Chuunibiki

and hibiki's legwear changed. Not that I mind

The duo's channeling some Super Sentai vibes with those poses.

P.S.: Hi there Paracite, thank you for your translation as always. A quick question: is there some convention I should stick to as a translator when translating words like 先輩? Sometimes I see it translated as senpai instead of sempai, but from what I know, a literal romanization would result in senpai because of the ん? So far, I've stuck with "senpai", but I was thinking I might be mistaken, and the correct translation might be "sempai" instead.

I was taught 'sempai', as ん before a /p-/ is pronounced as /m/ (because speech production is lazy, you get some 'contamination' from the /p-/, making it an /m/ sound) the same as tempura (and you never see anyone say tenpura). There's not a lot of words that you'd encounter with the　ん+/p-/ construction, and it's fine to write with an 'n' - just depends on what you were taught (or prefer).

As an aside, there are a few other sound changes in Japanese phonology, but they're pretty rare, all things considered - Japanese phonology is quite regular. The one that people will encounter fairly early on in learning Japanese is in the fragment 本を - again, this a /n/ + something construct. Here, while you would expect /hon o/, you actually get /hoŋ o/, where /ŋ/ is a 'ng' sound, due to the sound shifting between making /n/ and moving to the /o/ - the same as /n/ + /p-/.

This is only an issue because writing it as sem(n)pai isn't a translation, since that would be 'upperclassman' (or 'senior'), but a transliteration. As we generally expect people reading here to be familiar with sempai/kouhai (amongst other things), and that it has connotations not inherently carried by upperclassman/senior - such as the implied 'paternal' relationship from the sempai to the kouhai, it's often left as is, the same as honorifics etc.

PhoenixG said:

and hibiki's legwear changed. Not that I mind

'Biki is just showing that she's a pantyhose buddy to her 'lil kouhai.

Paracite said:

I was taught 'sempai', as ん before a /p-/ is pronounced as /m/ (because speech production is lazy, you get some 'contamination' from the /p-/, making it an /m/ sound) the same as tempura (and you never see anyone say tenpura). There's not a lot of words that you'd encounter with the　ん+/p-/ construction, and it's fine to write with an 'n' - just depends on what you were taught (or prefer).

As an aside, there are a few other sound changes in Japanese phonology, but they're pretty rare, all things considered - Japanese phonology is quite regular. The one that people will encounter fairly early on in learning Japanese is in the fragment 本を - again, this a /n/ + something construct. Here, while you would expect /hon o/, you actually get /hoŋ o/, where /ŋ/ is a 'ng' sound, due to the sound shifting between making /n/ and moving to the /o/ - the same as /n/ + /p-/.

This is only an issue because writing it as sem(n)pai isn't a translation, since that would be 'upperclassman' (or 'senior'), but a transliteration. As we generally expect people reading here to be familiar with sempai/kouhai (amongst other things), and that it has connotations not inherently carried by upperclassman/senior - such as the implied 'paternal' relationship from the sempai to the kouhai, it's often left as is, the same as honorifics etc.

Ah, thank you. That was enlightening!

Still want to steal Verniy away from Admibro. So many cute facets to her.

Paracite said:

I was taught 'sempai', as ん before a /p-/ is pronounced as /m/ (because speech production is lazy, you get some 'contamination' from the /p-/, making it an /m/ sound) the same as tempura (and you never see anyone say tenpura). There's not a lot of words that you'd encounter with the　ん+/p-/ construction, and it's fine to write with an 'n' - just depends on what you were taught (or prefer).

As an aside, there are a few other sound changes in Japanese phonology, but they're pretty rare, all things considered - Japanese phonology is quite regular. The one that people will encounter fairly early on in learning Japanese is in the fragment 本を - again, this a /n/ + something construct. Here, while you would expect /hon o/, you actually get /hoŋ o/, where /ŋ/ is a 'ng' sound, due to the sound shifting between making /n/ and moving to the /o/ - the same as /n/ + /p-/.

This is only an issue because writing it as sem(n)pai isn't a translation, since that would be 'upperclassman' (or 'senior'), but a transliteration. As we generally expect people reading here to be familiar with sempai/kouhai (amongst other things), and that it has connotations not inherently carried by upperclassman/senior - such as the implied 'paternal' relationship from the sempai to the kouhai, it's often left as is, the same as honorifics etc.

But well, you know, as far as this goes, we are doing translation, not interpretation so I think the rule of romanization should be applied. In which ん in "senpai" should just be "n" instead of "m". Then again, I wouldn't like it having all "cc" become "tc" either. Guess what suits it better works, huh?

Problem is, it's been put in print before with an m, not only in manga, but in lots of others besides. And again, does anyone go 'tenpura'? - it's literally the same thing.

If it had always been done as senpai, there wouldn't be any issue. I mean, I won't go and change it back if someone changes it, but I'll probably always just write it as sempai every time unconsciously - just from how fixed it is in my brain. You can say it's just irregular, like Shimbashi and Namba.

another irregular for me is Nihombashi... but I was told both Nihonbashi and Nihombashi are generally accepted transliteration

I always go for n instead of m.

If I'm going to search for the first kanji of senpai, that would be sen, not sem.

Algester said:

another irregular for me is Nihombashi... but I was told both Nihonbashi and Nihombashi are generally accepted transliteration

Nihombashi is considered a bit old-fashioned these days, though.

Darkagma said:

I always go for n instead of m.

If I'm going to search for the first kanji of senpai, that would be sen, not sem.

There's a difference between looking it up, and writing it down - again, you'd look up tempura with a 'n' as well. If you want to use dictionary lookup logic, then it's ti, hu and syu as well - which is how Japanese school children are taught how to do romaji these days. (They consider romaji and English spelling of Japanese seperate now.)

However, it's really a trivial point. If it's understood, the spelling itself is immaterial, both are acceptable, even today. I was taught with 'sempai', I can only assume others had 'senpai'. But then again, I did learn my Japanese quite some years ago...

I've never particularly cared, but when I write "sempai", I often have people "correct" my notes, so I've just gone with "senpai" here...

It's Ginew force's pose, isn't it?

Paracite said:

Problem is, it's been put in print before with an m, not only in manga, but in lots of others besides. And again, does anyone go 'tenpura'? - it's literally the same thing.

If it had always been done as senpai, there wouldn't be any issue. I mean, I won't go and change it back if someone changes it, but I'll probably always just write it as sempai every time unconsciously - just from how fixed it is in my brain. You can say it's just irregular, like Shimbashi and Namba.

In the case of Tenpura and tempura, it's slightly different. Because tempura is now accepted as a word in English dictionary and is spread through out this Earth with the meaning of "deep fried shrimp" or something to that effect.

And just to say, it's not like there are no one using "tenpura" instead of "tempura". I know such a person, she was in translation team at my work, she changed jobs though. She knows about both words and what they meant. But well, the word 天ぷら in Japanese means anything fried with batter while people often think tempura is just deep fried shrimp. Knowing it's food, she went with romanization rule and used "Tenpura".

Well, enough with tempura. Point is, it's not wrong using "sempai" since it's literally pronounced that way. But well, just noting that both are usable since some people would believe there's only one way to a language. I have been such a person, once.

And I'm not doing anything to your notes. It's just good the way it is.