Thought bubbles anyone? From the previous ad…

[thought bubbles]

「赤ちゃん寝ている 。音もれしていないかな・・・」

「赤ちゃん寝ている。」This is pretty straightforward with one catch. 「赤ちゃん」means “baby”, and 「寝ている」means “is sleeping.” The dropped the particle, which was most likely, 「が」。

「音もれていないかな」、「音」means “sound”, and the verb 「漏れる」means “to leak”. Sound can leak from headphones, pee-pee can leak from a baby’s diapers, and sensitive data can leak from a company. Smell can also 漏れる from a bag or something… Like if you’ve got a bag of Korean kimchee (yum yum) and you carry it on the train, everyone will know. Cause, 「臭いが漏れている！」

「読書中だから、静かに話そう ・・・」

「読書」is the semi-kinda-sorta-formal word for “reading”. It’s less casual than 「本を読んでいるから、」but not by much. It means exactly the same thing. 「静かに話そう」does not mean “let’s speak quietly” as it may seem, but it is the high school girl thinking to herself that she should speak quietly. Japanese people will use the 「よう」form of verbs when thinking to themselves… Actually, in this case, if they used cartoon speaking bubbles and not thought bubbles, it wouldn’t be strange if one friend was telling the other, 「静かに話そう」, as in suggesting let’s speak quietly. Anyway, let’s talk about the “self-suggestion” form of 「よう」form of verbs.

For example…

「卵が安い！買おうっと！」”eggs are cheap! I’ll buy some!”

「お腹空いた、おにぎり食べよう」”I’m hungry, I’ll eat a rice ball!”

「疲れたな、今日早く寝よう」”I’m tired, I’ll go to sleep early today.”

In all of these sentences, the person isn’t necessary speaking to someone else, they’re just talking to themselves… 独り言。

Of course “let’s buy them!”, etc is the same grammar pattern… But I’m tellin’ ya, they’re used both ways.

Enough of that one!

- Harvey

This ad is kinda fun. It is by the Hankyu train company, one of the large companies in the Kansai area. All the trains in Kansai are like this… or so wish the Hankyu people.

Ad Text in Japanese: 

「見つめよう、いつもの車内。」

「ヘッドフォンの音量や、話し声の大きさは控えめに。」

[thought bubbles] 

「赤ちゃん寝ている 。音もれしていないかな・・・」

「読書中だから、静かに話そう ・・・」

[Small print at the bottom]

Too lazy to pick that up! Heh. 

Let’s get into it!

「見つめよう、いつもの車内。」

「ヘッドフォンの音量や、話し声の大きさは控えめに。」

「見つめる」- This verb usually means to look at, gaze at, a little more strongly or intensely than regular 「見る」. For example,「見つめ合う」 would be like two lovers looking into each others eyes. I did a google image search for 「見つめ合う」and found this image of Mickey and Minnie, 見つめ合っている-ing.

However, in this case, there isn’t any deep emotional staring going on. We’re just “looking in”.

「いつもの車内」- The phrase 「いつもの」means something like, “the usual”. 「いつも」 means “always”, so you can kinda see how the 「の」could make it seem like the noun form of “always”… Though perhaps that’s reading a little too much into it.

「車内」is a term which means, “inside the train”, it can also mean “inside the car” or “inside the bus”. For some added knowledge, the term for inside an airplane would be 「機内」. I’m not sure about inside of a boat, but I think it would also be 「機内」! Inside a room is 「室内」.

So, the header basically means, “Let’s take a look at the situation inside our usual train.”

「ヘッドフォンの音量や、話し声の大きさは控えめに。」

ヘッドフォン are headphones. 音量 is volume, literally “sound” “volume”, Kanji makes sense right? 「話し声」is pronounced はなしごえ、and means “speaking voice”.  The next part is a little more interesting.

「話し声の大きさ」literally this means “the size of your voice”. In Japan to describe someone who has a quite voice, you would say, 「声が小さい」, and a loud mouth would be someone who is 「声が大きい」.

「控えめに」The verb, 「控える」means to “hold back”, or “show restraint”. 「控えめに」means, with restraint, which in this context means keep your headphone volume and speaking voice low.

The 「め」 with 控えめに is unique. I cannot off the top of my head think of other verbs that can be used in this way. Usually, adjectives will take this form, such as 「早めに」for  “early” , like  「ちょっと早めに行くから先に準備しておくよ。」If anyone knows of other verbs that do this… Let us know in the comments.

[thought bubbles] 

「赤ちゃん寝ている 。音もれしていないかな・・・」

「読書中だから、静かに話そう ・・・」

We’ll tackle the thought bubbles in a few days! Take care of them in the comments if you’re feeling ambitious!

- Harvey

Ad Text in Japanese:

「きょうも、健康日和」

「毎日一本」

Looks easy! Looks can be deceiving.

「きょうも、健康日和」

I had no idea what 「日和」was before I looked it up. It is pronounced 「ひより」.

It can be used in sentences like, 「今日は遠足日和」 which would mean roughly, “today is fine weather for an field trip”. Or, 「ハイキング日和」”a nice day for hiking”. Note, in these examples it is pronounced 「びより」.

If you say 「健康日和」to a Japanese person, they will probably tell you that they don’t use 日和 in that way. What it seems they’re trying to say is, 「これを飲んだら今日も一日健康だ」like, if you drink this, you’ll have another healthy day today. It’s a stretch though! I thought it might mean “today is a nice day to be healthy”, but my Japanese friend says that’s not really what it is getting at.

「毎日一本」

Nothing tricky here, but we must recognize that the counter for “bottles” or most things you drink, is 「本」。As in 一本（いっぽん）、二本（にほん）、三本（さんぼん）。 So, this means literally, “everyday one bottle”, or naturally, “one bottle a day”.

Personally, I think that bottle of yogurt milk  type stuff in the middle, ヤクルト is great. Though, I never buy it. It’s strange to have to pay for something so tiny!

Also, I refer to that drink as 「ヤクルト」, but Yakult is just the name of the company. I wonder if that drink in the middle has a separate name?

Happy drinking!

- Harvey

Now that the suspense has worn off…

「紫外線によるダメージから、

ハリのある透明感の高い白 肌をまもります。」

「コエンリッチQ10から、日焼け止めが新登場。」

Everyone posted great translations for this, so I’ll just comment on those a bit.

Michael helped Rin out with ハリ. We saw ハリ before, in another form back here in Pretty Boy Shave, and in the Cute Adults post. Compare with those examples, and I’m sure you’ll never forget this bouncy phrase! I like R’s translation of this as “supple”!

You guys nailed the rest of it. The only thing I would add is to say that 新登場 feels more like “new release!” to me. Again, no one seems to have missed the meaning, just a matter of taste!

Thanks to everyone for covering the explanation while I was busy!

More ads coming soon!

- Harvey

Hey Everyone I’m back!

I’m now working as an official translator at a company in Osaka! I was also in the US for a few weeks catching up with family and whatnot. This blog has been neglected.

I’m back now though, and getting into the groove of my new working lifestyle, so you should start seeing updates soon!

- Harvey

Ad Text in Japanese:

「紫外線によるダメージから、

ハリのある透明感の高い白 肌をまもります。」

「コエンリッチQ10から、日焼け止めが新登場。」

Teaser, give it a try. I’ll break it down soon!

- Harvey

This advertisement won’t win any design awards, but really the majority of the train ads in Japan are of this quality. So I guess it is representative of what you’ll see if you come to Japan.

Just because it’s lame and pink doesn’t mean we can’t learn Japanese from it though!

Ad Text in Japanese:

「この春、つかしんは１周年」

Very bottom:

「ありがとう１周年フェア開催中！！」

Let’s have at it.

「この春、つかしんは１周年」

「この春」isn’t so tough, it means “this spring”. 「つかしん」is the name of this company. 「１周年」means “one year anniversary”. The 「周」character literally means “perimeter”, “circumference”, or “lap”. For example, if you ride your bicycle around a small island in Okinawa, you can say, 「自転車で一周した！」meaning “I rode all the way around it on my bicycle!” So, the logic behind the phrase 「１周年」meaning “one year anniversary”, is that we have done the entire “loop” of one year.

「ありがとう１周年フェア開催中！！」

「ありがとう一周年フェア」the only question remaining about this is the katakana word 「フェア」. It means, “fair”, as in an event like fair. 「開催中！」means, skillfully translated, “now open”. The verb 「開催する」means to “organize” or “hold” a meeting or convention or fancy party… something of that sort. The verb is very formal, but you’ll see it a lot in print. So it is worth remembering.

As a geek bonus, the verb form of the second kanji in「開催する」is 「催す」「もよおす」which means basically the same thing, to hold an event. You’ll probably hear this one on the news.

So, this spring Tsukashin has it’s one year anniversary! The “thank you one year anniversary fair” is now being held. I got this shot in Osaka, so anyone in the area, go check it out… Unless you’ve got better things to do… Which you probably do…

Bonus, on the bottom in fine print, the ad says…

「 感謝の気持ちを笑顔に込めて、みんなの楽しいをこれからも。」

Anyone have any questions about that phrase? If so I’ll do a follow-up post.

- Harvey