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Narrative
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RedBeardSean: I always thought it was transliterated as bake, though baka seems more phonetic.
Looney Toons: It's "baka". According to a Japanese-English dictionary site
 that I use frequently and which has proven quite flexible about romanization, "bake" by itself doesn't correspond to any known Japanese word (although it is a part of larger words such as bakemono "monster"), while "baka" quickly returns the proper meaning. Plus, check out this page, which casually uses "baka" as one of its examples of kanji which are used for their Chinese pronunciation value when writing Japanese words. And if you want, you can find a lot more just by Googling on "baka kanji".
Lale: I frequently hear something in Japanese episodes I think sounds like bakanai. Am I hearing wrong, or does this translate to something?
Kat Kit: Could possibly be 'wakaranai' ('I don't know'). Can you give an example, with context?
Looney Toons: While my favorite Japanese-English translator page appears to be completely screwed right now, a little googling has turned up a couple of resources that indicate "bakanai" means "not stupid". A typical usage would be "Bakanai desu yo!" ("I'm not stupid!"). Then again, I've also found "Bakanai tone!", which apparently means "You're really stupid!", but I don't know enough Japanese to tell if that's a double negative or a sarcastic usage or what.
Lale: Good to know. Thanks.
Looney Toons: No problem at all.
EricKei: "nai" means not, and it is often used as a suffix meaning just that. Perhaps the sound Lale was hearing was "wakanai", which is a terse (read: coarse) form of "wakaranai", literally " I do not understand". Just about anything Ranma says - in either form - is terse/shortened.
Clarste: I realize this conversation is probably ancient history, but you could have been thinking of "baka na!" which adds the na particle making it an adjective. In terms of people shouting it (which they often do in anime) it means "That's ridiculous!" or "No way!" and obviously gets shouted as an expression of disbelief.
Looney Toons: Is it wrong of me to want to make some smartass comment linking Baka somehow to More Dakka? Sean Tucker: I beat you to it with an Incredibly Lazy Pun regarding someone's use of More Dakka in the article. |
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