I get that, but Japanese has words for “chicken” “sea” and “of the” and surely they have a native Japanese word for “tuna?” I don’t get why they adopt so many English words when they have perfectly good Japanese words for these things.
Why don’t they just say 海の鳥肉?
i think you’re overthinking this one.
It was originally a brand name, probably the first major canned tuna brand. Over time Japanese just got used to calling it that, like we call tissue Kleenex. The shirt guy was just sporting that particular brand logo.
They also call tuna ツナ(it’s my go-to onigiri flavor), and of course tuna that isn’t canned is maguro as you know. But in the past and today, using an English-derived phrasing in Japanese has a certain stylish connotation to native speakers, even though it may sound ridiculous to us.
OK, what is the distinction between チーキン、鶏、and 鳥肉？
How would regular Japanese people use these words in everyday contexts?
チキン is sometimes used as we use “chicken.” You might find this on menus, product packaging, etc. It refers exclusively to food items, but not the animal.
鶏肉 also literally means “chicken meat,” so this also refers to food items, not the living animal. So チキン and this can be used someone interchangeably.
And 鶏 used alone normally just refers to the living animal, not the food meat (肉).
I used to get paid good money for Japanese lessons like these lol.
It seems like how in English we use fancy French words for cooking like “beef” and “pork” but crude Anglic/German words like “cow” and “pig” for the animals themselves.
One last Q, what is The distinction between 鮪 and ッナ? I am guessing one of them is for fancy fresh sushi tuna and one is for canned tuna.
Pretty much.
Maguro (the kanji) refers to the actual fish, as well as dishes like sushi & sashimi prepared using it.
Tuna (the katakana) refers only to the the canned food item that we know as tunafish.
What thread are we in again?
It is curious. The Japanese use native words for sophisticated things like fresh 鮪 sushi and foreign words for crude things like canned ッナ meat. English speakers use foreign French words for fancy culinary terms (“beef”) but ‘native’ Germanic/Norse words for crude things like livestock (“cows”).
Honestly, Hakuho is the single biggest reason I started following sumo. It’s like, here is an opportunity to watch the absolute GOAT compete in a sport that is over 500 years old, you’re crazy to pass that up. It’s kind of like being able to watch Babe Ruth live in his prime, except baseball is only 200 years old.
No doubt Hakuho is the GOAT, but I have to say I enjoyed the Waka-Taka & Hawaiians era of sumo more. That was before the first Mongolian rikishi even set foot on Japanese soil. Now they absolutely dominate the sport.
I watched some highlights of him and there’s a clip of a round starting and he fakes a face slap and then moves around the guy so fast it’s like he’s a ghost and the guy goes flying out of the ring. big enormously strong guys that can move fast and are agile always impress me, that kind of speed.
saw another clip where he caught a guy in the face with a forearm and completely ko’d him, like the guy was doing that spasm thing on the ground when someone has suffered a brain injury - insane. I’ve never seen someone get ko’d that hard by just a fuckin forearm like that, it happened so fast you couldnt even see it.
people on reddit seem to think he’s a dirty fighter. is this the impression in japan?
is that tom hanks??
It is, but I have no idea WTF is going on in that video.
Here’s my Hakuho question. Is it obvious by looking at him that he is not ethnically Japanese? I never would have guessed it if didn’t know.
Most international fans seem to like Hak, he does do some jackass things but when you’re that good you can get away with it.
As far as slapping goes, I thought one of the matches from last tournament was wild, dudes were throwing haymakers at each other.
I cannot even imagine how it must feel to catch one of those.
I won’t pollute this thread with my ignorance but I love combat sports and this is fascinating.
lol wat, there is only guy ITT who knows really knows anything about this sport, don’t be shy. I ask dumb questions all the time.
As I understand it, open-hand slapping is totally fair game. Really, you’re not going to knock someone out with an open slap so the main point of it is just to distract the other guy and throw him off his game. I think Hakuho was brilliant at this, he often starts off with a slap and totally confuses the other guy. It is the old saying about war, everyone has a plan until they get slapped in the face.
I seem to remember it as “punched in the face”