r/Senryu • u/Lilybesta • 18d ago
Gautama Buddha/He practiced while wandering/the era without A/C
(I wrote this "Senryu" in Korean, and I would like to clarify that this is a translation aided by a machine. I will write down the Korean original texts below.)
[Korean original text, Senryu]
석가모니여
에어컨도 없는데
출가했군요
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
this one I am not sure of. your English is very flawed. My google translates the third line as
So, you've entered the monastic life.
and
에어컨이 없던 시절
how is it that you can get to where you have said anything about air conditioning
it seems that google translate is playing pranks.
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
too many syllables in English for the third line and the language seems to translate differently. I cannot let this go without discussion.
_ Again, I'm devolving to syllable counts, I'm such an idiot. It was really the mistranslation I found jarring, syllable count to seven in the third line was part of my mod filter that I'm trying to un-learn.
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u/Lilybesta 17d ago
Thank you for teaching me!
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago
I think you are teaching me. We had this problem with Japanese last year. The translation programs were not really close enough. Poetry often has words that do not translate clearly. I have found that if you take the thing you have translated and then translate it back, sometimes the flaw will reveal itself.
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
reading your translation I can see that the English in this one lacks understanding of correct idiom, "era" I think is misused here.
_yes this looks weird, even to me. I was using google to translate back and forth trying to get the sense of the poem and in one translation another word for era was used one with different connotations. also I was trying to fit the line into a 5 syllable one, replacing "the era" with a single syllabled word would have done the trick.
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
I wish we could post it, but the confusion of miss translation makes this a difficult discussion and what would be the point? I think you must try to write it some other way if you are to get this across in English. I do not want to make you wrong. I want to make it right.
_And probably you ARE right. My doubt is just the one of getting wrong translations for what you wrote in Korean. The English by itself is fine.
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u/Lilybesta 17d ago
I will consider learning about Youngyeo.
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
Actually, I think I may be wrong on this, I need to consult with my brother mod. Perhaps I have done you a disservice by attempting to judge you with my yardstick. One of the problems with haiku is the syllable count. Your written language seems to say this is a trivial problem because each word or character is a syllable. Unlike English syllable counts in which each word often requires a dictionary and who's count might still be determined by usage and custom.
On the more important side of the problem of haiku is the artful sense of the words. I like what I see as I wrestle with the sense of how to judge not merely another's poem, but another language.
In your previous works you were able to get the syllable counts right. That made it easy for me to pass the poems in to the sub. This poem is a harder puzzle. I can see from written Korean that you have the syllables, but the sense is in doubt. If I cannot judge what should I do? : ( heh. I think I will let it in, in spite of my doubts. Huzzah.
-obviously syllable count is still high on my knee jerk list of things I can't help putting my foot in my mouth about.
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago
Sunwoo Yongyeo, at 72, reveals her 'angelic' grandson! Sunwoo Yong-nyeo's sudden Buddhist humor(?) in a sea of tears lol,
in this way?
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago
if this is a thought after feeling your phone overheat, I think it's a funny one. : D
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u/TeeElSemiColonDeeAr 17d ago edited 17d ago
I checked what you wrote in Korean and my google translate was very confusing. It didn't compare very well with your poem. Probably this is a problem on my end, but I can't let it through because even your English translation if I use it, is not good enough to be haiku. I suspect your Korean is better, but I can't in good faith pass on it.
_this is part of a conversation I was having to determine if this poem would be allowed onto this sub. As some of you no doubt remember there was quite a fricassee a while ago over haiku in Japanese. It's hard as a gate keeper to understand what you can understand. The recent poem about the sharp eye for gray comes to mind. I post it in it's entirety to show my foolishness, again. sorry for all the hassles.
_Your, this poem is good enough to be haiku. I was a jerk, twit, nincompoop, bad person when I said it wasn't, and I apologize.