>Highest average IQ in the world >Can't write

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>>8583177

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>Highest average IQ in the world
>Can't write for shit

Japanese is basically an untranslatable language

>IQ translates to superior writing skills

Get your IQ tested, buddy. I think you're the problem here.

>>8583177
>he's too pleb/ate too many burgers to appreciate the subtleties of jap lit

>>8583177
This is the problem with >muh IQ! fags on /sci/ and /pol/.

Sure as hell ain't everything. Didn't japan remove funding for humanities in their universities?

>>8583177
who is kawabata, oe, mishima, yoshikawa, dazai, abe, and that's just postwar writers. some continents wish they had that much post WW2 talent

>>8583177
They're too busy building robots, silly.

>>8583247
>Didn't japan remove funding for humanities in their universities?
no, japan retains much more of classical education than the west. and they have great authors, not sure what everyone is going on about

How would you even translate words that can be read three different ways? How can you translate a language where everything is implied and can purposefully be left ambiguous? How do you translate a language where the grammar and the words you use differ depending on the person you're talking to and who you are in relation to this person? A translation is always a betrayal but that's even more true of Japanese.

>>8583308
Th ministry of education wants to scale back humanities significantly in public universities (read sociology/psychology and the like, no way the nationalists of the LDP accept cutting back on classical education).

>>8583340
in america or japan?

>>8583177

moshi moshi baito desu

>>8583349
>the nationalists of the LDP
>in america or japan?

How's your IQ?

>>8583177
Because ching chong obey famiry rearn maths.

Just kidding, they have great authors, you might want to have that shit taste checked, son.

>>8583177
This could be said for /lit/ except the IQ part is highly debatable.

some combination of: talent, practice, and environmental factors, are involved in being successful at anything. you at least have talent, if the iq test you took is legitimate, although you may not have a talent for writing, specifically.

>>8583263
>le IQ meme

Why are Anglos so obssesed over this? It's bullshit.

>>8583212
Pretty much.

>>8583212
Sheer necessity from vidya and animu got us surprisingly far, but you're never gonna fully capture the subtleties of a language with 3 writing systems and a deluge of puns resulting from them.

Supposedly German also doesn't translate well, but maybe that's just philosophy.

>>8584208
IQ predicts everything we associate with intelligence, including winning nobel prizes

I wouldn't expect a low-IQ retard like you to get it, though

>>8583212
As someone learning Japanese for a year this is surprisingly true.

Japanese literature is very different but very interesting. Reading in English is reading an outline.

>>8585091
elaborate please

>>8585112
Ok, an example i used a day or two ago in a similar thread:

The kanji 深淵 is a noun. It's translated as Abyss every time I've seen it in English. The problem with that? It means multiple things in Japanese. Japs don't use Kanji to convey straight forward ideas - the 8000+ Kanji all stand for layered, complex ideas that would translate into paragraph long footnotes in English.

深淵 in fact means "deep pool", "impending catastrophe", "helplessness", and "profound" all at once. 深淵 is a feeling and an expression in one, but English translates it as simply "abyss".

Multiply this vagueness by thousands and, as I said, English translations of Japanese start to become vague outlines where only the dialogue really stands. Any description, whether of feeling or landscape or ideas, will be nothing like the Japanese.

>>8585090
t. mouth-breather Anglo

>>8585129
this gaijin appreciates your explanation

>>8585161
Glad to help.

Also, unrelated, Japanese to English translations are hard for simple grammar reasons too. For example, Japanese sentences don't need nouns, and Japanese paragraphs will often start with a noun in the first part then elaborate for 50+ words without mentioning a noun again.

Even if Kanji wasn't too vague for translation there would be tons of grammar issues. Translations into English are literally full re-writings with a hundred choices made per page by the translator, not the original author.

You really are not reading Japanese novels when you read them in English.

>>8583177
Why would the smartest people in the world waste time writing?

>>8585129
I speak English, Chinese and Japanese and I think the case you're mentioning is not as worse as you make it seems like. Of course the word 深淵 (in both Chinese and Japanese) can be linked to a vast amount of meaning and expression, but the complex web of ideas is partly rooted in the culture itself. Even if you couldn't read Japanese literature in Japanese, if you read enough Japanese works in English, you would still get a vague idea of what nuance the word Abyss usually carry (another reason why translators consistently stick with Abyss). On the other hand, a Japanese (or Chinese) who didn't read a lot of Japanese literature might just take 深淵 at its face value. This might be the reason why the Nietzsche's quote is so often abused in Japan (they translated Abgrund/Abyss to 深淵).

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>IQ thread

I thought /lit/ was above this

>>8585182
This is a good point I concede, but people read Japanese novels in English and discard them for being trash regularly without taking the time to learn the deeper meanings.

Just as problematic, people rarely consider that translated words might have separate meanings from their traditional English understanding of them when they see the words in a translated novel.

You're giving English readers too much credit.

>>8585129
You mean words can have multiple meanings or connotations? Who'd have thought? Not that you're wrong in spirit but you're really overstating the mystical complexity of the Japanese language here, man

>>8585205
English words can obviously have multiple meanings

The problem is our words often have no relation to the Japanese, and the means of translation just aren't there. We can only make approximations, and even 20 English words can't always accurately describe a Japanese one. There is an inherent minimalism in Japanese that leads to broad words that are hard to define.

>>8585195
I am just trying to say it's possible to appreciate Japanese literature in English. True as you said, most English readers wouldn't bother understanding a different culture, but the literature itself is still accessible to some degree to the English readers who are willing to try.

>>8585217
Aye, Japanese is a language of euphemism and puns upon puns. It's not impossible to capture the essence of thst in English. No language is insurmountable to a translater who knows how to do his or her job properly.

>>8583177
op go read ryunosuke akutagawa

>>8585173
could you explain how they write 50 words elaborating without a single noun in one of them? Like, give a literal translation into English of such a construction (even if it's not valid English)

>>8585173
No offense, but given what I know about Japanese and its writing systems, I have trouble believing you have the ability to read Japanese novels after only a year of study. I think it's likely you're romanticizing the language to the point of absurdity. For context, I've studied Russian, which is considered a very difficult language for anyone who doesn't already know a Slavic language, for two years extensively. I have many Russian friends with whom I have never spoken a word of English, and we are able to communicate quite well. They've told me that they don't know anyone who has nearly my level of language after just 2 years of study. I say this not to brag, but rather to point out that I have, at this point, only been able to read short stories in Russian (Chekhov and the like). I'm trying to read Bulgakov's Morphine in the original and can only manage a few pages an hour. Japanese is generally considered an even harder language than Russian, and so I am skeptical that you have the level you claim.

>>8585257
I've been in Japan for a year, studying for two in America before(junior and senior years of undergrad). Sorry that wasn't clear. I meant to say studying IN JAPAN for a year. This is my graduate degree.

>>8585266
Ah, that makes this more believable. Thanks for the clarification

>>8583319
You learn the meaning of words then you learn some grammar all this while practicing talking with a native speaker.

Of course. You can't mystify your anime addiction otherwise.

>>8585184
Fuck dude that pic hit me right in the feels
Press F to pay respects
Sleep tight Phil

Japan has an average IQ of 105. Because of neoteny, Asians, much like women, tend to have have IQs closer to the average, meaning that they producer fewer retards, but also fewer geniuses.

As an individual needs a genius level IQ to be a great writer, this means that while Japan has a higher IQ than many white countries, they producer fewer great writers per capita.

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>Highest average IQ in the world
>Invented the novel
ftfy

>>8585217
All you are saying is that every language has problems with translation. You have only said one thing as to why Japanese is more difficult to translate than some other language only for someone to immediately dispute it and for you to agree that your assertion in that regard was overblown. So what is it that makes Japanese more difficult to translate than say Mandarin, Sanskrit or Russian?

>>8583177
highest i.q. is in the US

>>8585336
ambiguity of words combined with entirely different grammar that inherently requires translators to rewrite dialogue. Japanese dialogue does not require nouns. English does. Yes, this is just a "problem", but it makes translations just an outline when compared to, say, a spanish-english translation.

Sanskrit is a proto indo european language so I imagine it is far easier to translate than Japanese.

Mandarin and Russian I do not know, perhaps they can't be reasonably translated either. That isn't what I'm discussing.

My first and only language is English. lol

>>8585346
But they can be. I only sort of know moonspeak but I know Mandarin, and I know that anything can be translated if you know what you're doing.

And hardly any philosophers in contemporary times.

>>8583319
the idea of language being untranslatable is a meme. Language is used to convey ideas, and those ideas can be conveyed in any language. A literal translation might not work, but you turn Language A -> meaning -> Language B. Or are you into the pop science idea that certain ideas can't be expressed in certain languages?

>>8585338
only if you discount blacks, which are a substantial part of our population

>>8585368
what a plebian

>>8585368
I'm not black.

>>8583247
This was just incompetent on behalf on murrican journalists.

They're scaling back, but it's nowhere near as drastic as that.

>>8585411
language is a vessel
meaning is the water
but what use is a container
that leaks?

>>8585129
>深淵 in fact means "deep pool", "impending catastrophe", "helplessness", and "profound"
Have you got an example of it being used to mean all these things at once?

>they don't use Kanji to convey straightforward ideas
Pretty sure they do. Some very basic, standard words are written in kanji.

>>8585476
is this a poorly formed haiku?

>>8585481
It's amusing because you can use the word 'abyss' in many contexts to mean many different things. It can share many of the meanings of its supposedly 2deep Japanese counterpart if you use it right.

>>8585489
>2deep
>深渊
Nice

>>8585481
>Have you got an example of it being used to mean all these things at once?
Not off the top of my head. Sorry. Just something I noted at some point along the way as a good example.

>>8585481
>they don't use Kanji to convey straightforward ideas

Most kanji have at least one layer of literal vs metaphorical meaning.

Some, like 貝, simply mean one thing - in this case shellfish. In fact a lot of animals have their own, unique Kanji. But for the most part kanji that don't stand for animals or very specific places like the library have difficult to translate meanings.

鴨 is a fun exception to the animal rule though, which is a reminder that animal names can't be taken for granted as not having complex meanings. It means "duck", but also "victim" and "prey". It could be translated as "sitting duck", but in English that often has scary connotations. In Japanese it usually means someone who is too unintelligent for the situation. It's a funny word, that simultaneously has a quite dark meaning, because you might use it to describe someone who is doing something that puts them in a situation to be raped or otherwise. Very difficult to translate this and keep both the humor and the severity. If you don't keep both, is it really a translation, or just an interpretation?

>>8585504
It's translation. You're being a language snob here.

>>8585504
That's not very mind-blowing though.

English 'chicken' has two meanings, as does 'chick'. 'Bitch' is a female dog, but also an insult, but can also be used as a (misogynistic) term of approval, or a neutral term for woman, or a verb meaning 'to complain'...

>>8583262
Yeah OP and most of the people in this thread really aren't contributing anything useful to the discussion

>>8585504
Here's today's headline from the Asahi Shinbun:

豊洲市場問題、小池知事「退職者含めて懲戒処分」

What rich metaphorical meanings is it conveying?

>>8583340
They're social sciences more than humanities.

>>8585530
...actually, probably not headline, looks more like the latest item.

>>8585504
>duck in Japanese is totally different
>okay in English it can have a similar meaning but it has scary connotations
>not like if you were about to be raped which is dark yet funny
I think that is a fair summation.

>>8585504

I've spoken nip since birth, albeit I was brought up in the UK. I can speak it fluently and have no accent but my academic, as in written, level of the language isn't great - just want to mention that first.

That being said, write a Japanese sentence that you feel is untranslatable (that is, it doesn't really carry it's full meaning across) to English. Because while I can think of plenty of Japanese words that I can't translate, like:

わびさび (Wabisabi) which is a bit of a clichéd one.

Or 創意工夫 (Sou I Ku Fu) which I read off the packaging off of a gift from Japan yesterday and noticed that they (the manufacturer) had translated the packaging but skipped over that word, leaving a vaguer sentence in English.

I can't really think of an example that could be applied to a whole sentence or paragraph. I think that the lack of translation from Jap lit to English is more a cultural and economic one than anything, Western snobbery etc.

Obviously untranslatable words aren't unique to Japanese, I'm always frustrated with my mum or Japanese friends when I can't quite get across what 'cheesy' means when used to describe media/TV.

>>8585184
>>8585301
Story?

>>8583177
intelligence is not conducive to creativity

>>8585504
As a fluent Japanese speaker, you are just completely full of shit. Typical weeb with some stupidly romanticized view of Japanese. Like all translations and languages it's often imperfect but to pretend Japanese is some magical 5deep3u language is nothing but ignorance and stupidity.

>>8585504
He's right.
The nip soul is so subtle and their struggles are sewn into the language. Just as with POC (possibly the only class that could relate). The white man can not identify with the subtleties. White people will never understand the struggles of the non-white races

>>8585504
Japanese is TRULY amazing, untouchable meaning and truth. Oh I wish I could grasp their complexity!!!

>>8583189
The Japanese language is only sour grapes anyways.

>>8585173
>>8585236

>>8585129
This attitude is retarded. Unless the word is using strange kanji, you should assume the simple, conversational meaning.

As an example of using kanji for the deeper meaning, in woman of the dunes instead of using the conventional 砂漠 for desert, Kobo uses 沙漠, which changes the "stone" radical to "water", to indicate the flowing state of sand, which given the imagery and symbolism he's going for, clearly adds an extra layer to it.

When reading Japanese lit, people either don't allow enough suspension of disbelief like they do with Russian or Greek lit, or they exoticize Japanese literature to the point of annoying everyone else.

>>8585129
Abyss means deep pool, impending catastrophe, spiritual emptiness, hell and a profound separation between people all at once.

Multiple meanings is not some special Japanese thing.

>>8585476

There are no all-encompassing containers.

I guess to learn it properly you'd have to figure out the way they think and use their language, reminds me of that short story the movie Arrival (2016) is based upon.
Languages aren't always linear, neither is thinking expressed with them. Korean is even harder than Japanese + less outside influence. Those far east Asians see us all as absolutely impossible to integrate with them, there is a strong sense of separation present and many of them become very unhappy after a while abroad or dating a white person. You really have to be born into those societies.

>>8586475
Not to mention our recent 'progressive' ideas are hilarious to them. Typical American would now say 'you can't generalize like that' which makes me chuckle just thinking about that, those societies are all about collective, generalizations and roles they play in their world.

>>8586479
If you view Japanese culture through the lens of Nietzsche's master morality as outlined in GoM it makes much more sense; from pity instead of sympathy, individual dignity, sharp contrasts between value makers and value takers, as well as the custom-centered social culture, the Ancient Greece that Nietzsche imagines is pretty close to (especially early) modern Japan.

I once had some dumb Bosniak whine at me that the only reason Bosniaks and other Balkan slavs have such low average IQs is that their IQ tests are harder.

Is there any truth to that or was that just an idiot desperately making excuses for his comically low IQ?

>>8586633
slavs are subhuman

>>8583177
Richard Lynn is a meme anon, Asians aren't that smart.

>>8583177
Yeah, it's all chicken scratch to me, I can't understand any of it.

>>8583177
>Invented the Isekai genre

Check mate idiot.

>>8588230
Lol that's not even a word, let alone a genre.

>>8585368
only one you need lad

>>8585980
Phil Elverum, lead singer and multi instrumentalist of The Microphones, and Mount Eerie, got fucked by his old record company that wouldn't pay royalties.

His wife Genevieve (on the right) was also a musician. The two led a very private life until Phil started a gofundme for his wife's pancreatic cancer. A giant out pour from fans and strangers raised them a lot of money, but Genevieve died. Phil now raises their daughter alone, and its up in the air whether he'll make more music.