Chouchou Koi
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Choco_Pudding
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I just noticed that someone put in the title as "Chouchou koi" when "shushu koi" is clearly written on the cover. In kana!! But I'm scared to change it now because I don't want to throw off anyone trying to find it by the wrong name.
@Choco_Pudding shushu is Japanese for scrunchie. In Dutch we call scrunchies chouchou, it's pronounced shushu as well, so my guess is the Japanese borrowed it from the same language we borrowed it from, though I'm not sure what language that is. Google translates shushu to choucho though, so yeah, they partly translated the title ?
Choco_Pudding
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Oh, that's really interesting! Thanks!
Still, "Chouchou" doesn't make that sound at all in English, so assuming (as the description is in English and - unless they're in a language I have hidden - the only available scans are too) the romanization was meant to be read with English pronunciation, it's a mistake. (But an understandable one.)
Still, "Chouchou" doesn't make that sound at all in English, so assuming (as the description is in English and - unless they're in a language I have hidden - the only available scans are too) the romanization was meant to be read with English pronunciation, it's a mistake. (But an understandable one.)
Pokari
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@Choco_Pudding:
From an English perspective, "chouchou" is a French word (an affectionate term), but one that's commonly recognized in English enough to be understood (depending on the audience)—the sort of word that some authors might italicize to indicate it's not English, but still expect their audiences to know ("déjà-vu", "por favore", et cetera).
It's also pronounced similarly (shoo-shoo or thereabouts). So it's possible that that's where the person writing the title was going (possibly with the belief that the title is a double-entendre?)
Given history, I suspect that the Dutch and Japanese words being the same is because of the article in question having been introduced by Dutch traders, as is usually the case when a Dutch word pops up randomly for a commodity in Japanese. But I don't know.
From an English perspective, "chouchou" is a French word (an affectionate term), but one that's commonly recognized in English enough to be understood (depending on the audience)—the sort of word that some authors might italicize to indicate it's not English, but still expect their audiences to know ("déjà-vu", "por favore", et cetera).
It's also pronounced similarly (shoo-shoo or thereabouts). So it's possible that that's where the person writing the title was going (possibly with the belief that the title is a double-entendre?)
Given history, I suspect that the Dutch and Japanese words being the same is because of the article in question having been introduced by Dutch traders, as is usually the case when a Dutch word pops up randomly for a commodity in Japanese. But I don't know.
Choco_Pudding
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That's an interesting suggestion! I'd be really happy if that were the case, honestly, because I love French - but there are three reasons I think it's not.
1) I've never seen the French chouchou used in English before, and I'm Quebecoise. We have at least one of, if not the healthiest and most deeply involved mixes of French and English in the world here.
2) Not to sound like an ingrate - I know how many hours of work go into scanlation, and have first hand experience with Japanese to English translation specifically; and it's hard. I admire anyone willing to take on that challenge and then release their results to a world that isn't very afraid to criticize, and definitely appreciate being able to read this manga in English. That said, to put it somewhat bluntly: the translation is not very good. Unfortunately, passion and hard work alone do not guarantee good results, and the available release of this is frankly quite lacking in the translation department. It's rife with errors, so I wouldn't be surprised for the title to be one more.
3) Even if it is meant to be wordplay, it would likely fly right over the average reader's head, because in context it just looks like the Japanese word for butterfly. Even people who don't know what "chouchou" means in Japanese are likely to follow normal conventions and read "ou" as an extended "o", even though "ou" isn't supposed to make that sound in English.
1) I've never seen the French chouchou used in English before, and I'm Quebecoise. We have at least one of, if not the healthiest and most deeply involved mixes of French and English in the world here.
2) Not to sound like an ingrate - I know how many hours of work go into scanlation, and have first hand experience with Japanese to English translation specifically; and it's hard. I admire anyone willing to take on that challenge and then release their results to a world that isn't very afraid to criticize, and definitely appreciate being able to read this manga in English. That said, to put it somewhat bluntly: the translation is not very good. Unfortunately, passion and hard work alone do not guarantee good results, and the available release of this is frankly quite lacking in the translation department. It's rife with errors, so I wouldn't be surprised for the title to be one more.
3) Even if it is meant to be wordplay, it would likely fly right over the average reader's head, because in context it just looks like the Japanese word for butterfly. Even people who don't know what "chouchou" means in Japanese are likely to follow normal conventions and read "ou" as an extended "o", even though "ou" isn't supposed to make that sound in English.
Chouchou (noun, French) is a scrunchy. And apparently, to the average Japanese audience for whom this story was written, a chouchou which is spelled シュシュ (shushu) is also a scrunchy because they don't call it anything else. On the top left of the cover in romaji right above the author's name, it very clearly says "chouchou koi." Under the title, there's a cute pink and yellow scrunchy. Why is it "scrunchy love?" Because that's what the girl was wearing in her hair the first time they met and the guy commented on it. There are no butterflies at all. So no, the scanlating group isn't using the wrong word because the author, the editor, and the publisher aren't using the wrong word. Neither are they doing "wordplay." English is not the only language Japanese borrows from.
Choco_Pudding
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Oh, I failed to notice the small text in the corner and assumed the romanization to have come from the scanlation group.
I never argued about it being "scrunchy love" though. I can read Japanese, I knew what it meant. It was purely about the chosen spelling in our alphabet, however I see now that the author chose to use the original spelling of their loan word, which is fine. I was just wondering at first why it was done that way. I was pretty clear that it only qualified as an error under the assumption that the entire title was meant to be pronounced in English. It wasn't, so no errors! Curtly or otherwise, thank you for helping clear things up for me.
I never argued about it being "scrunchy love" though. I can read Japanese, I knew what it meant. It was purely about the chosen spelling in our alphabet, however I see now that the author chose to use the original spelling of their loan word, which is fine. I was just wondering at first why it was done that way. I was pretty clear that it only qualified as an error under the assumption that the entire title was meant to be pronounced in English. It wasn't, so no errors! Curtly or otherwise, thank you for helping clear things up for me.
