Moon ultra parking
« previous post | next post »
From Tarashare:
The Japanese (all in kanji) reads:
tsukigime chūsha boshūchū
月極駐車募集中
"Applications sought for monthly parking (permits)"
If you want to figure out how the mistranslation occurred, consider the meanings of the seven characters
1. 月
moon; month; Mon(day)
2. 極
ridgepole; ridgepiece
highest position; top rank
throne; seat of state
highest point; top; peak
extremity; limit; end; utmost point
extreme; of the highest degree; utmost; furthest; final
extremely; exceedingly; very
highest norm; highest standard
(geography, physics) pole
(astronomy) Polaris
quindecillion(1048)
to reach (the limit or standard)
to exhaust; to do one's utmost
to study deeply; to examine deeply
3. 駐
(of troops, diplomats) to be stationed; to be posted
to halt; to stop
to park
4. 車
car
machine
vehicle
lathe
rook
castle
wheeled machine
5. 募
raise
recruit
collect
enlist
6. 集
set
collection
volume
anthology
collect
gather
7. 中
in
during
among
within
amid
amidst
in the process of
in the course of
medium
central
mean
middle
center
mid
There are so many ways to mistranslate between languages, even when you know all the words in the source language and the target language. The same holds for misreading and miswriting.
When I was teaching at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan in 1970-72, I had an extraordinary student whom I referred to as a "walking dictionary". He could recite the definition for almost any English word that I threw at him. I honestly thought that he must have memorized an entire English dictionary. Yet he was probably the worst in the class when it came to composing English sentences. He was very poor both at speaking and at writing in English. He had no sense of grammar or syntax. Teaching him was so frustrating that it was actually funny.
(Source)
[Thanks to Frank Chance]
Krogerfoot said,
December 22, 2019 @ 7:06 pm
Google Translate renders the block as "under recruitment of monthly parking," and looking up the vocabulary separately would get you 月極 "monthly" 駐車 "parking" and 募集中 "recruiting," all three of which terms very often appear as katakana with no further glossing in Japanese contexts. マンスリー is widely understood to mean "monthly" in terms such as マンスリーマンション mansurii manshon "monthly apartment (monthly-lease housing)", and パーキング paakingu is part of "parking meter," which has no native Japanese equivalent in use. リクルティング/リクルート rikurutingu/rikuruuto might be harder to parse, since it's exclusively used in the corporate sense, as in リクルートスーツ rikuruuto suutsu "recruit suit," the obligatory basic-black suit that young men and women wear when interviewing for their first job. マンスリー and パーキング have been in use since 1914 and 1932 respectively, according to their entries in 日本国語大辞典.
I have a theory that some of the most egregious mistranslations actually come from outside of Japan. As with 大葉 being rendered as "Aunt Perilla" in this post last year, this kind of mistranslation is distinct from the ones you see every day in Japan, as if the person who first attempted the translation did not understand Japanese well enough to look it up properly. Since a lot of things in Japan are printed or manufactured in China, it doesn't strike me as far-fetched to imagine that boilerplate translations might originate there.
Jim Breen said,
December 22, 2019 @ 7:09 pm
Such kanji-by-kanji translations are not common in Japan, as most literate Japanese people would see this as 月極 + 駐車 + 募集 + 中 and translate it accordingly:
月極 paying by the month
駐車 parking
募集 invitation; taking applications
中 in the course of
Google's "Monthly parking wanted" doesn't quite get the message across.
Krogerfoot said,
December 22, 2019 @ 7:30 pm
Also worth noting, there's speculation online that the parking sign post is a Photoshop hoax, although I can confirm the existence of the Aunt Perilla seed package.
https://seedsfornews.com/2019/12/post-4254/
Krogerfoot said,
December 22, 2019 @ 9:51 pm
One commenter on the page linked in the post notes that an identical photo has been circulating since 2015. It came up again in 2018 on Twitter, reposted by a now-deactivated account. The English-language tabloid site Sora News 24 picked it up and added a number of wholly made-up details nowhere in evidence in the Twitter post and incorrectly claims that Excite JP's online JP/EN dictionary comes up with the same mistranslation*. In the more recent Facebook post, the location of the sign is now claimed to be the National Stadium in Tokyo, perhaps to better make the point that Japan is not ready to host the Olympics again next year.
The sign doesn't look obviously photoshopped, but it's interesting at least to see how false information accretes on images like this until they take on a life of their own.
* The commenter input the wacky English phrase into the portal and jokingly notes that the Japanese translation is correct; though it actually still comes out "Moon extreme parking is being sought," it's easy to miss the extra character in "extreme" and read it to mean what the sign is really saying, "Now accepting applications for monthly parking [permits]."
Carl said,
December 22, 2019 @ 11:46 pm
FWIW, when I lived in Japan next to a monthly rate parking lot, it took me a long time (a year?) to interpret the sign correctly. I believe I misinterpreted it as being named Moonpole Parking Co or some such.
Josh R said,
December 23, 2019 @ 12:00 am
"FWIW, when I lived in Japan next to a monthly rate parking lot, it took me a long time (a year?) to interpret the sign correctly. I believe I misinterpreted it as being named Moonpole Parking Co or some such."
Comedian George Tokoro joked about that in one of his shows, saying, "Having traveled all across Japan, I've found that that Gekkyoku parking lot franchise is everywhere."
unekdoud said,
December 23, 2019 @ 6:38 am
Apparently 極 in this context is 極め, referring to a contract or agreement. Surprise, it's none of the 14 meanings listed above!
Jeffrey said,
December 23, 2019 @ 6:48 am
@Josh R
Comedian George Tokoro joked about that in one of his shows, saying, "Having traveled all across Japan, I've found that that Gekkyoku parking lot franchise is everywhere."
Yes, like traveling on the Autobahn and wondering why so many German towns have the name Ausfahrt. And then wondering who would name their town "Out-fart"?
Victor Mair said,
December 23, 2019 @ 8:42 am
tangorin online dictionary
月極【tsukigime つきぎめ・gekkyoku げっきょくirr.】月極め・月決め・月ぎめ【tsukigime つきぎめ】
noun / ~の noun:
monthly contract; paying by the month
月極駐車場【tsukigimechuushajou つきぎめちゅうしゃじょう】月極め駐車場
jisho online dictionary
gime
ぎ 極め
Noun, Noun – used as a suffix
1. contracted regular payment, e.g. monthly, weekly, etc.; by the (month, week, etc.) Usually written using kana alone, See also 月極め, See also 日極め
Other forms
決め 【ぎめ】
つきぎめ 月極
Noun, No-adjective
1. monthly contract; paying by the month
Other forms
月極め 【つきぎめ】、月決め 【つきぎめ】、月ぎめ 【つきぎめ】、月極 【げっきょく】
Notes
げっきょく: Irregular kana usage.
つきぎめちゅうしゃじょう 月極駐車場
Noun
1. parking lot rented on a monthly basisSee also 月極め
Other forms
月極め駐車場 【つきぎめちゅうしゃじょう】
Josh R said,
December 25, 2019 @ 2:41 am
"Apparently 極 in this context is 極め, referring to a contract or agreement. Surprise, it's none of the 14 meanings listed above!"
Yeah, the preferred kanji for contract and agreements is 決め (with the helpful okurigana). The use of 極 for きめる is an old one, from before the war (it shows up in a Soseki novel), and now survives almost purely in the compound 月極, itself which is used almost purely in the parking lot context. It's so unusual that it can trip up regular Japanese folk, and the Windows IME helpfully offers a pointer to 月極 when "gekkyoku" is entered (despite "gekkyoku" not being a valid reading).