The Monkey King jumped off the bridge, muttered an incantation, and dove right in. The waves parted before him forming a path that lead straight to the bottom of the East Sea.1 About halfway, a yaksha2 on patrol suddenly blocked his way, and said, “You who command the waters, what manner of immortal or godContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 3.2”
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Journey to the West – Chapter 3.1
I am experimenting with narration styles in chapters 3 and 4. Click here to learn more. They say that the Handsome Monkey King defeated the Demon Lord of Mayhem and returned victorious with his trophy: the demon king’s big dao. He trained every day in the fighting arts. The other monkeys cut bamboo to makeContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 3.1”
Journey to the West – Chapter 2.4
The patriarch said, “Once you go, nothing good can come of you. In all your violent troublemaking, I forbid you from saying that you are my disciple. I will know if you let even one word slip, and I will skin you and crush your bones. I will banish your spirit to the furthest reachesContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 2.4”
Journey to the West – Chapter 1.3
While he was looking around, he suddenly heard a voice coming from deep in the woods. He hurried through the woods toward the sound and found a person singing. “Watching chess, the axe handle rots.1 Thwack, thwack, I’m chopping wood. I walk through valleys at the edge of clouds and trade my wood for wine.Continue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 1.3”
Journey to the West – Chapter 1.2
*As usual, translation notes are in the mouseover text or at the bottom of the post. 🙂 Let’s continue the story! The monkey multitude cheered upon hearing this.1 They said “Lead us inside! We’ll follow you.” The stone monkey closed his eyes,2 crouched, and jumped in once more, calling “Follow me!”3 The braver of theContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 1.2”
Journey to the West – Chapter 1.1
First, a note on retelling Journey to the West. As a part of this, I wanted to share with you some of the decisions I made during translation, but I don’t want to distract from the story, so I’ve inserted them footnotes with mouseover text. There are these decisions almost everywhere. (For touchscreen viewers, clickingContinue reading “Journey to the West – Chapter 1.1”
Piano no Mori – Numbers are Weird
Looking up the etymology for this page, I got really distracted by 一 and 二. These two kanji (meaning 1 and 2) are two of the simplest characters that exist and, along with 三 (3), some of the first kanji/characters that you learn1. However, numbers are one of the most complicated and confusing things I’ve tried to learn in Japanese. Each number has multiple pronunciations, and thus far to me, it’s not always clear which one to go with.
Piano no Mori – Made-up Ceremonies
本物(honmono) means “the real deal.” 本(jap: hon, chi: ben3) means “origin” or “source”. The character is a tree – 木 – with a line through the base to highlight the root, or “source” of the tree. The word for Japan – 日本(jap: nihon, chi: ri4ben3) – is “the source of the sun”.
Piano no Mori – A Real Heart has Chambers
At first glance, 必 (kanara, meaning must) and 心 (kokoro, meaning heart) look very similar2. Tracing the evolution of the character shows however that they actually started out as two completely different characters and converged over time.
Piano no Mori – Early Roadblocks
This page was rough. I’m still very early stages in learning Japanese and there’s not nearly so much to hang onto here as there was on the first page. (Learning to introduce yourself is one of the few things you learn when you first start learning a language, so I definitely got lucky last time.) I found that 的(teki) has a fascinating history. The meaning of indicating possession matches the Chinese 的(de), but it’s thought that the sound actually was adopted from the English adjective ending “-tic” as in “spastic” or “plastic” during the Meiji Era (late 1800s – early 1900s).
Etymology Adventures 