this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Ill start:

"Me cago en tus muertos" - ill shit all over your dead relatives. Spanish.

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[โ€“] Jamie@jamie.moe 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

While not my native language, in Japanese, many insulting things to call people are often translated as English curses, but actually are just increasingly disrespectful ways to refer to the listener. The actual translation for them is just "you" but not respectful. This might not be a complete list, but I got most of them at least.

Anata - Polite way of saying "you" but not often used in conversation except between spouses or lovers. It's preferred to use the listener's name instead.

Kimi - Rude in a polite setting, but not explicitly disrespectful, necessarily.

Omae - Now you're on the level of picking a fight, but good friends often use this for each other.

Temee - Extremely disrespectful

Kisama - Extremely disrespectful

Kono yarou - Extremely disrespectful

[โ€“] potterpockets@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it Japanese i am think of that has an exclusionary โ€œweโ€ form? Almost as in โ€œWe(all of US but not YOU) were invited to the party.โ€

[โ€“] Jamie@jamie.moe 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's correct, you can insult someone accidentally while complimenting them in a similar way. The particles ใฏ (as in wa) and ใŒ (ga) have different connotations that can simply different things.

So saying ใƒกใƒชใƒผใ•ใ‚“ใฎ้ก”ใฏใใ‚Œใ„ (Mary-san no kao wa kirei, "Mary has a beautiful face") causes an implication that Mary has a beautiful face, (... But nothing else about her is beautiful). Changing the ใฏ for ใŒ makes the statement come across as intended.

Without going into detail on the whole wa vs ga thing, wa is more like "as for x..." which can imply a "but..." at the end, whether stated or not, which causes this effect.

[โ€“] Natanael@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 year ago

Inverted "butterface"?

Thanks for the breakdown!

[โ€“] Herbstzeitlose@feddit.de 11 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clusivity

Many languages have that. Iโ€™m not familiar with Japanese, but itโ€™s not on that articleโ€™s list at least.

[โ€“] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I'm not a native speaker, but I've heard Japanese doesn't have any outright curses. That is, there are no words which are always bad, just bad in certain contexts.

Omae and Kisama were how one would refer to emperors. There are no more emperors so referring to someone that way is always sarcastic.

[โ€“] Nyla_Smokeyface@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know the word but there's one Japanese word that means "stupid" but is basically the equivalent to the r-word in English. It's banned from being said on Japanese television.

[โ€“] vashti@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago

The word you're probably thinking of is kichigai. But there are oceans of words that you can't use on TV in Japan as I understand it, and there have been since the 70s.

[โ€“] Jamie@jamie.moe 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yup, that's why I mentioned they were disrespectful, but are often translated as curses for English understanding.

[โ€“] Mothra@mander.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What about "baka" or "bakaro" whatever the difference is, which I've heard countless times translated as "idiot" in anime?

[โ€“] Jamie@jamie.moe 7 points 1 year ago

Baka and it's various forms are actually stupid, fool, idiot, and the like. Calling someone stupid is a pretty common way to insult them, so if you see that, it's probably pretty literal

[โ€“] Rouxibeau@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can be insulting or friendly banter depending on tone and context.

[โ€“] Mothra@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sort of like "bitch" in english or "boludo" in Argentina I take. But does baka really mean "someone of inferior intelligence" as "idiot" would suggest?

[โ€“] Rouxibeau@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Literally, yes.

[โ€“] kinttach@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago
[โ€“] vashti@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

m*nko begs to differ.

[โ€“] Suppoze@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

Really interesting. I watch anime occasionally and I've been wondering about this. But suddenly the dramatic shoutouts between the good guys and the big bad makes a little bit more sense.

I'd be glad to hear more examples!

[โ€“] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Omae wa mou shindeiru"

"NANI?!"