復活！ Japanese Phrase of the Month is back!
Welcome to the relaunch of Japanese Phrase of the Month. Now that I own my own business and have the time, this little corner of the internet will be guaranteed monthly for the first time ever!
This month, we start out with something a little different: a dive into the word “stoic,” and how it behaves differently in English vs. in Japanese.
「ストイック」
Have you been translating it correctly?
When I say it behaves “differently,” I don’t mean by much–I mean by just enough to cause misunderstanding.
Speakers of many languages are familiar with “false friends” (空似言葉), but Japanese speakers also encounter their remote cousin: false English or 和製英語 (wasei eigo).
Wasei eigo, literally “Japanese-manufactured English,” is the Japanese term for English loan words whose meaning in Japanese is different from the original English meaning. These words are often tricky to translate for native speakers of both languages.
In fact, during my early years at Funimation, we had a fun continuing education tradition called 「和製英語の日」 , or “Japanese English Day.” This holiday happened whenever a good example presented itself. So wasei eigo is something we all know is a problem, and we talk about it a lot in both languages.
But recently, as I was translating ストイック (“stoic”) in a TV show, I found a great article about how the conversational usage of these two “stoics” differs between Japanese and English. That made me realize there’s this whole category of words we never talk about: the words that definitely aren’t wasei eigo, but can still mislead us. The gray area, if you will.
These gray-area words look identical in Japanese and English, but unlike wasei eigo, they aren’t popularized in Japanese through a misapplication or misunderstanding. That means they aren’t wildly different between languages, either. They’re perfectly correct in both languages, and they more or less mean the same thing… but they’re not quite the same in English and in Japanese. This can happen for a few reasons: because the connotations diverged after importation, because the words are actually imports from some third language, etc.
“Stoic” is a great example. If you mainly speak English, “stoic” may sometimes strike you funny in Japanese, and vice versa. The common conversational use of “stoic” in Japanese means something different from its common conversational use English. Both languages’ conversational usages are grounded in real Stoicism concepts, but have evolved to describe different aspects of Stoicism that don’t neatly overlap with each other.
In English, we often use “stoic” to describe someone who is (at least outwardly) unmoved by events that another person would react to with emotion. In Japanese, we use it to describe someone who is extremely strict with themselves or hyper-disciplined in pursuit of a goal.
This is an important distinction for understanding what speakers of each language are really saying when they say ストイック, but there aren’t a large number of articles or blog posts about it in English, which is what inspired this post.
For those who can read Japanese, here are some solid blog articles I’ve read in Japanese on the topic:
In conclusion, “stoic” is a perfect case of how we can’t always trust “the same word” even when it’s not wasei eigo. There may be subtle differences or unexpected usages that we’re not aware of until we do some digging. And if you’re a translator or interpreter, treating “stoic” and ストイック as equivalent just for the sake of using “the same word” can lead to confusion.
Hopefully this either gives you something to think about or validates how you’ve always felt about the two “stoics”! Feel free to let me know if there’s another gray area word you’d like me to break down in the future. 😊
Until next time, you can check out past phrases either on this blog or on my Japanese Phrase of the Month Pinterest board here: https://pin.it/2YxMlgG