| Current Entry | 飛んで火に入る夏の虫 [とんでひにいるなつのむし] /(exp) (id) It is like a moth flying into the flame/ (2419490) |
| Headword 1 | 飛んで火に入る夏の虫 |
| Reading 1 | とんでひにいるなつのむし |
| Part-of-speech | exp |
| English 1 | a summer insect which enters the fire flying |
| English 1 | (id) It is like a moth flying into the flame |
| English 2 | (id) flying to one's doom |
| Reference | See below. |
| Comment | I was interested to see the addition which "Name" had added, namely: "flying to one's doom". I think this is an appropriate idiomatic concept which mirrors the idiomatic expression "It is like a moth flying into the flame".
However, from the point of view of the novice, who is trying to understand Japanese, the Japanese is simply, as I see it, "an summer insect which enters the fire flying". The Japanese for moth is "が[蛾]", so if it was intended to be only a moth, then the Japanese could have been originally stated as "飛んで火に入る夏のが". However, I guess that - as all insects, that can fly, - [including, gnats, etc.] - fly into the light and potentially get destroyed. Thus, quite correctly, the moth expression is described as the idiomatic expression. So often much confusion is caused to the novice by translations which jump straight from Japanese idiom to English idiom. However, if the first translation in English on your site matched the original Japanese [and, as it seems to me, there does not seem to be any reason in this instance why it should not], both Japanese and English people would instinctively convert the text to their mother tongue's idiom. Moreover, with the site's inclusion of idiomatic examples, that would be the bonus. |
| Other language option | eng |
| Name | Francis |
| Submission Type | amend |
| Editorial Comment | I try and avoid over-literal translations, such as "summer insect". |
| Current Entry | 蝋燭 [ろうそく(P);ローソク] /(n) (uk) candle/(P)/ (1561240) |
| Headword 1 | 蝋燭 |
| Headword 2 | 蠟燭 |
| Reading 1 | ろうそく |
| Reading 2 | ローソク |
| Part-of-speech | n |
| English 1 | (uk) candle |
| Reference | wiki |
| Other language option | eng |
| Name | Scott |
| Submission Type | amend |
| Editorial Comment |
| Current Entry | ゲートル /(n) gaiter (fre: guetre)/spat/ (1629610) |
| Headword 1 | ゲートル |
| Part-of-speech | n |
| English 1 | gaiter (fre: guetre) |
| English 2 | spat |
| English 3 | spats |
| Other language option | eng |
| Name | Name |
| Submission Type | amend |
| Editorial Comment |