Since this was being discussed in another thread where it was totally off-topic, I think it's time for it to have its own thread. Here we discuss the word "hentai" (and "ecchi"), and the difference in meaning between the original Japanese words and the English usage of them.
> where the male character stumbles upon the half naked girl, he gets told by the girl he's a hentai.
this is from a country that likes its porn full of "no! it hurts! please stop raping me!"...
In other news, when Google ads see the words "happy sex" it shows ads about sexual abuse... http://humblefool.net/happy/src/1122774573270.png
o_O
You're welcome to edit the page with your superior knowledge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_Romaji
> Double (or "geminate") consonants are marked by doubling the consonant following the っ, except for sh→ssh, ch→tch, ts→tts..
In practice, if you search Google on words other than "ecchi", (such as "acchi" vs. atchi", "kocchi" vs. "kotchi") you find that both are in use. "cchi" is actually w?puro and not Hepburn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W?puro_r?maji
> W?puro-style representation of long vowels is popular with non-Japanese fans of anime and other aspects of Japanese culture who are unfamiliar with (or unable to type) more formal romanization methods, as well as people who like the fact that it more closely reflects the Japanese kana orthography.
> [...] The Hepburn spelling tchi for っち may be rejected, and cchi must be used instead.
That is to say, your IME doesn't know correct romanization.
> Hentai is not only a cursing word.
> Hentai: transformation, metamorphosis, abnormality, pervert.
> Metamorphosis seems to be a valid word, maybe used by entomologists.
The "metamorphosis" usage is far less common, and probably not well-known to the general populance. Do you know that "orphan" in English can mean a single line of text from a paragraph that has been split to another page from the rest of the paragraph? A lot of fairly common words have specialized meanings that are only used in jargon. It has very little to do with common usage, and isn't an argument in this particular discussion.
> So who am I to believe? Those proclaimed (male?) Japanese language experts who claim that hentai is a horrible, horrible term that no one has the right to use, or plain evidence from countless anime and games?
I think you'll notice (see >>4 and >>13) and so on that the people saying it's weird are Japanese speakers, not "proclaimed Japanese language experts". It's not that it's a horribly rude word, it's just that it has strong negative connotations and using it in a neutral (or positive, like on a porn site advertising it has LOTS AND LOTS OF HENTAI!) way is very, very strange and creates a whole lot of cognitive dissonance.
Looks like Safari fails at using unicode entities. Here's a fixed link to the waapuro page:
"Wāpuro rōmaji"! Aahh the horror, the horror.... those accents...
Somebody, please shoot with a water pistol the guy who thought accents on Japanese words were a good idea. >_<
[Duh! Why is this board not remembering my tripcode but remembering my name?!]
They're "macrons", actually. Like it or not, it's the closest to an official standard there is. Personally I tend to use waapuro too, although I am not hardcore enough to write "Sakura-tann" like some people actually do. Eh, the hell with it, let's all use Kunrei-siki! Etti!
And I don't like "waapuro roomaji" either.
And "wapuro romaji" will fail in a word processor, tho it would be my best choice in an English conversation.
There should have been another system, using the dash: "wa-puro ro-maji".
>>35
You can use "n'" in a word processor to get the n to complete.
From the wiki article: "Syllabic n, ん, is often entered as nn, although the standard n' is usually also accepted."
I just tried it, it works. Waha chan'!
The other lazy way is to leave the n unfinished. わはちゃｎ！ Tho, this is for the Japanese.
Hah! 'n"' works as well.
Now I understand why I sometimes see dangling '"'s at the end of some sentences.
Waha chan"!
Well, romanization issues aside, what about the rest of >>32?
My stance is that any system that isn't practical in a word processor is useless.
I'm not going to try to learn a method that has no practical implications.
Huh, a porn site advertising "lots and lots of hentai" is perfect terminology IMO. It means it's full of low res, pixellated, cropped, out of order, out of date, sig-removed, mis-labelled drawings. It means "stay the hell out of this place, you would have to be a masochist to pay for this quality". As masochism is a form of perversion, it fits.
It's my understanding that language's purpose is for two people to communicate something otherwise unfamiliar to one of them using familiar terms.
It's pretty hard to describe the power that inflection and situation have over Japanese, especially when you try to explain it using English to a native English speaker which focuses much more on the actual word itself.
The right mix of inaccesibility to information at the time, combined with a desire to fill a previously unnoticed gap in the language is probably to blame for all this. Most of the meanings for Hentai in the west that I can recall were derived right as the internet was exploding back before the Olympics in Atlanta....er 1996... and when fledgling domestic publishers were releasing stuff to vhs & ld.
It actually makes perfect sense, now that i think about it... Since 'cartoon' is a sacred cow in that it carries some kind of inherant 'kiddie' connotation, it is never used by supposed 'hard core' fans to describe anime (some even taking offense at it.) So then, it would carry even worse connotation to say "cartoon porn" to most people because of the kiddie taint the word cartoon has. And since language tends to favour the shortest form to explain something, '18 and older' would never catch on just because its a pain to write or say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_drift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon
It does make sense that people would like to have a word like "hentai", but it would have been a lot better if people had settled on a word that made sense to the japanese, too. For instance, just "H anime".
Actually, that might have been what people did, and then everybody wondered what "H" meant, and somebody dug out the old explanation that it is short for "hentai", even though that is really not significant in any way any longer, and everybody latched on to it. Oh well.
>It's pretty hard to describe the power that inflection and situation have over Japanese
Heheh... I was thinking, it would amusing to have a full episode of Ah_My_Goddess using only two sentences:
"Keiichi-san?"
"Belldandy?"
"Keiichi-san..."
"Belldandy!"
"Keiichi-san...!"
"Belldandy...?!?"
"Keiichi-san!!!"
"Belldandy!!!"
already reminds me of the Inuyasha bumper on CN...
KANEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAasumimasen....
>>On the one hand, I always find it funny when otaku incorrectly use or abuse the language of the culture that they spend every cell in their body blindly admiring.
What was this supposed to be?
>>49: A dig at your everyday half-assed otaku. What did you think it was supposed to be?
oh well. Language is a living thing, and when it becomes more convenient to communicate an idea in a certain way, then it will be a new definition, fo shizzle.
or another example in cars. In many countries other than US, 4wd is a popular option, where power is transferred to all wheels when one slips. But in US thats called AWD, and 4wd instead refers to locked differentials where all 4 wheels turn at the same speed always(like big trucks).
or in wrestling, how WWF would call a 'frankensteiner' a "hurricanrana" so they didn't have to acknowledge a WCW star. But even in Japan its a frankensteiner.
I think in this case its more important to be correct not for the sake of being correct, but for the sake of being innocuos.
because Pantsu is not Pants.
Why? What you foreigners call 'Hentai' is hentai itself.
It is ridiculously, vacuously true. You know, it is this fact that 'Hentai' is nothing else than hentai which has gotten some Japanese who imagine thir own country culturally youthful and flawless, no inferior than the western. That's the point of this discussion and nothing else.
Gooooogle hits 2000,000 Hentai.
I don't know good English word to... Didn't learn at school cursing vocabulary...
In everyday Japanese, Pantsu means pants now (as a fashion term).
Because the word Zubon is outdated & considered 'dasai', we can't but say Pantsu.
To say Pantsu to designate Pantsu would be regarded unfashionable, or, as if a girl was avoiding the too much pretty word, 'Pantii'.
I don't use the word Ecchi without verbalizing it. Ecchi-suru, i.e., sleep with some one (generally 2nd person). Say it cool, "Kon'ya, Ecchi-suru?" And she will reply, "Mmmmm, Ecchi nandakara..." Ecchi is a cute joking word, one of the most gentle words in modern Japanese. Almighty word. By no way harmful.
We don't say hentai-suru...
Hentai is the word for a girl, in elementary school, who is upskirted. "...kun, hentaaai! Kimoooi!"
No one who already knows another scientific meaning ever uses this word in this sense. By the way, kimoi (short for kimochi-warui) is the best word to knock down a Japanese (male/female). You can omit the last i. "Kimo!" And s/he will never call you again.
Analysis.
Hentai is old Chinese origin word (Kango) & unconsciously sounds intellectual and schoolish.
Ecchi is English word (...yes. English.) & sounds blondy.
No one knows the etimology of Ecchi. It is from Japanese biggest dictionary (kojien) that Ecchi was an acronym for hentai in a high society girls' highschool, long ago, when there was still a kind of high society in Japan.
No doubt English Hentai will be readapted into Japanese.
Few Japanese read Harry Potter, Sci-Fi, Load of the Ring, American comics, fanfics, &c.
It is like Sakoku again. & westerners appreciate with their culturalized and historical and equality-minded objective eye Ukiyoe (manga).
I am not proud of our manga... Cuz would be nationalidiotic. But it is the BEST art form we have by now.
Sorry, I was forced to state all about the subconsciousness of japanese feels.
Hobby is hobby & don't take it hard!
I have heard it said that "ecchi" is how the Japanese pronounce the letter "H", as in "hentai".
>>54 Yeah, language changes over time, in any country.
I remember reading that saitei [最低] was the worst insult ever. Then it was overused and lost its punch. Nowadays it's not so much used and doesn't have the same power anymore.
>"ecchi" is how the Japanese pronounce the letter "H"
True.
>"H", as in "hentai"
Maybe, maybe not. "The validity of this claim is currently being challenged." :)
As a non-involved observer I think it's very obvious it's the H of Hentai, but because the Japanese love (and use) so much the word "ecchi", they refuse to admit the two are related until overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As >>54-san pointed out, ecchi and hentai are currently virtually opposed concepts, despite having possibly a common origin. I'd say they are the two faces of the same coin, one is ugly and the other one is pretty.
The point, though, is that it doesn't matter if that's the origin, since the use has drifted far enough for the possible connection to be irrelevant to anybody but linguists. It is only interesting to people as trivia, as a "wow, who'd have thought?" kind of observation.
> love (and use) so much the word [...] they refuse to admit the two are related until overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Is that a reiteration of the "lolicon means pedophile" argument, or am I reading too much into it?
>>61
You mean those ones who are in denial about being branded a lolicon despite having tons of h-games of very young girls in sexual situations? Yeah, it looks like it's the same kind of reasoning. The words carry a large amount of shame and therefore accepting the labels would be tantamount to a confession of guilt - but they don't feel guilty! "Well, just a little... but it's a guilty pleasure, so it can't be that bad... or is it? People love those forbidden fruit stories, don't they? Plenty of brother-sister stories in the shops... I'm just adding one more taboo for the spice, it can't be THAT bad, right? Right? Please don't judge me harshly... I don't want to be branded for life! Becoming an outcast... Thrown out of society.. People whispering behind your back... 'He's a [insert category here]!' Noooooooo!"
:)
>>62
:) Very nice.
I think lolicon is yet another unfortunate case of word usage going astray. I don't know about you, but I'm pedantic enough to believe loli!=lolita.
It's the ones who use "loli" excessively and excitedly that are the ones with hard drives full of games that, let's face it, should probably be correctly be called "pedophilia".
I still maintain that lolita doesn't mean pedophile, it's just unfortunate that the term lolicon, which should be tied to lolita, now means pedophile.
(needs more sleep... coherency for the win)
http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/jis/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=J&T=lolicon&WC=none
I don't think it's ever meant anything else.
Bugger. Okay, so should we discuss that we can be a lolicon and that that's not a Really Bad Thing? I argue that we can.
I am actually surprised they have a hikky board on 2ch but not a lolicon board.
I guess even Hiroyuki finds the idea of thousands of people trading U-15 links and WinNY cp hashes a bit creepy.
So yeah, it's really a bad thing. Shame on you, you dysfunctional deviants!
>>66
You're right, it's not a manner of black and white. There are many issues at hand, such as whether you also like women your age and whether you believe children can consent (cough*CV*cough)
>>67
There is a Card Captor Sakura forum which is mainly based around the topic of what they would do with Sakura if they saw her on the street.
>>68
This is something I actually wanted to bring up. Surely we must acknowledge a clear difference between young, completely undeveloped girls, and developing, pubescent ones, which I believe the term lolita was intended for.
Further to this, can one be non-sexually attracted to a sexy, nubile, "underage" girl (ie. a lolita)? I think so. Just because I appreciate a young girl's figure doesn't mean I'd "hit it" at the first opportunity.
And how about those definitions for "loli", namely the age? Many (usually Americans) quote the age of consent as the borderline for "loli". What they fail to acknowledge is that there's probably about 50 different definitions for "underage" in that country, and that there's a whole world out there full of other ideas on the matter, too.
It's also not unknown for young girls, say 14 or 15, to be fully developed sexually. That might get you banned on not4chan, and yet, ha ha, she's well under age (I'll use 18=adult for the sake of my current argument).
A topic owrthy of discussion, maybe, but not really related to the topic of this thread, yes?
>>70 Actually it's very relevant. The question is, has the word loli drifted the same way as the word hentai in English?
Let's make up some definitions.
Japanese's hentai: anyone who is perverted/not aligned with the group's way of thinking, in real life or otherwise, but mostly real life.
English's hentai: Japanese drawings of sexual situations.
Japanese's loli: anyone obsessed with female children, in real life or otherwise, but mostly real life.
English's loli: Japanese drawings of female children in sexual situations.
If this definition of loli in English is correct -- as in, most spread about, -- then it has suffered the same fate as the word hentai. (zomg oh noes!!)
>>71
I'd agree with that statement.
Perhaps also worth giving some thought: Does anyone know where "loli" came from? Clearly it's a derivation of lolicon, but was it the Japanese or the Wapanese (^_^) that coined it? As an aside, I personally dislike it, but only because people bandy it around like asshats.
Novel Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov
↓
Character of the same name
↓
Word for the prototype the character represents (a precociously seductive girl)
↓
Word for any arousing young girl
↓
In their neverending efforts to label social phenomena, the Japanese derive from the above the term "lolicon" for people who are obsessed with young/underage girls.
↓
Since "con" is an abbreviation of "complex" and the other part of the word "lolicon" supposedly signifies the object of the complex, "loli" becomes a word for "lolita".
↓
People in the western realm start using "loli" to refer to underage 2D girls.
If that's true, then we've nailed it down (ie. blame the Wapanese). I knew all the steps before that well enough.
I think what gets me the most is the way people end up using "loli". I'm sure the Japanese don't use lolicon lightly, yet you get online and somehow the English speakers won't shut up about how they're pedophiles. Let it be noted that I can't confirm this; I don't speak Japanese, nor do I frequent any Japanese boards. This is partially conjecture.
Japan is more frank about pedophilia than the West, but the Western use of "loli" is still pretty bizarre.
>Japan is more frank about pedophilia than the West
In what way do you mean? (And be careful to avoid otaku-ish generalizations...)
ＭＯＥ！
ＨＥＮＴＡＩ！
ＤＯＵＪＩＮ！
http://kao.wakachan.net/r/src/1126431422521.png
(ノ∀｀)
The definition has drifted to the point where the noun 'lolita' has been appropriated to mean eighteen and nineteen year-old females on the internet.
Yes, many English-language speakers equate 'lolicon' (or 'roricon' - I've seen this Anglisation of the word) to pedophilia. This ultimately serves to show how stupid and closed-minded they are. The correct noun for a person with this fetish is 'ephebophilia'. An ephebophilist is interested in adolescent females, of the 13-18 year-old range. (Not a preteen or a prepubescent.)
Using a dictionary definition is "close-minded" now?
And the "ephebophilia" argument smacks of denial every time I see it used.
And of course this is still off-topic.
>An ephebophilist is interested in adolescent females, of the 13-18 year-old range.
2. If you honestly believe this is the case you must be deluding yourself, or browsing very strange websites. Go to not4chan.org and tell me how old the naked girls are on that website. 14 years old is the upper limit, the lower limit is something like 6 months.
>>82
From that link:
>Ephebophilia, from the Greek έφηβος (ephebos) "adolescent" and φιλία (philia) "love/friendship", is a sexual preference or orientation in which an adult is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to adolescents (usually people between the ages of 13 and 16).
Close enough. So ephebophilia essentially means underage, but not prepubescent. As for the whole lolicon/pedo debate, I'm not touching that with a ten foot clown pole.
>>85 I meant the female bit.
Actually using "ephebo-" is a bad choice for creating a word, as in Greek times it referred to young men in training for the army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebos
I've also heard the word "hebephilia" used for the attraction to teenagers, which cracks me up as it reminds me of "hebephrenic."
lol - who's coming up with those "scientific" words anyway? They are not in any standard dictionary, and there are already perfectly valid other words already.
Hey I can do this too. Lessee... Highschoolgirlphilia! Tamakinee-chan-o-philia! Making_useless_empty_words_doh_philia!
> Tamakinee-chan-o-philia
I want to see a paper published in a respectable journal use that. If only.
http://www.robobunny.com/cgi-bin/dislexicon will help you create mock-words
Example:
1: stereobullshitmetric (stereo-bullshit-metric) relating to measurement of solid or three dimensional bullshit
>>87
that cracks me up, as it reminds me of this:
http://www.juegomania.org/Hebereke+no+Popoon+(Japon%E9s)/fotos/snes/0/811_t/Foto+Hebereke+no+Popoon+(Japon%E9s).jpg
<3 HEBEREKE
Someone remind me where this conversation is going again? I'm finding it interesting, but we're losing direction.
If we're on the topic of what "lolita" means offline and online, I'm generally willing to agree they're the same. Sexually attractive, but "a bit" underage. We seem to hit a problem with lower bounds here.
My take on the issue:
I believe lolita applies to a girl in puberty. I feel this is consistent with the "dictionary definitions" that we've got. Prior to puberty she's sexually undeveloped. As a direct consequence, she can't be sexually attractive. Sexual attraction to a prepubescent girl then becomes fetishistic (ie. an attraction with no logical basis).
Now for the -philiae. (No, I don't know if that's linguistically correct).
Ephebophile, as I understand it, should mean adolescent love. It's not gender specific, and I figure it should cover a similar age range/level of maturity as "lolita".
In contrast, pedophilia is a love of children. I've hit a small inconsistency here as Wikipedia reckons ephebophilia doesn't necessarily imply a sexual attraction, but the writer for pedophilia clearly believes otherwise. I don't know what's correct, nor am I saying we can trust wikipedia. The truth of this will ultimately lie in its social interpretations.
That aside, the point is that pedophilia is restricted to pre-pubescent entities (by my own understanding). Once again, at this point it becomes fetishistic and illogical.
I'm willing to argue at this point that pedophilia and ephebophilia are distinct and exclusive bahaviours. Both are equally valid for usage if you wish to use them. Calling yourself an ephebophile is not some cop-out, in-denial way of being a "pedo".
Taking stereotypes for a moment, being a "dirty old man" that molests little boys is pedophilia and has a particular stigma attached to it. Being an adult in a relationship with a rapidly-maturing adolescent who is still "underage" (according to local jurisdiction) has a different stigma again. Only one of these is pedophilia, and conciously or not, this doesn't seem to go unnoticed by society (there are different stigmata).
Now, discuss.
>>92
This isn't really "The Pedophilia/Lolicon Thread"...
> In contrast, pedophilia is a love of children. I've hit a small inconsistency here as Wikipedia reckons ephebophilia doesn't necessarily imply a sexual attraction, but the writer for pedophilia clearly believes otherwise.
Hint: On Wikipedia, extremist points of view last longer on the articles that fewer people read.
> Then, as I asked, you'll need to remind me what the hell we are on about here.
See >>1
You'll astutely note that the topic of discussion has drifted somewhat. I did ask where we were at the current point in time.
I don't really care what kind of derailment is going on at the current point in time.
Talk about what >>1 is talking about or get out.
I agree - this isn't an idle discussion thread, it was created for the specific purpose of providing information on and discussing a certain topic, namely, >>1.
It seems that no one wants to branch out and create 'The "lolikon" thread' to solve the problem once and for all. "No not me noooooo... You go first!" :)
"lolikon" thread is now set up (not by me) here: http://wakaba.c3.cx/soc/kareha.pl/1128137793/
I feel that I have learned something today, but not for the life of me can I enunciate it.
>>107
99.1% of the Japanese ero production is deviant hentai anyway, but on iichan that word is the new nigger word! You'll get harassed and bullied on every single board for saying it! :)
No matter how deviant it is, you never use the word "hentai" when talking about porn in Japanese.
>>109
GJ on equaling the use of a racist term for which the offense has nothing to do with "correctness" with a linguistical incorrect term for which the offense only has to do with its incorrectness.
Also, it's "n-word", you intellectualy shriveled up raisin!
The words "the" and "word" are the MIND PILLOWS that make pointy and scary words, such as the "fuck" word, soft and acceptable!
>>111 Then put up a word filter to replace "hentai" by porn/ero/deviant/whatever on all boards. I'm starting to get a little tired to see every single newcomer being bullied because he said the h-word. Every other site use the word hentai freely, it's only on iichan that the poor guy gets rammed inside out for blurting it out. This site is made for the users, and those heavy-handed tactics are scaring and scarring them away from the shop.
>>115
oh noes, newbies are being told they are wrong! they will cry and flee the site, however shall we make it without them?
ps: wordfilters are dumb.
An example of "common" use:
>>117
I don't understand what that article is supposed to prove.
I didn't read all of it, I just understand it talks about western webcomics and western fanartists.
Ok being a fan of Japanese animation for oh god, 25years? We never referred to porn anime as hentai alone. hentai as was said earlier was a thing we would mimic of the girls in anime as a joke. Or in my case piss my grandparents off to no end.
Ero from what family in Japan has said is a borrowed word for erotica. Hence in Chobits Erosito or erotica site. I probably would translate it as such, not the porn site or hentai site that I had seen on fansubs. As for its use in English all my sighing over it will aught for naught. Since no matter the amount of whining about it will change the course of the usage once its started. Americans are very faddish. And will pick up any thing that is a "keyword" Take "High Definition" I see adds selling fucking contact lenses spouting HD vision. Or the ever popular "my bad" Slang from the rapper community taken into a proper phrase and even applied to translation of slang in other languages. To me >>54 closed this argument. It is the way we "old-timers" used the words, if we used them at all. And hentai is suppose to be used as a description not a noun or name for something. ( I think this is what >>54 meant in his/her first line)
The anime and cartoon thing can be debated till the end of ends. I have seen Japanese refer to American cartoons as well of all things cartoons. . . Here in the US early on we referred to Japanese animation as anime because the topics stories etc did not fit with American ideals for cartoons. Hell Heavy Metal is rarely referred to as a "cartoon" But as animation. This use even referred to euro animation. Often this material was not of a drooling sticky child content. It seems America has the prize for this stigmata of animation is for fuzz nuts only.
It does still sting to hear anime referred to as cartoons, but I don't go ape shit all over for it because well to most Americans it IS a cartoon. At least until they realize what the stories contain.
I can't say you younger fans are wrong, just a different generation than I am, Granted I was watching "anime" before I was even attending the first grade. So some of you "technically" are my generation >_<
Of constant bother to me is this new usage of JAP, whence people say nigger its all doom and gloom but I see jap used in hateful ways so often on English bbs or elsewhere. Someone brings up a comment about its derogatory history and use they claim its short for Japanese and that they are to lazy to type it out Proper use is JP or JPN but this current use of .uk .de .jp etc on the net JAP has become common. I mention this because I have seen plenty of posts on this bbs or related bbs as well as others where Japanese ask for the user to stop with its use and flames rise. I mean who are you to argue with the person whom that derogatory word was used against?? its like telling a Korean Gook isn't derogatory. And as what was said earlier I do not get why those so devoted to a medium and culture yet are still so hateful towards them. I often see toshiaki on futaba and elsewhere making "fucking jap" or "damn jap" and even DIE JAP post when mimicking Americans. To me this is harsh because they are getting the wrong impression. As well this relates to the uses of hentai ecchi etc. It is funny how misunderstandings cause such grief or weird outcomes.
I don't mean to bring up racism but its just a topic to open against in the fact we butcher old meanings in our own language or bring across the wrong impression to others. This as well makes me wonder as to the REAL reason futaba has non .jp ip banned from posting. I do not intend to start arguments and will ignore any that will IE I wont respond. nut its to just bring up subject material and a few ideas/opinions.
Oh and I know orphan meant a broken paragraph. I is I guess why we have thesaurus.
Please try to write coherently if you're making an argument. I have no idea what you're going on about most of the time. What I did manage to understand I'll answer:
> Hence in Chobits Erosito or erotica site. I probably would translate it as such, not the porn site or hentai site that I had seen on fansubs.
No, "ero" means means almost exactly the same as "porn". The translation "porn site" is entirely correct.
> To me >>54 closed this argument. It is the way we "old-timers" used the words, if we used them at all. And hentai is suppose to be used as a description not a noun or name for something. ( I think this is what >>54 meant in his/her first line)
You seem to be confused about one thing. This isn't a discussion about how you "old-timers" use words. This is a discussion about how the japanese use the words. >>54 is japanese. He's upset that westerners use the word "hentai" in such a weird way. Read the articles linked at the top of the thread, and you'll find a lot more comments by japanese speakers about how silly the western usage of the word "hentai" is.
I don't think I've seen anyone bullied for that, not by image board standards. People get corrected, but that's hardly bullying.
Also, word filters are insulting.
>You seem to be confused about one thing. This isn't a discussion about how you "old-timers" use words. This is a discussion about how the japanese use the words. >>54 is japanese. He's upset that westerners use the word "hentai" in such a weird way. Read the articles linked at the top of the thread, and you'll find a lot more comments by japanese speakers about how silly the western usage of the word "hentai" is.
His point was though, that they "old-timers" used it as a description, closer to the Japanese meaning, and that the younger genration of non-Japanese anime watchers started calling things that as a name.
...Or at least that's what I got from it.
Personally though, I started calling ero-stuff "Hentai" since that's what I thought it was called. That's what everyone else called it, and thus for Americans, that isi what it was called.
I wasn't studying Japnese culture, and didn't even know much about Japan. So, you really can't blame people like us, the people who don't go and research everything themselves if they've heard 1000 other people confirm it.
The way I see things like "hentai" or "otaku" or various other American adopted Japanese phrase is, that's exactly what it is. An "American adopted Japanese phrase." Although people who want to learn more about Japan/plan to visit Japan should know the true meanings, for people who don't, it doesn't really matter.
And Japanese is the last language people should complain about Non-Japanese bastardizing. I mean... "Free Size" ? and WTF is Milky Hat?
> And Japanese is the last language people should complain about Non-Japanese bastardizing.
I don't feel like refuting all of your statements right now, but this one is the most ridiculous one and has been adressed multiple times before: You cannot justify your own incorrect usage of someone else's language with that language's incorrect usage of your own language. Not that you could even say that the Japanese who would complain about your incorrect usage are the same who supposedly "bastardized" your language, nor that it's only the Japanese who (would) complain about that - it's also people like me (neither Japanese nor English nor American, but I don't like intercultural ignorance and I don't care for "but they started it first" kindergarten arguments)
>And Japanese is the last language people should complain about Non-Japanese bastardizing. I mean... "Free Size" ? and WTF is Milky Hat?
QFT.
English gives false meanings to a lot of words. It is known quite widely now; it's evolution of language.
Yes, it is a valid argument, because it's hypocritical for someone who is clearly not worried about their misuse of my language to get all in a huff over my misuse of theirs. There's also a huge discrepancy in the level of "bastardization" going on; "hentai" is a relatively rare word in English compared to how often Japanese use "mansion" for an apartment building, say "(something) getto!," or even go to a "viking" to have a buffet meal. And we will never come out with a cartoon about crossdressing and call it "Watashi Watashi Watashi no! Ichigo Tamago."
So as a professional linguist (of sorts), I declare this whole discussion stupid in the first place.
/fotos/snes/0/811_t/Foto+Hebereke+no+Popoon+(Japon%E9s).jpg){kind=link}