Glossary entry (derived from question below)
Japanese term or phrase:
可憐な
English translation:
cute, lovely
Added to glossary by
Marina Dolinsky (X)
Mar 10, 2010 17:06
14 yrs ago
Japanese term
可憐な
Japanese to English
Other
Botany
The name of the plant
日本一高い場所にある湖・御釜は、直径300mのカルデラ湖。コバルト色の湖面は太陽移動に伴って1日に何度か色が変わります。周辺には**可憐な**高山植物も.
Proposed translations
(English)
4 | cute | yonedatransterp |
3 +1 | lovely | Su Hong |
3 -1 | hyacinth | Deborah Edwards |
Proposed translations
20 mins
Selected
cute
...or beautiful. Either works, but it means something along the lines of cute and delicate.
Note from asker:
Thank you. I also translate it as cute but my client said that it is the name of the plant. |
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you so much."
-1
3 hrs
hyacinth
Kenkyusha Dictionary says that 可憐な means "hyacinthine" or "hyacinthian" ie "like a hyacinth." Surely this is too great a coincidence to be overlooked...
(I'm not sure whether you will be able to access the link as I have a paid subscription to Kenkyusha)
Anyway, hope this helps!
(I'm not sure whether you will be able to access the link as I have a paid subscription to Kenkyusha)
Anyway, hope this helps!
Peer comment(s):
disagree |
humbird
: Elevation of Mt. Zao is 1840. Hardly a hyacinth's habitat. http://www.hanwa.ne.jp/100mountains/18.html. Moreover Japanese name for this plant is ヒヤシンス (phonetical adaptation), nowhere near 可憐な.
2 hrs
|
Thank you, humbird. Of course, 可憐なon its own cannot refer to a noun. I thought that 可憐な植物 might be a name, though, as flower names can be unusual. However, I accept your argument that it is unlikely "hyacinth" is what is being referred to here.
|
+1
11 hrs
lovely
かわいらしいの意味です。
Discussion
My client admitted her mistake. 可憐なis an adjective that means cute, pretty, or similar. Thank you every one for participation in this discussion.
Sorry to abandon the discussion. I went to New Zealand on Thurs and only just got back. Yoneda-san, thank you for pointing out my mistake. I thought that the picture in the link was actually a flower (and hypothesized that the name was "Karenna Shokubutsu" as the writer used parentheses). On closer inspection of the picture, I can see that it is not a flower. My apologies for leading the discussion awry...:-)
Thank you for the answers and participation is this discussion.
I suppose that my client is 99% native Japanese however she didn't do any explanation regarding the sentence except of saying that 可憐な should be the name of a plant.
So I have send her a request for more explanation with a link to this discussion.
Now I am waiting for her reply.
どうぞ、よろしくお願いいたします。
But I don't think that the plant mentioned in the blog may be found in Japanese Alps.
http://www.nannoki-garden.com/blog/2009/09/post-37.php
check it out. I hope that helps. But really, this isn't the job of a translator. Especially when the client is asking the absurd. (Damnit Jim, I'm a Linguist, not a Botanist!)
日本一高い場所にある湖・御釜は、直径300mのカルデラ湖。コバルト色の湖面は太陽移動に伴って1日に何度か色が変わります。周辺には可憐な高山植物も。