Taberu Koto Bakkari

In this scene from the manga President Shima Kosaku, Shima Kosaku and his secretary Keiko Kanagawa are riding in a taxi after having just arrived in Moscow on a business trip. (Dialog reads from right of scene to left).

Japanese:
社長今日の夕食はグルジア料理です （神奈川恵子）
食べることばっかりだなキミは （島耕作）

Romanized:
Shachou kyou no yuushoku wa gurujia ryouri desu. (Kanagawa Keiko)
Taberu koto bakkari dana kimi wa. (Shima Kosaku)

Participants Names:
神奈川恵子「かながわけいこ」Kanagawa Keiko [right]
島耕作「しまこうさく」Shima Kosaku [left]
* Last name followed by first name.

Vocabulary Listing:
社長「しゃちょう」shachou - company president
今日「きょう」kyou - today
夕食「ゆうしょく」yuushoku - dinner
グルジア gurujia - Georgia (the country)
料理「りょうり」ryouri - cooking; cuisine
食べる「たべる」taberu - verb "to eat"
こと koto - things; matters
ばかり bakari - only; nothing but (ばっかり bakkari is a colloquial form, see below)

Kana And Grammar Points:
- The の in 今日の夕食 is possessive, similar to an apostrophe s in English. It indicates "today's dinner."
- グルジア料理 - You would say "Georgian cuisine" in English. Initially I thought this was a typo and that they had meant "Greek cuisine" or ギリシャ料理 but comments convinced me it's correct as グルジア料理.
- ことばかり koto bakari - This may be the most useful portion of the dialog for learners of Japanese as this is a pattern that can be applied in many situations. This phrase usually follows the dictionary form of a verb and basically means "only doing <verb>" or "always doing <verb>" or in this scene's case "only thinking/talking about <verb>". As "eat" is the verb, Kosaku is basically saying "All you think about is eating." or "You are always talking about eating."
- Notice that in the manga, ばかり bakari is written as ばっかり bakkari. The second form is a colloquial or "relaxed" form. Another variation of ばかり is ばっか.
- だな dana - casual form of ですね "desu ne".
- キミ kimi - this is a casual way to say "you" and is written in katakana for emphasis. Since Keiko is Kosaku's secretary, he would naturally speak to her in a casual manner. As he is her superior, she refers to him as "shachou" which is polite.
* I'm leaving out the basic particles は, です and ね as I assume most students have a firm understanding of them already.

Translation Notes:
First a disclaimer, I am not a professional translator, I read Japanese for fun. I am posting this here as a way to share my interest in Japanese and manga, so please enjoy it and don't take it too seriously.

When it comes to translating, I believe there are two basic approaches - the first is more literal, the second is more artistic. I once heard the second referred to as something like "culturlation". I don't remember the exact term but the point is that it is okay to change the literal words to more closely match the natural way something would be said in the target culture. I believe this is particularly important in Japanese due to wide grammar and cultural differences. So my English translation is not 100% literal but if it were, native English speakers would probably not enjoy it. For example, I could have said something like this for Keiko's line:

Company president, today's dinner is Georgia cooking.

It would have been more literally accurate but it also sounds awkward. Nobody addresses their boss as "company president" in the USA. In fact, a secretary would probably refer to her boss as "Mr. Shima" or simply "Kosaku" if she knew him well enough. I chose "boss" because I thought it sounded the most natural in this situation. I guess this is where the "art" of translation comes in and it is definitely the part of translation I find most appealing. Where do we draw that line between literally correct and culturally correct? A translator that really made me aware of this is Alfred Birnbaum. He is one of the primary translators of Haruki Murakami's books. If you ever get a chance to read one, I'm sure you will thoroughly enjoy it and not have any idea that the original author is a non-native English speaker. Birnbaum is one of the best translation "artists" I know of. One of my favorite Murakami books is Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World.

Source Of Material:
I scanned the image myself from a personal copy of the weekly magazine Morning モーニング. It appears in the 29th issue of 2009, dated July 2nd. Morning is published every Thursday in Japan by Kodansha and is a collection of approximately 25-30 single-episode manga targeted towards young adults. I do not have explicit permission from the publisher to use this scan but it is my understanding that I am covered by fair use law. The particular manga the above scene is from is called "President Shima Kosaku" 社長島耕作「しゃちょうしまこうさく」and appears on page 54. The author of President Shima Kosaku is Hiroshi Kenshi 弘兼 憲史「ひろかね けんし」. For more information, please refer to the following links:

講談社　Kodansha
モーニング　Morning
島耕作　Shima Kosaku
弘兼 憲史 Hiroshi Kenshi

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