Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 18

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March 18

Japanese help: Japanese School of Sao Paulo

• "サンパウロ日本人学校 村石校長に聞く㊦　生徒数が再び増加傾向に" (Archive) São Paulo Shimbun. 14 February 2011.

Using Google translate I found that the article talks about enrollment trends. Is this correct?

• My text: "The school was started in 1981. At one point the student population dropped due to economic troubles in Japan, but by 2011 the population increased as Japanese companies expanded operations. On January 17, 2011 the school had 238 students including 178 elementary school students and 60 junior high students."

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The first two sentences are not correct. The school was started on August 14, 1967.[1]
My text:"Since the opening, the student population increased by a boom of the overseas advance among Japanese companies until 1981 and it decreased afterward, but it increased from 2011 as the advance of Japanese companies increased again".
As for the date in the third sentence, it is Jan. 17, 2014. The date of the article is Feb. 11, 2014/2014年2月11日付.
This translation might be a bit better than Google. Oda Mari (talk) 08:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I didn't know about yahoofs.jp - The text is now here Escola Japonesa de São Paulo WhisperToMe (talk) 09:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

leaving a large wet patch on it

Hello! I have got a question about the following sentence: "Holding the new skirt in her hands, she burst into tears, leaving a large wet patch on it." I'm not satisfied with the last part "leaving a large patch on it." But I have no idea how to improve it. Is there any problem with it? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:250:209:C1D:B9C6:F190:F80E:7B2A (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The sentence is grammatically correct but lacks correspondence with actual circumstances (unless the genre is SF/F). On a cloth fabric sturdy enough to make into a skirt, tears would be likely to leave small damp spots rather than as written. This sort of query would best be directed to an editor or a teacher of composition, reading comprehension, or if appropriate, English as a Foreign Language. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:28, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Apart from that objection, I would simply change "it" to "the skirt". Or, if you don't like the repetition of "skirt", you could go with "She burst into tears, leaving a large wet patch on the new skirt she was holding in her hands". Or, if she's actually wearing the skirt, why not say "She burst into tears, leaving a large wet patch on her new skirt" (the fact that she is wearing it is implied, you don't need the "in her hands"). --Viennese Waltz 12:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

To the last point, I'd say the likelihood of "[a] new skirt [held] in her hands" implying that she's wearing it no sure thing, but rather the opposite. Certainly didn't become a fact for this reader (female, b. 1953, native speaker of AE). -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• I think the problem lies with "large wet patch" being overspecific and slightly contrary to expectations--a spilt glass woud leave a large wet patch. I would simply say she burst into tears, wetting the skirt. Let the reader imagine how much. μηδείς (talk) 14:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

  Your method for measuring lacrimation volume may be unsound ... so for me that leaves quite a question mark. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

  • My problem with this is that after she burst into tears holding the skirt (which I also assumed was not the one she was wearing), she immediately left a wet patch on the skirt. The word 'leaving' in the sentence implies she stopped, so the whole sentence comes to me as her suddenly crying copiously for a split second, then spontaneously stopping, with a soaking wet skirt in her hands.KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag)

The stuff of cartoons, not RL. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The stuff of anime, I'd wager.... doktorb _words^deeds 06:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I might write "She soaked the new skirt with her tears." —Tamfang (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Or better, "Her tears soaked her new skirt." —Tamfang (talk) 03:36, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

secondary clinical conditions

What is the meaning of the term "secondary clinical conditions"? 194.114.146.227 (talk) 08:22, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Side-effects, perhaps? phone your local clinic and ask. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag)

Perhaps a medical problem which was identified during the clinic visit, but was not the one they came in for. StuRat (talk) 13:37, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

According to Ask.com (often an unreliable source), "A clinical condition is a term that is given to a list of certain diseases, which have been published by CDC. Some of these diseases are: candidiasis, Kaposi's sarcoma, Lymphoma, tuberculosis, salmonella, and Encephalopathy.". A secondary clinical condition, as I understand it, is a clinical condition that occurs in association with some other, more important, primary clinical condition. Looie496 (talk) 14:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

In medical jargon "secondary to" means "caused by" (or at least "conditional on"), e.g. weight loss secondary to tuberculosis. They don't count higher than that, I believe; secondaries can chain: sleep apnea secondary to obesity secondary to Prozac use... —Tamfang (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

How do you pronounce "Bodhisattva" in the American English dialect as well as the original pronunciation?

Also, why is the Chinese version 菩萨 only two phonetic syllables? 140.254.227.101 (talk) 17:37, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

OK. I think I got the first part. [boh-dee-SAHT-vah]. Now, tell me why the Chinese version has the p pronunciation. 140.254.227.101 (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the Chinese version just takes the Bo part and transforms it into a p sound, and the sa part is kept. It may suggest that the dhi and tva sounds may have been part of the morphemes. 140.254.227.101 (talk) 17:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

It's meant to be a contracted form of 菩提萨埵. --Kjoonlee 18:06, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The current reading of 菩 is pú, but it has alternative readings of bù and bó. What you have to understand is that 1) The Sanskrit term was borrowed into Early Middle Chinese during the early centuries of the common era, and that variety of Chinese did not have the same consonant inventory as Sanskrit. As a result, the term was adapted to fit Early Middle Chinese phonology. The same thing happens in English. The English pronunciation of Bodhisattva substitutes sounds native to English for the aspirated 'd' and the geminated 't' of the Sanskrit original. 2) None of the modern dialects of Chinese, such as Mandarin Chinese, have preserved the pronunciation of the Early Middle Chinese from which they evolved. They have all undergone phonological change, as has English. An example is the word church. Christian terminology began to enter the Germanic languages about the same time as Buddhist terminology began to enter ancient forms of Chinese. Church is not pronounced the same way as the Koine Greek kyriake from which it evolved for the same reasons that 菩萨 (púsà) in modern Mandarin is not pronounced the same as bodhisattva. Marco polo (talk) 19:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

And the 1970s West Coast pronunciation coincides with Marco polo's meticulous historical analysis. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC) [2]

My Archaic Chinese dictionary has p'jwəg and b'wəg as pronunciations for 菩. In Middle Chinese it was p'iəu and buəi respectively. I cannot find 薩, but based on the Japanese pronunciation ('satsu'), I would guess it to be something like 'sat'. Maybe this gives an indication of how it was pronounced around the time the word was introduced from Sanskrit (later than Archaic Chinese, but around the time the word was borrowed into Japanese from Chinese). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:35, 19 March 2014 (UTC)