Confusing translation

[raevin]

A friend asked me to translate this:

キリキリマイ

And since my dictionary doesn't have this (nor the katakana period for any part of this), I was wondering if someone can help me with it.

[Justin]

Here's a hint for you...

きりきり-まい　【きりきり舞い】

（名）スル
(1)助ｪに対処できないほど忙しく動きまわっていること。てんてこまい。
「ひとり二役で朝から晩まで≠ｾ」
(2)卵z外の事態や経験のないことに出合って、あわてること。
「速球に≠ｷる」

[raevin]

Justin wrote:
Here's a hint for you...

きりきり-まい　【きりきり舞い】

（名）スル
(1)助ｪに対処できないほど忙しく動きまわっていること。てんてこまい。
「ひとり二役で朝から晩まで≠ｾ」
(2)卵z外の事態や経験のないことに出合って、あわてること。
「速球に≠ｷる」

Now if only that was in english...

Anyways.... 1/2 thanks.

[1. You have it hiragana...where as it's not written in hiragana, but katakana (like I gave), 2. It doesn't help me if I still have to translate the translation, now does it?]

[yankumi]

for kirikiri I get "at once, right away, quickly" and for mai the only definition that seems to fit is "dance", as the other two definitions my dictionary gives are used as a prefix and a number suffix.

[raevin]

DonnaP wrote:
for kirikiri I get "at once, right away, quickly" and for mai the only definition that seems to fit is "dance", as the other two definitions my dictionary gives are used as a prefix and a number suffix.

Thanks.

The word is all one though.

[yankumi]

what is the context? Because (and excuse me if you already know this) in Japanese there wouldn't be spaces between the words.

[Justin]

raevin wrote:
It doesn't help me if I still have to translate the translation, now does it?]

Yes, actually it does as it forces you to try yourself rather than just have someone give you the answer. Who knows, you might also learn a few new words at the same time too.

Anyway, If you would have taken the time to look at the definition you would have found that てんてこまい also means the same thing. Throw that into your favorite dictionary, and there ya go, you pretty much got your translation (I would probably go with 'hectic' though).

http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/search.php?MT=%A4%C6%A4%F3%A4%C6%A4%B3%A4%DE%A4%A4&je.x=39&je.y=9&je=%CF%C2%B1%D1&kind=jn&kwassist=0&mode=0

Sorry if you found my first answer unhelpful though, as all I was trying to do was help you help yourself. People are so quick to just ask rather than try a little bit harder themselves, but I guess that's just how things are.

[raevin]

DonnaP wrote:
what is the context? Because (and excuse me if you already know this) in Japanese there wouldn't be spaces between the words.

I know that

There's no context, it's a title of a song by Orange Range.

[raevin]

Justin wrote:
Yes, actually it does as it forces you to try yourself rather than just have someone give you the answer. Who knows, you might also learn a few new words at the same time too.

Actually, I did try to find the answer before I asked here.

Anyway, If you would have taken the time to look at the definition you would have found that てんてこまい also means the same thing. Throw that into your favorite dictionary, and there ya go, you pretty much got your translation (I would probably go with 'hectic' though).

I did look at the definition...

Sorry if you found my first answer unhelpful though, as all I was trying to do was help you help yourself. People are so quick to just ask rather than try a little bit harder themselves, but I guess that's just how things are.

It wasn't exactly unhelpful, but I find it rather...bad so to speak, that I'm asking for help on translating something, and your answer just leads me to another "can you translate this?" basically.

Not trying to sound like a jerk here, but people are so quick to just assume everyone who posts in this thread doesn't do their own research first...so it goes well together.

[yankumi]

okay, so I wasn't too far off with dance quickly!

With all due respect, this forum is called Translation Questions or Discussion. So while it may seem that the original poster could figure out their answer easily, this is the appropriate forum for posting such a question.

[raevin]

DonnaP wrote:
okay, so I wasn't too far off with dance quickly!

With all due respect, this forum is called Translation Questions or Discussion. So while it may seem that the original poster could figure out their answer easily, this is the appropriate forum for posting such a question.

Nope, and I think it might fit good (granted, the English translation to the song is something I haven't found yet...heh).

Was your last paragraph directed towards me or Justin??

[Justin]

I was by no means saying that you didn't try to find the answer before you posted here, it's just that when I gave you some leads to what you were looking for, I thought you were a little quick to just pass it off and tell me it wasn't of any help.

The thing with translating that I think people often forget is there’s very seldom a definitive answer to what you’re looking for. When I first read this thread I too had no idea what きりきり舞い meant. After looking through things myself though, I can say I have a lot better understating of how you would translate きりきり舞い rather than if someone would have just told me "hey, it means hectic or something". You have to also consider that depending on context there could be multiple ways to translate, so the better base knowledge of said word/phrase you have, the better off you’ll be.

Anyway, I’m sorry my way of having you use a little bit of Japanese to figure out how to translate something into English was so bad. Rather than just giving you the answer, I figured I would show you how to arrive at said answer instead, I guess that was a big backfire though.

[yankumi]

Justin--I apologize for the rather preachy tone of my post. It's hard to convey tone on a message board, which is why I think it was difficult to understand your intent. Certainly you are correct, that helping someone figure out how to get an answer teaches far more than just giving it to them. It's just that I have seen several posts where someone seemed irritated that the poster was asking a translation and I jumped to the conclusion that you were reacting the same way.

[Justin]

No worries there at all DonnaP, things didn't come off in a preachy tone at all there. I do have to admit though I wasn't the most pleased when I layed out a some hints there to help and pretty much just got told off though, so I guess my second post there might have had a bit of a harsh tone to it.

It's just that to me there's a big and important difference between just knowing what XYZ means in English, and knowing why XYZ means said word in English. Anyone can tell you that 考える and 思う could be translated as think, but I bet you very few people could tell you why and where they are different. I guess I just made the assumption that the origional poster was also interested in maybe knowing why, rather than just having the answer handed to him.

[raevin]

Justin wrote:
No worries there at all DonnaP, things didn't come off in a preachy tone at all there. I do have to admit though I wasn't the most pleased when I layed out a some hints there to help and pretty much just got told off though, so I guess my second post there might have had a bit of a harsh tone to it. It's just that to me there's a big and important difference between just knowing what XYZ means in English, and knowing why XYZ means said word in English. Anyone can tell you that 考える and 思う could be translated as think, but I bet you very few people could tell you why and where they are different.

My apologizes...maybe I did come off a bit harsh also, but it's just the concept that this is a translation board...and yet, I wasn't given a translation. I see your point as to why you did it (as I never denied), but I just personally I feel that it defeats this board's purpose if you decide to respond to me in Japanese...when I don't see how it tells me "how", "why", etc...it is (mind you, if I gave you a sentence I could, but I only gave you one word, so there wasn't much you could really teach me on it).

...I guess I just made the assumption that the origional poster was also interested in maybe knowing why, rather than just having the answer handed to him.

Don't you find this as a rather cheap shot though? I mean, it's not like I'm asking you to do my homework...just to translate a word I couldn't get the meaning of. It's not that I didn't know why, but that I couldn't find why (and to find it in your origional post, I still had to use a translator [which actually translated it correctly this time though]).

Let me ask you something though...in all seriousness, is that just because I asked to translate a word, that you think I don't want to learn? if I truely didn't want to learn Japanese, I wouldn't just post a word, but post a whole set of lyics saying "PLEASE TRANSLATE!!!!"...(mind you, this is a serious question, no insulting or anything meant from it).