Friday, May 20, 2016

歩きスマホ


スタッブ - Stop
歩き (ある) - Walk, Walking
スマホ - Smart phone
次 (つぎ) - Next
は - Particle for the Subject, Topic of the sentence
あなた - You
が - Particle for the doer of the action
加害者 (かがいしゃ) - Assault; Damaging (someone)
者 (しゃ) - Person
に - Particle
なる - To Become
かも - May, Might, Perhaps, Maybe, Probably

Translation: Stop walking with your smart phone. Next time you might become a perpetrator.

A better translation would be, 'Stop walking while looking at your smart phone. You might just kill someone.' The poster uses 歩きスマホ which doesn't include 見に to look at, but implies it. Because what else do you do with a smart phone? You stare at it and you touch it. This has become such a big problem all over the world, even in the train stations of Japan. 

'DON!' is the onomatopoeia for hitting or running into something. It's used by comedians and for comedy purposes mostly, but a little more sinister in this context.

以上です。

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

故障中



故障 (こしょう)- Damage, hurt, failure
中 (ちゅう)- In, middle, center
故障中 (こしょうちゅう)-Out of order; In repair

故障 usually pairs with the verb する 'to do'. But here in this sign we see 中 which indicates it's something is 'going on right now'. 電話中 is 'on the phone'. So this sign is telling us the toilet is 'in failure' or 'out of order'.

 Subscribe to Death By Kanji by Email