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In the anime adaptation of the manga The Quintessential Quintuplets, as well as the corresponding manga, there are these 2 scenes:

  1. Scene 1: (S01E04) Miku Nakano (a member of identical and the eponymous quintuplets) says that 'Being quints is complicated.' This is translated from '複雑な五つ子心.' (I guess:' Fukuzatsuna itsutsuko kokoro'?) 'Complicated' here is '複雑' (Fukuzatsu).

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  • Context of scene: Miku is with fellow quints Itsuki and Ichika at a fireworks festival. Itsuki tells a story to Miku and Ichika about how Ichika got preferential treatment in shopping due to Ichika's attractiveness while Itsuki didn't even though Ichika and Itsuki look identical. Miku then makes the above remark.
  1. Scene 2: (S02E11) Raiha Uesugi says 'Things are complicated for quints.' This is translated from '五つ子のみなさんも大変なんだね.' (I guess: 'Itsutsuko no minna-san mo taihen nan da ne'?) 'Complicated' here is '複雑' (Fukuzatsu).

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  • Context of scene: Fuutarou Uesugi (in the middle) is shopping for clothes with Fuutarou's imouto Raiha Uesugi (on the left) and with 2 quints Yotsuba Nakano (on the right) and Itsuki Nakano (off-screen, getting measurements taken). Fuutarou thinks the quints have the same measurements since they're quints. Yotsuba wonders aloud if Itsuki's boobs are getting bigger than the other quints. (Itsuki is the imouto quint, if this makes a difference.) Then Raiha makes the above remark.

Question 1: How different are '複雑' (Fukuzatsu) and '大変' (taihen) ? I guess...it as different as 'complex/complicated' and 'difficult', which are exactly the resp translations.

  • Question 1.1: Do you agree with the translation of 大変 as complicated?

  • Motivation: In S01E04, Raiha was standing behind Miku when Miku said this. I'm conjecturing Raiha had remembered Itsuki's story in S01E04 and Miku's remark afterwards and then is repeating Miku's remark near-verbatim. The 1 flaw is the 複雑 vs 大変. I guess I might argue a 9yo child is more likely to say 大変 than 複雑. Certainly, I think 9yo children are more likely to say 'difficult' instead of 'complicated/complex'.

Question 2: Wiktionary, says the 'adnominal' of '複雑' is '複雑な', which is what Miku says. What exactly does 'adnominal' mean, and what is its relevance here? (Please don't judge me that I'm a monolinguist but don't know the meaning of 'adnominal'.)

BCLC
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    I think learning Japanese by way of trying to map words to English words is not a great method. There are a million places where stuff doesn’t map directly. Just get a general idea based on the glosses and then focus on building your own understandings of the word, and eventually read monolingual definitions. – Darius Jahandarie Jul 13 '22 at 14:52
  • @DariusJahandarie sure it applies to every language in general. in this case based on the context of the 2 scenes I don't really see a difference between the 2 words. – BCLC Jul 14 '22 at 06:12

1 Answers1

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The primary translation for 大変 in a context like this is, as jisho.org says, difficult, hard, challenging or tough. Something complicated is usually also challenging to deal with, but the opposite is not necessarily true. Something simple (like washing your hands before each meal) can often be tough, too. But I won't say "thing are complicated for quintuplets" is a mistranslation, either; it's perfectly understandable as a free translation.

"Adnominal" means "noun-modifying", just as "adverbial" means "verb-modifying". 複雑 is a na-adjective, so its noun-modifying form is naturally 複雑な. 五つ子心 (read いつつごごころ; こころ becomes ごころ due to rendaku) is a noun phrase meaning "mind(set) of quintuplets", so it has to be modified by the adnominal form of 複雑. The literal translation is "(Oh what a) complicated mindset of quintuplets...".

naruto
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  • Thanks naruto. 1 - Yeah easy vs hard and simple vs complicated. Steve Jobs: 'Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.' Or eg lifting a heavy rock is really hard but simple. But in this case is there any reason you can think of in the context of the scenes that 複雑 and 大変 are different? Based on the adnominal thing you said I guess 複雑 describes more their complicated mindset while 大変 describes the hard 'things' or problems they face? Well, actually the dub says: 'quints sure have a lot of unique problems don't they?' – BCLC Jul 14 '22 at 06:20
  • 2 - And do you think anything like a 9yo is more likely to say 大変 than 複雑 ? Or is it irrelevant of a 9yo's vocabulary that 大変 is really a more appropriate word than 複雑 here? 3 - Ok adnominal I don't really get. What's the difference between adnominal and adjectival ? Afaik, if a word describes a noun, then it's an adjective, and if a word describes a verb or another adjective, then it's an adverb. – BCLC Jul 14 '22 at 06:23
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    This is not a matter of which is easier for a child. They are words with totally different meanings. Both words should be easy enough for a 9yo. As far as I know, *adjectival*, *attributive* and *adnominal* are used interchangeably on a site like this, but true linguistic experts may have different opinions. However, *adjectival* and *adjective* are different concepts; the former refers to any noun-modifying expression including a relative clause, and the latter is a type of a word. – naruto Jul 14 '22 at 08:37
  • Ok thanks. 4 - So 複雑 is really the appropriate word in scene 1 and 大変 is really the appropriate word for scene 2, like what it's really wrong to use the same word in both scenes? 5 - But it's ok to translate both as 'complicated' regardless of which word is used? Re 'But I won't say "thing are complicated for quintuplets" is a mistranslation, either; it's perfectly understandable as a free translation.' – BCLC Jul 14 '22 at 09:00
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    @BCLC A more faithful translation for your second example should be something like "So you quintuplets are all having a hard time just like us". But this is not a language exam where word-by-word correspondence is usually expected. This kind of free translation is perfectly normal in professional translations. – naruto Jul 14 '22 at 10:29
  • ok thanks that settles the english. But for the japanese... Again... 複雑 is really the appropriate word in scene 1 and 大変 is really the appropriate word for scene 2, like what it's really wrong to use the same word in both scenes? – BCLC Jul 14 '22 at 16:49
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    @BCLC 五つ子心は大変 would be more like "Mindset of quintuplets is troubling/bothersome". 五つ子の皆さんも複雑なんだ sounds like this little girl finds it difficult to understand the situation around the quints. I don't know if it also fits the context. The translator happened to use the same word to translate them, but it's a coincidence and has no profound meaning. If you look at the Japanese sentences alone, those words are just two words with totally different meanings. – naruto Jul 15 '22 at 07:26
  • Thanks. 6 - Another thing. Re 'hard time just like us' , really? In fact the dub even translates to that Raiha says quints have 'unique problems'. After all, we don't expect non-identical siblings to be identical in body measurements. 7 - Coincidentally, I guess the dub does tell us why 'complicated' isn't strictly speaking a good translation of 大変. Which do you find better between 'Quints sure have a lot of unique problems, don't they?' (in the official dub) and 'I guess things are complicated for quints, huh?' (in the subtitles) ? – BCLC Jul 16 '22 at 06:25
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    @BCLC I don't know. There is no reason for me check all the previous context just to explain the meanings of two words that are as different as night and day. The meaning of も has nothing to do with what you are asking. I'm pretty sure that the translator "just translated this professionally" without any consideration for the convenience of learners like you. I'm pretty certain that you are overthinking. – naruto Jul 18 '22 at 22:53
  • Ayt ayt thanks then naruto – BCLC Jul 19 '22 at 07:46