The All-Purpose "Translation Request" Thread

[SSJ2FutureGohan]

When Buu says "he", does he know Vegeta's gender? Or is it just a general statement?

[EmmaWinters]

In addition to what FatNagger already said, it's worth noting that in the original folklore, genie/djinn were basically demons, or spirits

That's very true; I wish I thought to mention that.

You'll have to be a bit more specific than that. What exactly do you not understand?

He wants confirmation from you directly that Buu doesn't mention gender.

[Herms]

When Buu says "he", does he know Vegeta's gender? Or is it just a general statement?

He just refers to another "human with large power" turning up, and doesn't specifically refer to gender. The last sentence doesn't have any actual pronouns in Japanese (apart from Boo referring to himself as watashi); super-literally it's just "but naturally no match for me, even if merged".

[EmmaWinters]

Can someone tell me what these say? Thanks.

Spoiler:

First one is:

ほ···　ほんとだ···
I- It's true... (Replying to Tenshinhan)

エネルギーを吸い取られてしまうというのは　···オ　···オレの勘ちがいか······！？
Basically: Maybe I was wrong about the idea that they siphon off energy.

す···　すげえ！！
A- Awesome!!

Second one is:

なあに
Literally "what", but in this case it's more
like a reaction to Goku's transformation.

ただ光っているだけですよ
He is only glowing. (だけ, only, just, merely)

[kuartus4]

Thanks! Can you tell me what Goku is saying here?

[EmmaWinters]

うほ〜〜〜〜っ！！！
Uhoooooo!

吸われる〜〜〜〜っ！！！
(I am being) inhaled/sucked in!

負けるもんか〜〜〜〜〜！！！
(You think I'm gonna) give in/succumb/surrender?!

[Bando]

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone who has access to Daizenshuu 7 could better explain what this means exactly?

宇宙
The Universe
The endless, expansive space wrapped around every celestial body that exists in the Living World. Along with the "Demon Realm," it is a single, large world in the Living World. In the world of Dragon Ball, the universe is located beneath the World Beyond, and it is hermetically sealed by a barrier that is engraved with a strange design. Within the universe, there are "nebulae" composed of innumerable stars, and there are "galaxies" composed of innumerable nebulae. There is a ruling Kami for each galaxy. Earth resides in the Solar System, a galactic nebula on the outskirts of the North Galaxy.

http://magikarp46.com/dragonball/guideb ... ldview.php

My two questions are:

1. A ruling Kami for each Galaxy? Is it talking about the Kaio?
2. The Solar System is a "galactic" nebula... on the outskirts of the North Galaxy? -scratches head-

[Adamant]

Here's the original text, for reference:
宇宙の中には、無数の星が集まった『星雲』があり、星雲が無数に集まってできた『銀河』がある。
各銀河には、それぞれ担当の神がついている。 地球は北銀河のはずれにある銀河星雲、太陽系に属している。

1. A ruling Kami for each Galaxy? Is it talking about the Kaio?

Yes. That translation definitely should've gone with the word "god" rather than the word "kami" there (also that entry could've definitely benefitted from actually mentioning that these gods are called "Kai-ou").

2. The Solar System is a "galactic" nebula... on the outskirts of the North Galaxy? -scratches head-

It's worded a bit more unclear than it should've been, Google gives me various discussions between Japanese fans not being entirely sure about what that line means either. This bluescorpionknight819 guy says it probably just means "Earth is located in a solar system in a nebula at the outskirt of the Northern Galaxy", though, based on how dictionaries tend to word things. The lack of brackets around the word "solar system" seems to support that, at the very least.

The fact that the word "galaxy" has a completely different meaning in the Dragon Ball world than it does in the real world (meaning that they use the word "nebula" to mean roughly the same as what we use the word "galaxy" for) doesn't really help matters.

Further input would be nice though. My Japanese is absolutely not all that good.

[TripleRach]

Well I don't want to get too involved, since I plan to redo that page in the near future anyway. (Or so I hope.)

But that entry was always odd, including the way it uses 星雲 (nebula) and 銀河 (galaxy). Looking at it now however, I suddenly wonder if they were using "nebula" as a synonym for "planetary system." 星 (star) is also a generic term in Japanese for all astronomical bodies, including planets. And the Solar System absolutely is a planetary system made of numerous astronomical bodies.

[Kamiccolo9]

I had a question about these lines from the Strength Checker.

Chapter: 393 (DBZ 199), P13.3
Reporter: “That super genius of grappling, our very own Mister Satan, has just decided to enter the Cell Games!”

Chapter: 393 (DBZ 199), P13.6
Kame-sennin: “Who’s that?”
Yamcha: “He’s the world grappling champion...”

Chapter: 393 (DBZ 199), P14.1-2
Reporter: “Will you be alright, Mister Satan? Your opponent Cell is even capable of wiping out armies.”
Mister Satan: “That was just a trick: he planted bombs beforehand. I could tell right away. As far as grappling goes, he looks like a complete amateur.”

I thought this choice of word was a bit odd, since Mr. Satan (nor anyone else, if I recall correctly) ever really exhibits any grappling skill. Is "grappling" supposed to be a catch-all term for "fighting" in this context? Or does Mr. Satan have mad skillz we've never even seen?

[EmmaWinters]

Grappling seemed odd to me too, but it fits, I suppose.
When I search the original word used (格闘技) it looks a little more like MMA to me.
I don't know enough about it to say for certain either way.

Viz translated it as "Wrestling".

[SSJ2FutureGohan]

Spoiler:

Can someone let me know that the original version says?

For the 2nd picture I only need Goku's text in panel 4.

Help appreciated.

[Herms]

Is "grappling" supposed to be a catch-all term for "fighting" in this context?

Pretty much, yeah. The Japanese word 格闘/kakutou is rather general (格闘ゲーム is one of the standard Japanese terms for "fighting game", for instance), so my apologies if "grappling" is too specific for that. I had thought "grappling" was pretty general as well, but thinking about it, I may have just gotten that notion from seeing it used as a translation for 格闘 in various not necessarily high-quality translations. I'm not much of an expert on real world martial arts, so when translating that word for the Strength Checker it was pretty much just a case of "oh, I've seen people translate it like this, so that must be right". Oh well.

Anyway, throughout DB, 武道/budou and 武術/bujutsu are the words typically used for the martial arts. For whatever reason, Mister Satan is fairly unique in being described as the 格闘/kakutou champion, although as you can see Satan himself describes Goku as a 格闘 amateur, and Videl calls the Tenkaichi Budokai a tournament for deciding the 格闘 world champion. So it could just be that Satan happens to like the word or something (and it rubs off on Videl), rather than him having some unique fighting style. And/or Toriyama happened to start using that word around the time Satan showed up, just as a change of pace. Although I do wonder if Videl describing the TB as determining the world 格闘 champion is Toriyama's way of trying to retcon in the idea that Satan was already the TB champion back when he first appears in the Cell arc.

Spoiler:

Can someone let me know that the original version says?

For the 2nd picture I only need Goku's text in panel 4.

Help appreciated.

Ah, that old chestnut. I'll just quote myself back on page 48. Boy, those were the days.

Goku: "[r]…I don’t know…I can’t sense the squirts’ Fusion’s ki either…And it doesn’t seem like [they’ve] fought…[l] Why did [Boo’s?] ki suddenly vanish?..."

This panel probably has the record for being requested the most times throughout this thread. The tricky part is whether in that second speech balloon when Goku talks about a ki suddenly vanishing, does he mean "the squirts' Fusions' ki" or Boo's ki. There's no actual possessive there in Japanese, so you have to go off of context. If you look at just the one panel on its own, then it's very natural to assume Goku means the Fusion's ki, but the actual page starts out with Goku noting how Boo's ki has vanished.
The conversation goes like this:

Goku: "Hey Kaioshin, have you noticed? Majin Boo’s ki vanished a while ago."
Kaioshin: "Huh? Oh, now that you mention it!"
Kibito: "What’s going on? Is he dead?"
Goku: "…I don’t know…I can’t sense the squirts’ Fusion’s ki either…And it doesn’t seem like [they’ve] fought…Why did [Boo’s?] ki suddenly vanish?..."

So taken in that larger context it probably makes more sense to assume Goku's talking about Boo's ki. What's more, the whole reason Goku can't sense anybody's ki is because they've all gone into the Room of Spirit and Time. But Goten and Trunks went in to the room first, then fused into Gotenks inside. So it wouldn't make much sense for Goku to talk about "the squirts' Fusion's ki" suddenly vanishing, since they weren't fused when they went into the room. Still, it's possible Toriyama forgot that detail and really did intend Goku to be talking about the Fusion's ki after all.

[SSJ2FutureGohan]

Not exactly a translation request, but I'm assuming it'd be pointless to make a whole thread for this.

Question: Does one of the Daizenshuus really say that Recoome killed Kuririn?

[EmmaWinters]

No. That rumor comes from a mistranslation on Herms' part.

Now that I think of it, that "the daizenshuu say Recoom killed Gohan" thing comes mostly from how I mistranslated the Daizenshuu 2 attack section to say that Recoom's Eraser Gun "finishes off" Vegeta and co. rather than simply being intended to finish them off. At the time I was translating, I didn't have any manga for reference and misremembered the attack as actually taking the gang out, which affected my translation.

Man, I should just quit.

[SSJ2FutureGohan]

Oh, ok, thank you.

[EmmaWinters]

Sure.

...I really need to buy the Daizenshuu one of these days.
I unfortunately can't provide the original line.

[Adamant]

I unfortunately can't provide the original line.

If you care, it's "ベジータ、悟飯、クリリンらにトドメの一撃"

[EmmaWinters]

I do! Thank you.

[Herms]

If you care, it's "ベジータ、悟飯、クリリンらにトドメの一撃"

Re-re-(re?)-looking at it now, I can certainly understand why I would have translated it as "an attack that finishes of Vegeta, Gohan, and Kuririn" back in the day. I mean, presumably what they mean is that Recoom fires this attack in order to finish them off, but there's nothing you can point to and go "this bit means the attack doesn't actually finish them off". You just have to know how the scene plays out. OK, I could have stuck with "a finishing attack for Vegeta, Gohan, and Kuririn" or something like that, but that just sounds kind of odd.

It seems like the entire description just comes from how Recoom says "this'll finish it!" (こいつでフィニッシュだ!) before firing the Eraser Gun. At any rate, the attack is really only aimed at Vegeta, and Kuririn and Gohan butt in to save Vegeta's life, so it's definitely a bad description no matter how you slice it. But it's not actually something flat-out ridiculous as something saying "Recoom kills Vegeta/Gohan/Kuririn!".