So, what, it's just like an unusually enlongated, veering turn for a person, as opposed to turning straight around?
So, what, it's just like an unusually enlongated, veering turn for a person, as opposed to turning straight around?
lol no.
It's what Mcjon is saying. Sure, I can say that Rin's ability to hop back and forth between their groups is like she's a car running on a reciprocating engine (like all cars). Which is just a terrible figure of speech, especially in a literary context. I don't like it so I'm going to leave it until somebody figures a more attractive way to say it.
I was reading the scene and it's pretty entertaining until I run into this phrase that makes me go "lolwut".
The best image I get now is of her saying "beep beep" and doing a Roadrunner.
Then why not just shorten it and say it's like she's engine-powered?
That's what I'm sort of seeing it as, but that's not quite it. Handle turned in one direction, all of a sudden going in the other direction. Then we've got the engine part right. We're talking about the force of that kind of turn. Which in the end result might boil down to what you said, might not. It's fine enough to have a literal translation, depending on the way how the previous line was translated.
Actually, now that I think about it, it's talking about that kind of turn.
Last edited by deadfish; May 22nd, 2011 at 11:45 PM.
Eh. You'd call it a piston engine.
Yeah, but... everything runs on piston engines since the last century.
People don't run on piston engines.
That people don't run on engines... and it's saying that she zips around like she runs on an engine... which is a weird way of putting it.''
I'm asking for an alternate metaphor so I don't have to write that Rin walks like she's being powered by internal combustion. Unless you all think I should.
Okay. Let's think of this way then. Reciprocating engines versus turboprop engines.
Propeller planes versus jet planes. See where I'm going?
You're saying how reciprocating engines doesn't make sense to you if we're talking about turning and you want to use 4 cylinder or whatever.
Where else is the term reciprocating engines used constantly and is by no means the only possible engine for that field and where 旋回 would also be affected?
Planes. Where we have ones powered by reciprocating engines and ones using gas turbines.
Also, now that I think about it, it still said レシプロ機, emphasis on the 機, which makes it sound more and more like a plane. You wouldn't call a reciprocating engine a レシプロ機.
Last edited by deadfish; May 23rd, 2011 at 12:46 AM.
I already caught on to your airplane thing. It doesn't really answer my question.
Also, so now Rin moves with something akin to the turning performance of a prop plane! Awesome! That's even weirder! My basic question to everyone has still been more related to English than Japanese - do you have anything better?
So basically you want an English replacement for the analogy as opposed to a translation? Would referring to the "sudden turn in the opposite direction, used for vehicles" as a U-turn work? It encompasses both the fact that it's a vehicle-like turn (since U-turn is usually used for vehicles) and the vehicle-like performance (since U-turn is usually used for vehicles).
Or something, I could be talking nonsense here since I don't speak a word of Japanese.
Last edited by DoomRavager; May 23rd, 2011 at 03:25 AM.