Japanese Ranguage: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:picture 47 7213.jpg|link=The Flash|frame|In a fit of cosmic [[Irony|ilony]], the editol who [[Clue From Ed|inselted this footnote]] was kirred by a holde of loving [[ninja]]s the vely next day.]]

 

{{quote|'' 'L's and 'R's: It's a 50/50 [[Cricket|bat (sic)]] and they ALWAYS get it wrong!.''|'''[[Stephen Fry]]''', ''[[Quite Interesting|QI]]''}}

 

Ret's keep the obvious and numelous erectolar jokes to a minimum, sharr we?

----

 

* Luchia and Rina from ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' are sometimes called Ruchia and Lina.

** Madame Butterfly has had her real name transliterated as "Lanuha," "Ranfa," and others.

* Need we mention Ravi/Labi/Rabi/Lavi from [[D/Gray-Man]]? Even the official publishers don't know how to translate this guy's name!

* On the same note, Maito Guy/Might Guy/Mighty Guy/Maito Gai/[[Accidental Innuendo|Mighty Gay]] from [[Naruto]].

* The Funimation dub of ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' gives this, naturally, to Japan. And seems to make a point of giving him the opportunity to exclaim "I can't berieve zis!"

* The B-V version of this trope is probably the reason [[Black Lagoon]]'s female lead is nicknamed "Revy." "Reby" would be a more natural shortening of "Rebecca," but "Revy" is the official translation for some reason. Possibly because it looks and sounds cooler. "Levy" also crops up in some translations.

* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam AGE]]'' has been using English words for the [[Mecha Expansion Pack]]s the AGE Gundams use throughout the series: AGE-1 Titus, AGE-2 Double Bullet, AGE-3 Fortress, etc. Most of them have been translated fine, except for the AGE-1's close-combat high-speed form: the AGE-1 "Spallow" (presumably meant to be "Sparrow").

 

* Voltaire's (not ''that'' [[Voltaire]]) comic ''Deady Big in Japan'' features this, for the most part in lieu of actually speaking Japanese. It even lampshades it, when they refer to a "Escuratuh Attendent" and the bottom says "Escalator Attendant, for those who don't speak Japanese". Of course, he's pretty good about getting the accent right, instead of just replacing Ls and Rs, still.

* ''[[American Born Chinese]]'' is a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang that features Chin-Kee, a hollibel Chinese steleotype who tarks rike this.

* Every Asian in ''[[Mortadelo Y Filemon]]'' (And most stuff from Spain for that matter) speaks with the "L in place of R" variety, regardless of their country of origin. Then again, they look so [[Ethnic Scrappy|racistically caricaturesque]] it's almost fitting.

 

 

* Kim Jong-Il in ''[[Team America: World Police]]'' talks like this, as emphasized in his song "I'm so ronery".

* ''[[A Christmas Story]]'': "Tis the season to be jorry. Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra, ra, ra"

** May be a [[Lampshading]], since the old Asian man immediately yells at them, "Not 'ra-ra-ra-ra' -- falalalala!", and gives up when they fail to get it right.

** They may have been simply jerking their boss's chain for the Parker family's amusement. They do immediately switch to another L-heavy carol, rather than something else.

* Referenced in ''[[Lost in Translation (film)|Lost in Translation]]'' (Charlotte asks, "Why do they switch the R's and the L's?"), and briefly used ("Lip my stockings!").

* ''[[Back to The Future Part II]]'': In 2015, Marty McFly is shown to be working for a Mr. [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|Fujitsu]], who pronounces his name as "Mock-Fry".

* ''[[The Last Samurai]]'' has Algren's new hosts struggling to pronounce his surname.

 

* In ''[[Good Omens]]'', Newt Pulsifer has a car called a Wasabi, an early example of Japanese car manufacturing. And it talks, and actually shoehorns Ls and Rs in where neither belongs:

{{quote|"Prease to frasten sleat-bert."}}

* Henry Beard's ''Latin for All Occasions'' is basically a phrasebook for those times when you need to speak classical Latin. For times when you're in a Chinese restaurant, he helpfully translates "Do you have 'flied lice'? Ha ha ha!" as "Habesne olyziam flictam? Hae hae hae!"

 

* ''[[The Odd Couple]]'': The boys befriend a Chinese wrestler (Jack Soo) who brings Felix and Oscar Jewish takeout- "chopped river", "rox" and "bager and cleam cheese".

* ''[[Seinfeld]]'': Jerry's girlfriend, Donna Chang (who changed her last name from "Changstein" and is from Long Island and very occidental), says "ridicurous".

* In the pilot of ''[[Modern Family]]'', Mitchell and Cam introduce their adopted Vietnamese daughter, who they've named Lily. Dimbulb Phil thinks she'll have trouble saying that name.

 

* The final gig of [[X Japan]]'s 2010 North American Tour happened to be located at the Roseland Ballroom in [[Big Applesauce|New York City.]] [[Yoshiki Hayashi]] had to talk about this in a promotional clip. The result? ROWSWAND BAWWROOM, MOTHERFUCKER!

* [[Gackt]]'s recent tour is named YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz. Or, as Gackt calls it, "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lQLW7D95Zo YELLOW FLIED CHICKINZ]."

** Fans have started referring to the concert as "[[Memetic Mutation|Yellow Fudge Cakes]]" after Gackt's...''interesting'' pronunciation.

* [[Rucka Rucka Ali]] (pronounced in the song as "Rucka Rucka Ari") is intentionally making fun of the various Asian stereotypes in "Ching Chang Chong".

 

 

* Japan has a particular fondness for the Dullahan, an Irish legendary spirit who's similar to the Headless Horseman. However, there's a tendency to mistranslate its name back as ''Durahan.'' The ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' series and ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' are among the series to bear Durahans where they realy should have Dullahans.

** [[Vagrant Story]] uses both spellings inconsistently, depending on whether you're fighting the Dullahan or looking him up in the bestiary.

*** Also, check the ''[[Durarara!!]]'' example in the Anime/Manga section.

 

 

 

 

* Christmas Eve speaks like this in ''[[Avenue Q]]'', plus idiosyncratic grammar. Her pronunciation of "recyclables" as something along the lines of "lee-psych-er-a-burrs" is incomprehensible to anyone but her husband. One of her songs is "The More You Ruv Someone (The More You Wanna Kirrem)."

** Steleotypicer, but rike she says, "Evelyone's a ritter bit lacist!"

'''"Irish" Girl''': Ellin go blah. }}

 

* Rin and Len from ''[[Vocaloid]]'' are sometimes mistaken for Lin and Ren. Luka is also sometimes called Ruka.

** Miriam's genderbend is called William. In English, the two names don't seem to rhyme (genderbend names are usually supposed to rhyme with their real counterparts), but since the Japanese pronounce Miriam ''"miriamu"'' and William ''"uiriamu"'', they do actually rhyme.

** ''[[Persona 2]]: Eternal Punishment'' has the same problem with a spell: Lily's Jail or Release Jail?

* [[Truth in Television]]: The endings to many Japanese-developed video games of the '80s and '90s managed to misspell "congratulations" along these lines. "Congraturation" was probably the most common, perhaps most famously in ''Stop The Express'' and ''[[Ghosts 'n Goblins|Ghosts N Goblins]]''; "conglaturation" showed up in the ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' NES game; and ''Ninja Kid II'', a.k.a. ''Rad Action'', even managed to misspell it "[http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/arcade/b/rada.htm conglatullations]". See also [[A Winner Is You]].

** ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' for the Master System, while generally better than the NES game, had Gozer's name transliterated as "Gorza".

** Similarly, ''[[Samurai Shodown]] 4'' <s>conglaturated</s> <s>congraturated</s> congratulated the battle winner with a message of "VICTOLY!"

** Also crops up in anime sometimes, though a little differently. On more than one occasion screens had announced missile lock with '[http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/show/337493/cap-engrish-g_gundam-gundam-gundam_rose-mecha-rang Rock On],' unintentionally invoking [[The Power of Rock|a different trope]] at the same time.

*** Video games have done that too: in one of the ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' arcade games, Wily telegraphs an attack with [[Crosshair Aware|a moving crosshair]] that adds a small "ROCK ON!" label shortly before firing. Unless it turns out to be a pun on the protagonist's Japanese name.

** An interesting example exists in [[Guilty Gear]], where the special blocking technique that avoids chip damage but uses up the super bar can be transliterated as Faultless Defense or Fortress Defense, both of which describe the technique accurately. Also, a variant of an [[Animation Cancel]] move that requires super bar energy can be either False Roman Cancel (False because it resembles the real one but uses half as much energy) or Force Roman Cancel (an FRC can always be used, even if your attack misses, while a regular RC can only be used if you make contact).

* The name ''[[Gradius]]'' was a transriteration of "Gladius". In the arcade version of ''[[Wonder Boy in Monster Land]]'', the sword you start the game with is called the "gradius".

** Some sources call the fourth boss of ''Gradius IV'' "Belial", while the manual for the [[PlayStation 2]] [[Compilation Rerelease]] calls it "Viral", and the Shadow Gear is called "Club" (Crab) in some Japanese material.

* [[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots|Didyourikeit?]]

** [[Memetic Mutation|!]]

** And in a strange aversion, in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' [http://kotaku.com/5844190/what-osama-bin-laden-and-metal-gear-solid-have-in-common Kojima confirmed] that the spelling/writing of Raiden's name was changed so that this would not transliterate his name into (bin) Laden, as the game was released shortly after September 11, 2001.

* ''[[Touhou]] 12.8: Fairy Wars'' has one of the more amusing instances of this, as the accompanying English translation for the final battle music with the intended [[Title Drop]] is written as "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuK87fEVg0I Faily Wars]".

* The early ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' games had an enemy named Zola, which was changed to Zora in later games.

* ''Vowels'' are not exempt from this in Japanese, most especially the 'u' as pronounced in words like "bug" or "slug". In every ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' game prior to VIII, Bubble Slimes were referred to as Babbles. In ''[[Mega Man 2]]'', one Robot Master is variably called either Clash Man or Crash Man, and many believe the actual name was intended to be ''Crush'' Man.

* There is a Famicom game titled ''The Triathron''.

 

* On [[Nigahiga]], Hanate (played by Ryan) from "How to be Ninja" and "Skitzo" speaks with this accent.

* In [[Greek Ninja]], both Kana and Yamauchi-sensei say "haro" instead of "hello" when they first speak.

 

* Nute Gunray in ''[[Darths and Droids]]''.

{{quote|''As you know, our brocade is perfectly regal.''}}

* Heiwa from ''[[Universal Compass]]''

 

* In one episode of ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'', Grace Ryan goes undercover as a Japanese woman and takes it [[Up to Eleven]] with this trope, actually replacing her L's with W's more than R's.

* There was an extended joke in ''[[Drawn Together]]'' about this and driving, with a quote going something like:

** Also done in the appropriately-named episode "The Chinese P'''r'''ob'''r'''em", where [[Jerkass|Cartman]] and Butters are infiltrating PF Chang's to find out the Chinese invasion plans. Cartman instructs Butters that all he needs to do is squint and say "Herro, prease" to pass off as a Chinaman. Needless to say, the real Chinese people aren't impressed.

 

 

* Used for humor in the title of [http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02070/ this track] from [[OverClocked Remix]].

* When Douglas MacArthur was considering running for President, a sign erected by Japanese citizens in Tokyo read: "We pray for MacArthur's erection."

 

{{reflist}}