Oh God, it's Korean
Oct. 30th, 2014 09:17 pm
1. Just as Red Velvet sang ecstatically "Shine on me, let it shine on me!", I saw my first jacaranda in bloom for the year. :) (Would that I had felt the presence of the Divine, but that's why I'm seeing the shrink tomorrow about reducing my meds if possible.)
2. I am now the proud owner of a copy of 곰돌이 푸우는 아무도 못 말려, a translation of A.A. Milne's most famous work, the title of which I believe means "Nothing Stops Winnie the Pooh". :) (I'm sorry to report that the heffalump, instead of turning into a hepaleompeu, has become a mere elephant.)
3. Many moons ago in this very lj or its predecessor, I puzzled over a line from the theme song Nightmare from the anime Death Note: "孤独も知らぬ Trickster". Online translations put this in English as "I'm a trickster who knows no solitude". What I wondered was how the line could end in the word "trickster". I now know exactly how you'd do it in Korean, and since K shares some of its grammar with J, I wonder if it's the same trick - turning a whole phrase into a single noun. An only-knowing-solitude trickster.
4. I also wonder if the Korean requirement for a boy to address an elder brother or older man as "hyeong" has a Japanese equivalent, and if so, that's the reason Alphonse Elric always addresses his brother as "brother" but not vice versa. (ETA years and years later: it is! Al calls Ed お兄さん onīsan, "older brother".