Somehow Becoming President
In one of my early German lessons, aged 11, I was charmed to make the discovery that meanings and words don't map neatly onto each other between languages. The trigger was learning that 'aber' and 'sondern' both meant 'but', in different senses. (For anyone unfamiliar with German, 'aber' is the 'I meant to come but the bus was late' sort of 'but', and 'sondern' is the 'He was not cruel but kind' variety.) Although not particularly interested in learning German as such, I was nevertheless intrigued by its ability to highlight semantic distinctions that English hid from me by lazily assigning just one word to a bunch of meanings. Other examples quickly followed, such as the different senses of 'new' implied by 'neuf' (brand new) and 'nouvelle' (new to the speaker). (Yes, I started learning French shortly after.)
I think that experience did a lot to heighten my awareness of semantic nuance generally. However, I quickly forgot both German and French for all practical purposes, though I'm trying to resuscitate the former a little while my Swiss-German lodger is here. (Meanwhile, the household alternates English days and Japanese days, with everyone - except Maisie, who speaks feline throughout - trying to communicate solely in one of those languages.)
Anyway, I just learned another nice example of the type. I'd been saying 'dou ni ka' for 'somehow', but yesterday Rei informed me that I should sometimes have been saying 'naze ka' instead. 'Dou ni ka' is 'somehow' where the outcome is due to one's efforts, as in 'The door was locked, but I somehow managed to get in through the window.' 'Naze ka' is 'somehow' in a more 'just winding up that way' sense, as in 'I left the pub, and somehow forgot my keys.'
This of course poses a question for translators. A sentence such as 'Donald Trump somehow became President' could plausibly be translated into Japanese either way. Someone sympathetic to Trump might choose 'dou ni ka' (suggesting that Trump managed it against the odds), but someone antipathetic might choose 'naze ka' (suggesting that the universe placed him in that position despite his evident unfitness for it). In English, both meanings crouch for employment, and we're quite unlikely even to notice that they pull in different directions.
I think that experience did a lot to heighten my awareness of semantic nuance generally. However, I quickly forgot both German and French for all practical purposes, though I'm trying to resuscitate the former a little while my Swiss-German lodger is here. (Meanwhile, the household alternates English days and Japanese days, with everyone - except Maisie, who speaks feline throughout - trying to communicate solely in one of those languages.)
Anyway, I just learned another nice example of the type. I'd been saying 'dou ni ka' for 'somehow', but yesterday Rei informed me that I should sometimes have been saying 'naze ka' instead. 'Dou ni ka' is 'somehow' where the outcome is due to one's efforts, as in 'The door was locked, but I somehow managed to get in through the window.' 'Naze ka' is 'somehow' in a more 'just winding up that way' sense, as in 'I left the pub, and somehow forgot my keys.'
This of course poses a question for translators. A sentence such as 'Donald Trump somehow became President' could plausibly be translated into Japanese either way. Someone sympathetic to Trump might choose 'dou ni ka' (suggesting that Trump managed it against the odds), but someone antipathetic might choose 'naze ka' (suggesting that the universe placed him in that position despite his evident unfitness for it). In English, both meanings crouch for employment, and we're quite unlikely even to notice that they pull in different directions.