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Why do translators do this?
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this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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That one just doesn't translate. They could make it San as mister. However they have like what, eight diffrent words like that? If reading it is a thing you want to do it's fair to learn the nuances between the diffrent forms of address and how they interact.
I think Kiyun is referring to {お兄さん|onīsan} (big brother), not {さん|san} (as an honorific). Big brother is a literal translation, but kinda weird to use in English since people usually refer to their siblings by name.
Nevertheless, their point about not translating is still often correct.
For instance, IIRC you can call middle aged adult men “uncle” even if they aren’t actually your uncle. I believe Chinese does this too.
Yep, men are oji-san, which is often shortened to ossan, women are oba-san, meaning uncle and aunt respectively.
Vaguely relatedly, in Finnish, the words setä (uncle) and täti (aunt) are used in children's talk to refer to unfamiliar adult men and women
Same thing in Russian/Ukrainian.
I wonder if this some specifically Eastern European thing. I'm pretty sure languages like German or Swedish just use their local equivalents of man/mister or lady
IIRC, many Asian languages also have this thing, although I don't remember which ones specificially.
well, Swedish children talk uses "tant" (lady) or "fröken" (miss) for women but "farbror" (paternal uncle) for men so it's probably random for every language
It doesn't surprise me the same convention is also used in Swedish since we share so much history and culture. It's interesting you still use "miss." Like 60 years ago even children would've used words like herra (mister/sir) rouva (mrs.) or neiti (miss) but those kinds of honorifics have basically disappeared entirely
TIL.
Interesting that there's a similar concept in Finnish and other languages.
Even in the English-speaking world unrelated close adult family friends can sometimes get called uncles or aunts, no? 🤔
That's kind of on the same wavelength
Yah. "Auntie" is especially common outside of WASP culture.
See, we are learning the nuanced this way. Turns out I don't know it