Specific Japanese Language Q: "Behind"

Factual Questions
1

I’ve come across something, a couple times, in English translations of Japanese poetry/song lyrics that has left me wondering if something has been lost in translation.

Specifically, the constructions “the behind” and “your [not “you’re”] behind”.

The first time I encountered this, it was in an 800-year-old poem that translated thusly:

To love someone who doesn’t love you
Is like going to a temple
And worshipping the behind
Of a statue of an angry devil

In that case, it was a native English speaker making the translation from Japanese to English.

More recently, I found an English translation of a song performed by a Japanese band, and found this line in the lyrics:

Sorrow in my head　Leave me alone-lone-lone
Clever-clever Missing your behind

In this case, the Japanese singer is actually singing in English, so she is a native Japanese speaker making the translation to English. (Though I didn’t realize she was singing in English until I followed along, reading the lyrics while listening. The vocals on the English parts are harsh and stylized.)

Here is a link to the full song lyrics, with the English translation side-by-side with the original kanji:

So, on to my question. Via context, in both instances “behind” reads to me to mean “ass”. Or, more politely, “backside”. In the poem, the poet seems somewhat bitter, comparing unrequited love to worshipping the ass of a statue of an angry devil. In the song, the singer is “missing your ass”. There are a few other instances where I’ve encountered this use of “behind”, but I don’t have them at hand.

I realize that it would be helpful to have the relevant kanji at hand, but, alas, I read the poem in a book I no longer own (it had the kanji along with the English translation). And, obviously, the writer of the song wrote that particular bit in English, so English is what appears in the Japanese version of the lyrics. I own the CD on which that song appears, and the CD booklet includes an insert with the lyrics translated into Korean, and I was hopeful that, perhaps, the Korean translation would also translate the English part into Korean, and maybe somebody knowledgable about both Japanese and Korean could help here, but, alas, the relevant bit is also printed in English on the Korean lyric sheet.

Are there any Japanese-English bilingual people here who might have some idea what’s going on with translation here? It boils down to this: A Japanese word that is consistently translated as “behind” in English, and in context seems to mean “ass/butt/bottom/backside/tush”. I’m wondering if something is being lost in the translation.

2

The former just means “ass” (or “arse” if you’re British), doesn’t it? Until someone who knows the original comes along, I’ll speculate that the translator just didn’t want to say “ass.”

The second one I can’t help you with, but I don’t think it’s the same.

3

For what it’s worth, the modern song in question seems to be (at least going by the video and the lyrics) sung from the perspective of a young woman who has just been dumped by her lover. There are two singers. The main singer seems to be expressing grief, while the second singer (the one who sings in English) seems to be expressing rage).

Here’s the video in question:

The blue-haired girl is the one singing in English.
4

There’s no reason to say that the lyrics are a ‘translation’ into English. Why do you say that? If one is bilingual, is one always translating, then? :dubious:
They are just English lyrics. Take them at face value, or don’t. There is no original source language to refer to.

Not helpful, but essential, to have the original text, if you want an accurate translation.

lol. dude. please. How would that help?

You’re confusing the fuck out of me.

5

Here’s what you are saying.

I like this Mexican singer. He sings this one song, and part of it goes like this:

“Shut your ass, and show me your behind”

Now, this part was in English, but I want to ask any Spanish speakers out there what he was talking about in original Spanish. I was hoping to find a Finnish translation to shed some light on the Spanish, but unfortunately the Finnish was in English too!

6

There is a word “oshiri” which is commonly used, and does not carry any vulgar overtones that we associate (or, I suppose now I should say “used to associate…”, …I am an older guy) in English with “ass” or “butt” and is also not perceived as a babyish or euphemsitic word like “bottom”, “tush” or “behind”.

It is a perfectly acceptable word to use in mixed company, with children, among adults, etc. No different from “hand” or “foot” in terms of impact.

The word “ketsu” is considered vulgar (equivalent to “ass”), not that you asked. I mention it only to emphasize that “oshiri” is the acceptable, polite choice.

So “behind” is the closest English translation that has the most equivalent neutral impact.

7

Another possibility that just dawned on me that might explain your confusion: You are maybe not familiar with “behind” being used as a term for “ass”? It might be an Americanism (I don’t know if you’re American or not), but I always thought it was a quite common term. But maybe it isn’t?

8

My WAG is that the second case is a mistranslation by the song writer. It seems more likely that the singer is missing her lover’s presence.

From the Japanese, わたしだけ残して (Only I’m left behind). My guess is that she wanted to say something like she wished her lover would also have remained (behind).

9

There are many cases in J-Pop where English words are used strictly as decoration. Someone who is a fan of the genre can help provide more examples, but I’ve run across it occasionally.

The trick would be to determine if this case is a translation error or decoration. My WAG is on the former, but YMMV.

10

“Behind” is still a euphemism. The only non-vulgar, acceptable-in-almost-any-situation slang English word (that I can think of at the moment) would be “butt”, which is simply a truncation of buttocks.

But yeh, that doesn’t really say anything regarding a Japanese translation, since “butt” is derived from the proper English term.

ETA: :smack: I now see you do mention “butt”. Ahh well. There’s also “rump”.

11

Yes, this was exactly what I was asking in my OP. I’m American, born and raised, and, as a fan and writer of erotic spanking fiction, am familiar with a multitude of words used to describe buttocks. Including some non-American words. But not the Japanese terms.

This actually makes more sense than my idea, at least for my second example. It suggests the lyric writer speaks English, but doesn’t have perfect command of the language. I encounter similar things all of the time with native Spanish speakers (from Mexico) who can communicate understandably in English, but occasionally apply Spanish grammar to their English, or substitute a similar, but not-quite-the-same English word because they don’t quite get the difference. For example, years ago I asked a Mexican customer, “May I help you find anything?” and he replied, “I am seeing only”. It took me a moment to realize he meant, “I’m just looking”.

Yeah, I’m familiar with J-Pop songs tossing in an English word, or occasionally a full sentence, but in this case it’s two entire verses in English, complete with deliberate stuttering on several initial consonants. So it feels to me as if the singer/writer had a good, but not complete understanding of English, and just did the best she could with the phrase in question.

12

Oops, and I misremembered the poem. The English translation should have been this:

“To love somebody who doesn’t love you
is like going to a temple
and worshipping the behind
of a wooden statue
of a hungry devil.”

Alas, this is the only “copy” of the poem that I’ve been able to find online, and it still doesn’t have the kanji with it, or even a romaji transliteration.

ETA: Success!

Ai omo wan
Hito wo omouwa
Odera wo
Gaki no shirie ni
Nukazuku gotoshi

13

The English transliteration is a little off but the original in Japanese is:
相思はぬ
人を思ふは
大寺の
餓鬼の後に
額づくごとし

The behind in this case is not “ass”. It indicates the position.

I’ve never heard a Japanese person use “behind” to refer to the ass. It’s just not common. Many Japanese think “hip” is ass, though.

14

Know know what you said　I’m in love love love
Never never nevermore stop stop stop
P-p-p-p-passing over　L-l-l-l-little longer
Just l-l-l-l-l-like a baby
Sorrow in my head　Leave me alone-lone-lone
Clever-clever Missing your behind　L-l-l-l-lie came closer
N-n-n-n-night is over　Is my pain healed as time goes by

It’s all perfect pop-song English. No grammatical or semantic errors. I don’t see any reason to be ungenerous and assume an error.

15

May I assume that you are a native Japanese speaker? Based upon your user name? You were rather ungenerous in your previous replies; I did not intend to be insulting when I mentioned that I hoped for a Korean translation of the English bits. I fully understand that the spoken languages of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (and the different dialects spoken in each country) are not the same. But I also understand that Japanese kanji and the written version of Korean are both based upon Chinese characters (and, although I do not understand any of those languages, aside from a handful of words and phrases), I can visually distinguish between the written versions of each language. Japanese kanji looks much like Chinese, but Chinese does not use the character の。And written Korean has its own distinctive look, with a lot of little circles. But both are still, to my understanding, based upon Chinese characters.

That said, when I was hoping for a Korean translation of the English lyrics, I was hoping for some “triangulation”, for lack of a better term. If the English lyrics had been translated into Korean, my hope was that somebody might recogonize the Korean character and be able to work backwards and identify which Japanese character might have been intended.

Your earlier references to Spanish and Finnish in relation to English were a bit off the mark. While English is technically a “Germanic” language, the truth is that it is a “bastard” language. To quote a fellow English speaker, “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” – James D. Nicoll

I can find similarities between English and Spanish, but very little between English and Finnish. Finnish is in an entirely different language group. Finnish is as alien to me as Chinese. And one of my favorite bands, Nightwish, is from Finland (though they do sing in English, for the record).

All that said, the phrase, “Missing your behind” still leaves me wondering what was meant.

16

Nah, I’m just a white boy. But I’m also a linguist who has been living in Japan for more that 15 years and am pretty profficient in Japanese. I’m also experienced in translation matters. I’m sorry if I came across as rash or dismissive. My fault.

The relationship between chinese characters in Chinese, in Japanese and, to the extent that it exists, in Korean, is murky and tenuous and best left alone. Seriously. Unless you are an expert, don’t go there.

There is only the English phrase “Clever-clever Missing your behind　L-l-l-l-lie came closer”. That is the original text. If someone translates that to Korean then all you end up with is that individual translator’s interpretation of English to Korean. Which you would then translate to Japanese…to get…who knows?? It’s classic game of Chinese whispers. :stuck_out_tongue: (apologies to my Chinese brothers!)

No, I was Spot. On.

Japanese and Korean are not related languages.

Welcome to the wonderful world of ‘wondering what the hell those lyrics mean’. Unless the lyricist comes out and tells you, then it’s anyone’s guess. Hell, under postmodernist theory, even if the lyricist tells you what it means, it doesn’t means that.

17

Yes, I know that. But, like English and Finnish, the two languages use the same “alphabet”, with modifictations.

18

No they don’t. Korean uses Hangul, and Japanese uses a mix of Kana and Kanji. It’s true that Korea has Hanja, but it’s not used in the same way Kanji is at all. To see the difference, take a look at this Korean language Newspaper, compared to this Japanese one. The Japanese one is about 75-80% Chinese Characters whereas that Korean one has zero, as far as I can tell.

Korean does use Chinese characters occasionally, and AFAIK about 1800 are taught in schools, but I believe they’re almost exclusively used for stylistic reasons or in certain fossilized places. (For instance, you can see the Hanja 甲on the cover of Gangnam Style, but if you look at the lyrics it’s all Hangul and English).

Edit: In fact, from what I understand, Hangul was explicitly invented (albeit centuries ago), to deliberately move away from Chinese characters.

19

Because the number of J-Pop song writers in Japan speaking English fluently can be counted on less than one finger?

20

Thanks, I stand corrected. I must have misunderstood something I read on the topic, and ended up with the impression that Hangul was simply a modification of Chinese characters.