A bizarre question to ask, but could anyone help in translating some English text into Japanese (preferably Okinawan dialect)? I'm looking at getting:

Terrorizing Japan Tour

translated into Japanese so I can use it on a t-shirt design for my band, which we'll be taking with us in October when we go to tour there. I've tried numerous free translator websites all with different results. So anyone on here who's from Japan or can speak/write Japanese will be doing me a world of good.

Thanks

I don't have an answer for you, but it may be worth considering the complex grammatical issues involved with translating languages. "Terrorizing Japan Tour" may be better translated as something like "The tour that terrorizes Japan" (same meaning, grammatically easier to translate).

Good luck!

In strict Keigo, "Terrorizing Japan Tour" is "Nihon wo Kowagaraseteru TOUR" which becomes "日本を恐がらせてるTOUR" or "日本を恐がらせてるツアー". I recommend the one with TOUR in all caps, as English words are hip in Japan.

As for Okinawan, I can't help you there.

This doesn't really work out, though. 恐がる is an intransitive verb, it can not take the を -particle. Moreover, the causative form (and its -te-form) doesn't really sound that natural given what the OP wanted. Also, there's nothing that's Keigo about that, really. =P


This is true, though.

Anyway, this kind of sentence is pretty hard to put together unless you know what kind of implication you want it to have; Japanese is pretty tricky and delicate like that. Perhaps "日本に威嚇をするTOUR" (Nihon ni ikaku wo suru TOUR) or "日本が威嚇をされてるTOUR" (Nihon ga ikaku wo sareteru TOUR) would be the two most natural choices I can come up with, with the info you provided in the OP. The first one means, well, "threatening/terrorizing Japan tour" and the second one means the same, essentially, but without the implication that it is you guys (the band) unleashing the terror, ie. Japan is being terrorized, but without a human agent, ie. "Japan is being terrorized, tour". (Grammatically, Direct Passive).

As for the Okinawan part.. Well, I am currently a 3rd year Japanology major, and while we have shortly covered the Okinawan "dialect", I can tell you that it is (not that there is only one, either) so far away from the other dialects that it isn't really Japanese anymore, as we know it today. Perhaps I could help you with that within a year or so, but I just started my 3rd year, and while we are about done with the modern Japanese studies (parring mastering other dialects such as kansai-ben), we haven't covered all the Okinawan dialects much if at all yet.

I would be cautious with such shirts. Could be hard to explain to japanese authorities that "Terrorizing Japan" sounds cool in english and is not meant as a threat against national security.

in that case, I'd look into finding a way to have shirts shipped to japan and held for you... I mean, at least it would be less incriminating than having them directly in your possession, I'd think.

Customs officials seemingly everywhere are pretty ridiculous about that sort of thing though, so... *shrug*
As long as you fill out the forms right, it shouldn't (SHOULDN'T) really be an issue.

It might help to have a guitar plainly shown on the shirts. That way, there can be no doubt about what's going on.