, at all. Half the people who use them haven't even bothered to learn the whole language and just pick up little tidbits because of the whole Asian fad. So, yeah, it REALLY turns me off. Especially when a character in a movie or book or T.V. show suddenly pops in with a, "Wai!" or "That is so kawaii!" or something like that when I have NEVER heard them utter a Japanese word EVER.

I like the language in general, but for some reason it REALLY ticks me off when people use it. Get over it, you aren't Japanese, and there's no reason to be using it in an ENGLISH literature.

[LadyoftheDeadlyDance]

But...there is a flip side to this, you know.

Take, for example, the usage of "youkai". Now, the Japanese traslation for "youkai" is "demon", right? But there are a lot of differences between western demons and youkai which are branded as demons. I believe in Japanese folklore, Youkai are animal spirits, "mononoke", not the winged horny demons of Christian literature.

You can also inhance dialoge by adding in Japanese words. Like this, for example:

Clair: Oh my GOD! Look at this bag it's so kawaii!
Decella: ..."kawaii"? What the hell is "kawaii"?

You can point out character flaws by making using different languages. But the great thing with this is if somebody speaks the language fuenently...a language barrier can inhance a plot tremendously.

...But I agree with what most of you guys are saying. I find it annoying at times too. Just providing a little bit of the other side of the coin on this issue.

[silver_dreams]

the only time i ever use non-english words in fanfiction is with the use of 'Aa', 'ne?', and name suffixes/common nicknames, but only in dialouge because the characters speak that way. That, and the name of certain places (i.e. EnMaCHo instead of Judgement Bureau) because it is what they are more commonly known as. Otherwise, i never use Japanese. You won't find any "KAWAII"'s in my fics.

[amerowolf]

i hate when people write some in english and use japanese words here or there.......it annoy's me. i only know about 17 japanese words and about ten of them are swear words. but luckily i have that handy japanese dictonary by my PC for such things.....

[fallenangel]

[quote="akutatsu_no_kuno_hi (zinovia)"] [quote] A character/person who grew up somewhere else, for example, and can speak another language. People try to throw in phrases in that language to try and sound "authentic" (like when a person/character gets extremely upset and slips into a string of profanity in their first language) but more often than not it ends up completely wrong.[/quote]

I ahven't tried it before, but would it be practically the same if you were making up you're own country and language in your story? [/quote]
Not really. Though making up a language in a story is extremely difficult to pull off (there's a reason all the cultures on Star Trek magically spoke english...almost all of them ). I mostly mean people who write a story about, say, Michael Monroe (singer for Hanoi Rocks, not that it matters). He's from Finland and can speak Finnish. Little Mary Jo comes along and wants to write a super cool story about him and decides she wants to make him speak Finnish, so she logs on to www.random-internet-translation-site.com and types in some sentence for him to say. For the sake of example, we'll have him say "Fucking hell, Andy, what's your problem?"

So she puts that in her story. Then someone who can actually speak Finnish comes along and points out the sentence actually says something completely different or has horrible grammar. That's especially true when it comes to verb conjugations and grammar. Online translators suck. So what she thinks should be "naida helvetti andy on mitk teidn esimerkki" should actually be "naida helvetti Andy , mik on sinun arvoitus?" The first sentence actually reads "fuck hell, andy, is what your sum".

Plus, especially in the cases of long sentences or less common languages, it's rather annoying to read. Even if it is authentic. Sometimes it can be worked in well, but most times it's distracting to not know what the character said and have to look it up, only to have some choppy translation. And even more so in something like the case above where I'm not even sure how to [i]pronounce[/i] most of those words.

Making up your own language can be fine. Provided it's used sparingly.

(disclaimer: I do not speak Finnish and indeed used a generally decent translator and a completely crap translator for those sentences. For example's sake.)
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[dragyn_soul]

I half agree and half don't. Some people do know Japanese and likes to enherit (can't spell -__-) the show/anime ect. that it came from. But some are just stupid, I don't want to critiseze anyone's works, but some are just stupid like, "Arigato alot" (Arigato means Thank you in Japanese) 'that just doesn't make sense, but using it as a conjuntion or a noun seems to be okay like, "Daijobu!" that's a conjuntion and it actually makes sense (Daijobu means It's alright, or I'm fine... or something close to that meaning) or, "I will come back for you, Otouto" that makes sense (Otouto means little brother) And even if they do this, they should add a glossary at the end for people who don't know any Japanese... I really hate to critiseze Japanese people (I am one -_____-) but that's not the piont, the piont is that people should only use Japanese if it makes sense -_____-

[silver_dreams]

[quote="dragyn_soul (Tina)"] I half agree and half don't. Some people do know Japanese and likes to enherit (can't spell -__-) the show/anime ect. that it came from. But some are just stupid, I don't want to critiseze anyone's works, but some are just stupid like, "Arigato alot" (Arigato means Thank you in Japanese) 'that just doesn't make sense, but using it as a conjuntion or a noun seems to be okay like, "Daijobu!" that's a conjuntion and it actually makes sense (Daijobu means It's alright, or I'm fine... or something close to that meaning) or, "I will come back for you, Otouto" that makes sense (Otouto means little brother) And even if they do this, they should add a glossary at the end for people who don't know any Japanese... I really hate to critiseze Japanese people (I am one -_____-) but that's not the piont, the piont is that people should only use Japanese if it makes sense -_____- [/quote]
you're making no sense.

so you claim that if you are japanese, it is alright to use the language in a fanfic because you are of that race and all others should magically understand it because you are asian?

any idiot fangirl can claim that they're Japanese. Hell, if I've tricked people into thinking i'm male in chat rooms just for fun, than it'd be even easier to pretend you are japanese with the knowledge of a few phrases.

[dragyn_soul]

I'm not saying everyone SHOULD know japanese, but some people who write fanfiction and adds japanese to their fic should really add a glossary at the end of every chapter for the japanese words, cause not all people understand japanese... And I don't really care what you think about me, just don't diss my country, you hear?

[silver_dreams]

[quote="akutatsu_no_kuno_hi (zinovia)"] You should pay more attention, hun, she wasn't dissing your country at [i]all[/i]... T_T

And silver is right; you're not making any sense either.
Like I said before, japanese words in fanfics are just not worth it, even if oyu put a glossary at the end. You are writing a story in english; there's no point in mixing languages. Do you see any famous writers mixing up languages in their stories? [/quote]
exactly.

if you're using all these words that no one can understand throughout your story, they'll probably lose interest before they even reach the glossary.

i myself think that the only appropriate places to use Japanese are in nicknames that a character is called by IN THE ORIGINAL SERIES HE/SHE/IT IS FROM (i.e. Watari calls Hisoka 'bon' (boy) in the YnM series), names of places (i.e. Meifu, EnMaCho, etc.), or if the character uses certain expressions (i.e. ne?, na?, aa, etc.).

just randomly inserting words is just plain stupid, to be honest, and not just with Japanese. it could be with anuy language; Spanish in an English fic, Polish in a Spanish fic, Chinese in a French fic, whatever.

[Stratadrake]

[quote]But some are just stupid . . . like, "Arigato alot" that just doesn't make sense, but using it as a conjuntion or a noun seems to be okay like, "Daijobu!" that's a conjuntion and it actually makes sense (Daijobu means It's alright, or I'm fine... or something close to that meaning) or, "I will come back for you, Otouto" that makes sense (Otouto means little brother) And even if they do this, they should add a glossary at the end for people who don't know any Japanese... I really hate to critiseze Japanese people (I am one -_____-) but that's not the piont, the piont is that people should only use Japanese if it makes sense -_____-[/quote]

[i]Some[/i] types of foreign words -- namely place and people names -- are obviously safe to use.

But I must differ on the use of an occasional foreign remark. Not only does it confuse those who don't know what it means (context doesn't [i]always[/i] help in this matter), but it's, well, fake.

In one sense there's the reader's perspective to consider. If it's a story set in Japan and being told from the viewpoint of a japanese person, it needs to be written with the same familiarity as if it was set in the USA from the viewpoint of an American person.

French may say "merci" and Japanese may say "Origato", but [i]mentally[/i] both are saying "thank you", right? Since the story's being told from their viewpoint, we have to see it as they do -- which means it should be written as "thank you", not the foreign word.

Language can be a pretty big factor in a story, especially if there's more than one [i]in[/i] the story to begin with.
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[fallenangel]

Exceptions where a foreign language can be appropriate:

~ If it's a common phrase said in a joking manner. Like "hola" is pretty much understood to mean "hello", and a lot of people who speak other languages use it every now and then. But it shouldn't be used as a replacement for [i]any[/i] and [i]every[/i] greeting. Like if every character in an English fic said "hola" that would make no sense, but if one character says it once, that's not too distracting.

~ If it fits a character. And I don't mean that since most anime characters are Japanese that it's appropriate for them to use it. But if it's in their character to say a certain word or speak a certain way, provided it's somehow established what a word actually means, it can be ok. For example, a sort of "wise elder" type character who uses a specific Japanese phrase and would use that word even if he were speaking English. Otherwise it makes no sense. The entire anime was once in Japanese, so translate [i]all[/i] the words.

~ The rare cases of needing a foreign language based on setting. In a foreign country, meeting characters who speak that language, whatever, long as it's easily made clear what they're saying and [i]it's correct[/i] and not iffy online translations.

Even a lot of nicknames are better translated. They may sound better in Japanese, but it's much easier for the general public to understand if they know what the name is and not something they have to look up. Footnotes are ok, but in the context of a fanfic, it's distracting to have to look up a word.
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[Jailcrow_of_Mandos]

I thought I'd add my ten cents here since I (1) love languages (2) hate Japanese in fan fictions, and (3) know a great deal about Tolkien's Elvish.

I saw it mentioned, and had to say that, well, Tolkien did use it a bit in his stories- even randomely at times, like Haldir's 'Daro!' but that was important because most of the Elves in Lorien didn't know Westron/English. So yeah, when it's used right it can help add a cultural flare.

I think Fallen's rules reall fit every case perfectly ^.^ I don't even know if I used any Japanese words in my Chou story- aside from places and what not. It's been too long, and I was such a loser when I wrote it, that anything is possible, hehe.

*But yes, languages in stories in general, I think, are really only important in science fiction and fantasy, where you are trying to establish a unique culture with a reader. You can tell a lot about a race by their language from what I've seen- not just how their words sound, but their word games, metaphors, etc. Sorry for rambling- taking a break from painting >.>

[fallenangel]

Oh! Just remembered something I was going to add about fantasy languages. If you're going to make one up, definitely put some time and thought into it. Every language has rules. Decide what the rules of your language will be so that it remains the same. Same even goes for fantasy names of characters. So many times when someone makes up a fantasy character, they pick a weird name and just add an apostrophe or two. Random apostrophes in fantasy languages drive me crazy. If they don't have a purpose, they're not necessary.
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[Jailcrow_of_Mandos]

Oh, exactly!! I've been working on my mecidel language for two years o.o just so I can get names and stuff with meaning- I've restarted it several times. I'm starting from the roots now. But there's this awesome site called the Language Construction Kit that helps you make your own langauges. It's great XD

Language Construction Kit

[NauticalNymph]

Hmm, I'm no linguist or anything, but I thought I would throw my opinion in here. To start off, I'll mention that I am no fan of the random words just thrown in to impress people, but using other languages (not just Japanese) can be a neat way to enhance a setting or story.

I've been reading a lot of nautical fiction lately, mostly the novels of C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian, and they use jargon to explain what is going on, and if you don't know what a word means, tough cookies. Jargon is the specialized language of a trade, and so, I think it can fit into the debate going on here .

In any case, when I first started the novels, I felt that I had just stumbled upon an entire language that I knew nothing of. I found myself so lost some times, that I ended up buying a lexicon of nautical terms just to get through the books. There were no footnotes at the bottom of pages to explain meanings, because the writers in this particular genre assume that the reader will know what they are speaking about. Similarly, I believe that some authors of fan-fiction might also make that assumption of their readers. If the author uses the word "arigatou" then it really isn't their fault if the reader doesn't understand, and it is then up to the reader to figure out what it means. Now, I must take the time to remind you that I am not defending the use of butchered, ungrammatical, and foolish phrases inserted for the sake of seeming authentic. That to me proves that the author is at fault, and should have taken the time to research the language before taking the liberty to use it in their story or fan-fic.

For another argument, I will bring up the Master and Commander series. Aside from the author's use of jargon, he also employs his knowledge of different languages. There are many instances in which Jack Aubrey, the main character of these novels, ends up having a conversation with his friend Stephen Maturin in Latin, for there is little other ways to obtain privacy aboard a naval ship. Their frigate often finds itself taking a French ship, or a Spanish sloop, as a prize, and their prisoners will speak in French and Spanish, respectively. This gives the book a very realistic feeling, and hardly allows you to think it just a story.

If used correctly, language can be a very great literary tool, and I think that it can be used in certain instances. ^_^