Bleach Wiki:Translation Corner

The Translation Corner is a place where a group of users can get together and help maintain the wiki by keeping it up to date on the actual translations of the various names, abilities, techniques and etc. found in the Bleach Universe.

Associate Members

 * Adam Restling (Japanese)
 * MarqFJA (Japanese)
 * Lia Schiffer (Spanish)

References & Sources

 * Manga Raws: MangaHelpers
 * Kanji-to-English:
 * Tangorin
 * Mahou Kanji Dictionary
 * Kanji Networks
 * OldNihongo.J-Talk.Com
 * Basic Japanese verbal data: The imperative inflection of Japanese verbs

Contentious Translations
Since I screwed up the order of the first version (XD), I'll try to keep this one organized. If I overstepped any boundaries, please forgive--and correct--me. You may also notice that I try to write Japanese words by their kana spellings--e.g. ou, oo instead of ō--because I'm often too lazy (again, XD) to go grab the macron-crowned letters, and it's more faithful to the Japanese (I would only use ō etc. personally when it's katakana, as they are transcribing chiefly foreign sounds). However, on the Wiki(a)s, the prevailing trend is to use the Hepburn style, replete with ōs and all, so if making edits to the actual articles, please use these for consistency :). I leave the edits to the pros, because templates confuse and frighten me.

This section in particular will be used to try and confirm the accuracy of passages from the raw Japanese.

The "fastest Zanpakutou" (Ch. 400 "Deicide 2")
ICHIMARU (*claps*)

''... Todoita? Ima no gohyakubai ya''

... You get that? It's five hundred times that just now.

This would seem to suggest, as has been the prevalent translation, that Kamishini no Yari's speed is five hundred times the speed of (the time it takes the) sound (of the clap to reach Ichigo).

Todoita? (届いた?) "Get that?" is the past tense of the verb todoku (届く), more lit. "reach, arrive, get through or at," but also "to pay attention to" and also "get delivered, to carry over (e.g. sound )." Thus I chose "get" because, as in English, it can be used to lit. obtain something, but also to pay attention to and understand, as well as figuratively "receive" (including "hear") that something. And gohyakubai (五百倍) *is* "five hundred times/-fold." Adam Restling 02:19, April 26, 2010 (UTC)

The usher of desires (Ch. 401 "Deicide 3")
This will prob. be kind of preliminary, but I'll *try* and give a clearer picture of what Aizen has to say concerning Urahara, the Hougyoku and the Visored on pgs. 5-7. This has some more-complex phrasing and grammar than I'm used to, so I'll do my best--sorry for the length. *Note that in my transcriptions, underlined elements are used to signify non-Japanese words in katakana.

Hougyoku no nouryoku ha Horou to Shinigami no kyoukai wo ayatsurumono da to

Urahara Kisuke ga goninshita no ha

Hougyoku wo tsukutta kare jishin no nozomi ga sore datta kara da

It is the ability of the Hougyoku being to "manipulate the boundary of Hollow and Shinigami"

that Kisuke Urahara was mistaken in,

because that had been his own hope in creating the Hougyoku.

Watashi ha Hougyoku no shin no chikara ni kizuite ita

I realized with the Hougyoku's true power.

[omission for length]

Nazenara

sono nouryoku ga hontou nara ba

Hirako Shinjitachi ga kanzenna " Vaizādo " to narihaterukoto nado nakatta hazu dakara da

Because

if it was truly that ability,

then there should not have been such a thing as Shinji Hirako and the others being reduced to complete "Visored."

Hirako Shinjitachi no Horou ka ha

 Horou ka sono mono no jikken de aru to douji ni

Hougyoku no nouryoku wo kakuninsuru tame no mono datta

The Hollowfaction of Shinji Hirako and the others...

the Hollowfaction experiment itself was, simultaneously,

for the sake of affirming the abilities of the Hougyoku.

[omission for length]

Urahara Kisuke no te ni yoru Hougyoku no nouryoku no hatsudou ni yotte

Hirako Shinjitachi ha kanzennaru " Vaizādo " he to shinkashita

By the hand of Kisuke Urahara, the Hougyoku's abilities were made to activate;

Shinji Hirako and the others evolved completely into "Visored."

Hopefully no typos etc. in the above. From Aizen's words, it seems the Hougyoku is a kind of empathetic facilitator to achieving one's goals. It seems the subject must have the power to achieve said goals for it to work (e.g. Pee-wee Herman can't just wish to be the strongest being in the universe and, like a genie [Jambi? XD], it delivers). Urahara (supposedly) mistook its power as being only to "manipulate the boundary between Hollow and Shinigami" because that's what he'd hoped it would do when he made it.

Once again, Aizen seems to have no love for the Visored, tying in to his earlier calling them "poorly-made Arrancar." Indeed, if the Houg' *could* manipulate the boundary, it prob. should've been able to cure them of their Hollowfaction, or even allow them to use both sets of powers without having to endure the rigorous training it seems they did. He specifically refers to them "being reduced" (narihateru) to being Visored.

Hope this answers the questions; post on my talk if not :) . Adam Restling 11:35, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

The spellings of Yuzu's and Karin's names
Yuzu is spelled 遊子 "play(ful) child," and Karin is 夏梨 "summer pear."

The reason you may see spellings in katakana, like カリン for "Karin," is because it's shorthand: kana are easier to write (esp. for children) than brush-strokerific, complex Hanzi (= Japanese Kanji "Han graph(s)"). Adam Restling 09:45, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

Spelling of Kuchiki
OK, this is potentially an embarrassing question, but I have to ask it: According to google translate we've got the Kuchiki spelled backwards. Check it out: |en|%E6%9C%BD%E6%9C%A8%0D%0A%E6%9C%A8%E6%9C%BD%0D%0A WD   Talk to me  11:16, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

Really a waste of time we have more then enough evidence manga/anime/character books stating his name is Kuchiki regardless of what some goggle translator says. This is main reason why we leave the translation stuff to people with translation skill. Salubri (Talk)  12:07, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

No, I was actually refering to the order of the Kanji, or spelling - as the headline indicates: According to the translator, Kuchiki is written 木朽, while in the Wiki it says 朽木. I'm not asking it to be a nag, but because I want to be sure we have it the right way. WD  Talk to me  15:05, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

Must we waste time on this? Well fine, since we must, you are aware Japanese is read from right to left, right? Well read from right to left it's 朽木. Don't believe me? I give you as proof, page 93 from Bleach Bootlegs with Byakuya's name (朽木 白哉) highlighted. Seriously, one of these days we have got to make a rule that says translation challenges cannot be brought based on Google translator! Tinni  (Talk)  15:45, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, there's no need to bite my head off. I didn't do anything wrong! Isn't these type of questions what the grammer corner was meant to answer? Why is it a waste of time to answer my question? And that's all it was, a question, not a challenge. You are too short tempered. WD  Talk to me  16:16, May 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * I said it was a waste of time for the same reason Salubri did. Google translator is to be used for personal amusement only and nothing more. Tinni   (Talk)  05:48, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Just a note, google translator is horrible. You can translate from english to another language and then take the result and translate it back to english and it will not be what you entered. I have used it on occasion to aid my german and found that it would not give me what I was actually looking for.--God (Pray)  16:33, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

Well, the ki element (木) *is* "tree" (also sometimes "wood, timber"), and the weight of all canon evidence is on the side of what we have. That backwards rendering IS odd, but the others are right: a lot of online translators, esp. if you try so-doing with sentences, doth suck XD. Sorry if you met some caustic response, but hopefully the data they provided have also helped. And, if it comes to it, it's best to trust the many alternatives to Google et al. first. Adam Restling 05:43, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

General/Other translation issues (e.g. conjugation/miscellanea)
Guys can I get you guys to check Kisuke's new Hado on the Kidō page? Currently its,. Can you guys confirm that both the kanji and the translation is correct? Thanks. Tinni  (Talk)  00:56, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in response; I couldn't find a good raw until today.

Senju Kouten Taihou is actually (千手皎天汰炮), more lit. "thousand-hand bright heaven culling-sear."

Interestingly, though, 皎 is usu. read k y ou, and 汰 ta or da, so it's possible the specialized readings for these as kou and tai respectively were meant to resemble the other words, too. In fact, such a taihou is homophonous to the above word 大砲 "cannon, artillery" (< "big gun").

However, kou here means "(bright) white, gleaming white"; tai means "select, elect, cull" (with perhaps some retention of the older, and still current-in-Chinese meaning "discard, eliminate; natural select ion")--it can also mean "luxury" (< "best one can select"); and hou means to "burn, roast." Adam Restling 05:38, May 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Adam! Tinni   (Talk)  05:48, May 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Huh. A brief reference to Wikitionary revealed that 汰 could translate as 'excessive, scour, to wash out', while 炮 translated as 'cannon'. But, people won't listen me as usual, so I have only one question; why wasn't there more capitalization? Like so; Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling-Sear --Reikson 22:15, May 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, Reikson, but that's why such "brief" references can be misleading: though they share the same Hanzi, the original meanings of words can shift between the Chinese source and its Sinoxenic borrowers. For example, the Hanzi 胎 means "womb, uterus," in Japanese, but is said to retain the meaning "fetus" in Chinese. Now, though related, I think we can all agree that a womb and a fetus are not the same thing. Likewise 仙, which was originally used to describe an immortal is, in Japanese, often watered down to mean "hermit, wizard" by way of the idea of these 仙 living isolated in the mountains (this also affected the Hanzi itself). And when one does a search of just the characters in, say, Wiktionary, it's generally the original Chinese meaning which comes back, despite any semantic alterations it may have in borrowings. But please note that I mentioned some of the Chinese meanings you cited for 汰, though your "wash out" and my "eliminate" are not so different; the word seems to have originally meant "wave" (Schuessler 2009), which seems to have become "wash away" *and* "eliminate" (as the tide levels all but the strong?). At any rate, the modern Japanese meaning of 汰, as I cited, is either "luxury" or "selection," whence I used "cull(ing)" to try and give the sense of "selecting something out," perhaps by force (I doubt Urahara was asking ;) ). Ditto 炮 which, despite being "cannon, artillery" in Chinese, now chiefly means "burn, roast" in Japanese.


 * As for the capitalization thing, I just don't usually do it in glosses unless they include a proper noun. As with changing my /ou/s etc. to you guys' /ō/s etc., you may do as you like for the sake of consistency. Adam Restling 10:31, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Weedefinition has asked for some verification regarding the kanji and naming of Hollowfication (check the talk page). Could you look into it when you have a moment? Thanks. TomServo101 (Talk)  22:12, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

Salubri already beat me to this a bit by citing Marq's previous postings, but as they like to copy the pertinent data here for quick reference, I'll do so, too:

Shinigami no Horou ka (死神の虚(ホロウ)化) "the Hollowfaction of Shinigami"

 Horou no Shinigamika (虚(ホロウ)の死神化) "the Shinigamifaction of Hollows"

are, to date (at least as far as I've seen), how Aizen has described the theoretical processes only once, when explaining them to Ichigotachi before his flight from the Soul Society. Since then, the Visored and Ichigo refer to their usage of Hollow powers via their masks simply as "Hollowfaction" (虚(ホロウ)化  Horou ka), though they don't become complete Hollows, and the only descriptions of the opposite process have used "Arrancarifaction" (破面(アランカル)化  Arankaru ka). Adam Restling 05:59, May 11, 2010 (UTC)