#but he also drops the subject in a lot of sentences and is really passive/indirect for story reasons

[queeraang]

I have been RPing the christian devil with a vague texabamassipi accent for five gregorian years now which is great, but it means that when I try to write a character from somewhere else the dialect is a fucking nightmare to wrangle because i backslide into satan out of habit

[thejsubexperiment]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Episode 21 Runthrough (Part 18)

We are back! Once again, we apologize for the bad numbering- but we’ve finally settled it all. This scene is scene 13, and the one before that is 12. We apologize. No more rewrites on that, promise.

This is week we have 2 parts, covering the conversation between the Elric brothers and Ling and Lan Fan. Next week we’ll do scene 14, which is when Winry comes in.

Scene 13 — Central Hotel — Edward, Alphonse, Ling, Lan Fan

りん：不死身ということは？

ランファン： 不老不死ですね。

アルフォンス： また窓から？

りん： その作戦、協力しようじゃないか。

エドワード： 何？      

りん： 軍のゴタゴタには興味ないけどホムンクルスやらが不老不死なら話は別だ。

りん： あれ？なんだか疑われてる？

エドワード： ロス少尉を助けてくれたのには感謝してる。でもー      

りん： 仲間は多い方がいいだろ？

りん： こっちも真剣なんだ。

りん： 一族の命運が懸かっている。

エドワード： いいだろう。

エドワード： ホムンクルス、持ち逃げすんなよ。      

りん： 約束は守るよ。

りん： 一飯の恩があるしね？

エドワード： 一飯？      

エドワード： ルームサービス代 ？

りん： ごっそさん。      

エドワード： 一飯どころじゃねぇじゃねぇか。

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りん：不死身ということは？ (Rin: Fujimi to iu koto wa?)

不死身 (fujimi): is a noun, meaning literally “a body that doesn’t die.” Sometimes it gets translated as “invulnerable” and sometimes it gets translated as “immortal.” We’re going to hear a synonym to this word in a moment, so we’re going to go with “invulnerable.”

と (to): is the quotative particle. The quotative particle functions as a grammatical “”, letting us know what was said or how something was done (in some cases), and a lot of expressions use it.

いう (iu): is the indicative, imperfective, affirmative conjugation of the verb meaning “to say” or “to call.” So here we are saying “(one) calls ‘invulnerable.’

こと (koto): is a noun meaning “thing.” So this is a “thing that (someone) calls…”

は (wa): is the topical particle. The topical case marks the topic of a sentence, not the subject. However, in some cases the topic is also the subject, but the subject is omitted. In translation, because English requires there to be a subject in the sentence, the topic will become the sentence. English also doesn’t take too kindly to topical-like phrases in its sentences. We’ll see a bit of that later.

“to iu koto wa” is an expression. It means something like “so that means…” “that is to say….” Functionally, it highlights something just said, which is “fujimi.” (Alphonse just said that. See Part 17.) So you’ll have to decide how to translate it.

Translation: “Ling: Is that to say [they are] invulnerable?”

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ランファン： 不老不死ですね。 (Ran Fan: Furoufushi desu ne.)

不老不死 (furuoufushi): is the synonym to “fujimi.” This word means “not aging not dying,” as in they stay the same way forever. This is the word that better fits “immortal.”

です (desu): is the polite, indicative, imperfective, affirmative of the copula “da.” A copula is a verb that indicates a categorical relationship or possession. That’s just our fancy way of saying that it means “is” or “has” or “there is.” Japanese has 3 main copulae: “aru,” “iru,” and “da.”

ね (ne): is a dubitative ending particle. It expresses doubt or a desire for confirmation/approval from the addressee. It often gets translated to “huh?” or “right?”

Also, note that we do not have a subject in this sentence. When we don’t have a subject in the sentence, we are allowed a general “he/she/it/they” in our translation.

Translation: “Lan Fan: [They] are immortal, huh?”

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アルフォンス： また窓から？ (Arufonsu: Mata mado kara?)

また (mata): is an adverb meaning “again.”

窓 (mado): is a noun meaning “window.”

から (kara): is a post-position. A post-position is like a preposition, giving us spatio-temporal information, but it comes after the phrase, unlike a preposition that comes before (hence the “pre”.) This post-position means “through” or “from,” describing a motion out of one thing and into another.

Translation: “Alfonse: Again through the window?”

(Ling and Lan Fan arrive through the window. They do not use doors.)

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りん：その作戦、協力しようじゃないか。 (Rin: Sono sakusan, kyouryoku shiyou ja nai ka.)

その (sono): is an adjective (it really isn’t but we’ll let it be) meaning “that.” We won’t be seeing a lot of this in this part, but this word’s stem, /s/, is part of a quartet of stems that describe location /k/, /s/, /a/, and /d/, being “this,” “that,” “that (over there, far away), and “what?”

作戦 (saksan): is a word meaning “strategy” or “plan.” Note that we do not have a case particle here, but it would be “wa.”

協力 (kyouryoku): is a noun meaning “cooperation.” More importantly, it is one of many nouns that often takes the verb “suru,” meaning “to do,” to become a verb, i.e. “kyouryou suru” means “to cooperate.”

しよう (shiyou): is the cohortative conjugation of the verb “suru.” “Cohortative” is a mood, indicating that an action should be done together- “Let’s X,” if you will.

じゃないか (ja nai ka): is a verbal expression, somewhat equivalent to “ne,’ which we saw a moment ago. it is, however, to us, more of a real dubitative in that it does seem to want a legitimate response.

Translation: “Ling: (As to) that strategy, let’s cooperate, eh?”

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エドワード： 何？ (Edowaado: Nani?)

何 (nani): is a pronoun meaning “what?”

Translation: “Edward: What?”

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りん： 軍のゴタゴタには興味ないけどホムンクルスやらが不老不死なら話は別だ。 (Rin: Gun no gotagota ni wa kyoumi nai kedo homunkurusu-yara ga furoufushi nara hanashi wa betsu da.)

軍 (gun): is a noun meaning “the military” or “the army”

の (no): is the genitive particle. The genitive case indicates that a thing is the possession or part of another thing. It has a few other uses, but we’ll bring them up as we see them. “X no Y” tends to translate to “Y of X,” and even when it doesn’t, it puts you in a good ballpark of what it is it should mean.

ゴタゴタ (gotagota): is a noun meaning “troubles,” as in the difficulties one encounters when trying to do something.

に (ni): is the dative particle. The dative case indicates that a thing is the indirect object, or the location of an action (that requires a location), or a time period, or sometimes it is just the object of a verb. Here it is working with “kyoumi,�� which is coming up in a bit.

は (wa): is the topical particle. “ni wa” are a popular double particle, but they are both functioning individually, meaning that this is both the topic and the indirect object.

興味 (kyoumi): is a noun meaning “interest.” Interest in what? In “gun no gotagota.” Normally this would have the nominative particle “ga” here, but it has been omitted.

ない (nai): is the indicative, imperfective, negative conjugation of “aru,” one of the 3 copulae. Here it means “to have,” as in “to have an interest.”

けど (kedo): is a conjunction, translating to “though.”

ホムンクルスやら (homunkurusu-yara): is the noun meaning “homunculus” (the in-show villains) and the suffix “-yara,” indicating that one does not really know much about the object. One does not need to translate this lexically but, “so-called” or “, whatever that is,” work fine to convey the meaning.

が (ga): is the nominative particle. The nominative case indicates that a thing is the subject. It also serves an an emphatic direct object marker on occasion. But this is the subject.

不老不死 (furoufushi): is the same word as before.

なら (nara): is a conditional conjunction, meaning that it translates to “if.” This conjunction takes both verb phrases and noun phrases, when it takes noun phrases, we will need to supply a copulaic verb.

話 (hanashi): is a noun meaning “story” or, more specifically, “the thing we are talking about.”

は (wa): is the topical particle.

別 (betsu): is a noun meaning “separate” or “different.” Some people will want to translate this as “it’s a different story,” and that is fine, if one has a more idiomatic leaning when it comes to this.

だ (da): is the copula.

Translation: “Ling: Though I have no interest in the troubles of the military, if the Homunculi (whatever that is), [are] immortal, then what we are talking about is different.” By which he means, the nature of the matter is different.

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りん： あれ？なんだか疑われてる？ (Rin: Are? nandaka utagawareteru?

あれ (are): is an interjection, one of surprise and doubt, equivalent to English’s “Huh?”

なんだか (nandaka): is an adverb meaning “somehow.”

疑われてる (utagawareteru): is the truncated periphrastic progressive, passive, imperfective, affirmative conjugation of the verb “utagau,” meaning “to doubt.” The passive voice, besides meaning “to be X’ed (by something)” in Japanese is used to express some kind of inconvenience or suffering that the action causes. This is called the “suffering passive” and is translated as active since this concept does not work reliably in English. The periphastic progressive business comes from an idea of “aspect,” describing the timeframe in which an action is completed. In Japanese, aspect is called simple, meaning that it is generally ambiguous as to how long something took to be completed. But one can create “progressive” aspect by taking the gerund of a verb, the so-called Te-form, and the copula “iru:” “X-te iru.” Now we know that the action is in the process of ocurring, or still effective. Sometimes, the /i/ in “te iru” drops out. That’s what’s happened here. So we went from “utagawarete iru,” to “utagawareteru.”

Translation: “Ling: “Huh? Are you somehow doubting [me]?”

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エドワード： ロス少尉を助けてくれたのには感謝してる。でもー (Edowaado: Rosu-shoui wo tasukete kureta no ni wa kansha shiteru. Demo-)

ロス少尉 (Rosu-shoui): is the name “Rosu,” a character from previous episodes, and the military rank “shoui,” meaning “lieutenant,” being used as an address suffix.

を (wo): is the accusative particle. The accusative case indicates that a thing is the direct object of a verb. It has another function, to mark that something else is moving through a thing, but that is restricted mainly to certain expressions.

助けて (tasukete): is the gerund of the verb “tasukeru,” meaning “to help.” Here, the gerund is working with the next verb.

くれた (kureta): is the indicative, past, affirmative conjugation of the verb “kureru,” which means “to give,” but has a more important idiomatic meaning. Japanese has certain verbs, mainly “ageru,” “kureru” and “morau,” that means “to give” or “to receive,” that indicate that a thing is done for another’s (or another’s inner circle’s) benefit. “ageru” describes one doing something for another’s benefit. “morau” describes one received a benefit from another through an action, and “kureru” describes that someone else does something for one’s benefit. So what’s being said here is that Ling helped Ross for the benefit of Edward’s inner circle (his military buddies.) This tends to not get translated lexically.

の (no): is a substantivizing suffix, meaning that for syntactic purposes, this is all now one big noun.

に (ni): is the dative particle. It’s the object of the verb.

は (wa): is the topical particle.

感謝 (kansha): is a noun meaning “thanks” or “gratitude.” It’s one of these nouns that takes “suru” to become a verb.

してる (shiteru): is the truncated periphrastic progressive, indicative, imperfective, affirmative conjugation of “suru.” In this case, it means “to be being thankful,” which is not quite okay in English, so one can say “to be thankful.” (Often, because Japanese doesn’t have a “present” tense, the progressive is also used to indicate more explicitly that is something in effect now.)

でも (demo): is a conjunction, meaning “but.” It comes from the gerund of the copula “de” and a secondary particle, “mo,” meaning “too” or “even,” as in “even that being so…”

Translation: “Edward: [I] am thankful for your helping lieutenant Ross. But-”

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りん： 仲間は多い方がいいだろ？ (Rin: Nakama wa ooi hou ga ii darou?

仲間 (nakama): is a noun meaning “companion” or “comrade,” someone one does work/associate with.

は (wa): is the topical particle.

多い (ooi): is the indicative, imperfective, affirmative conjugation of an adjectival verb meaning “many,” as in a large and countable amount. Japanese has two sets of verbs, one that is mainly adjectival, meaning that they express qualities, and have limited conjugational abilities, and the other regular verbs.

方 (hou): is a noun meaning “situation.” So this is a “situation that [they] are many.”

が (ga): is the nominative particle.

いい (ii): is the indicative, imperfective, affirmative conjugation of an adjectival verb meaning “good.” “hou ga ii” is an expression meaning “one better X,” as in one should do something.

だろ (daro)- is a verbal expression also being somewhat equivalent to “ne,” but more emphatic, as in this is something really worth considering, which is why it sometimes gets translated as “don’t you think?”

Translation: “Ling: As to comrades, [they] better be many, don’t you think?” (as in, “Shouldn’t you have a lot of people with you?”)

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りん： こっちも真剣なんだ。 (Rin: Kocchi mo shinken-na n da.)

こっち (kocchi): is a pronoun meaning “this [thing]” This is the /k/ from the quartet I mentioned before.

も (mo): is a secondary particle, meaning “too” or “even.” The secondary particle goes after the primary case particle, but, in the case of “wa,” “wo,” and “ga,” they drop out when this is placed next to them. In this case, it is “wa” that has dropped out.

真剣な (shinken-na): is the noun “shinken” meaning “serious,” with the adjectival suffix “-na.” There are some nouns that take “-na” to become adjectival. (It’s also verbal, but that’s another story.) Outside of the adjectival verbs, “-na,” and the attributive from of the copula “da,” there are only a very small set of actual words in Japanese that are always adjectives. The reason we are using the “-na” suffix here is because the next suffix (which is actually a dependent noun) needs for nouns that use “-na”

ん (n): is a substantivizing suffix. It is a shortened version of the “no” we saw earlier. “n” is used often to indicate a point. If one wanted to translate this in a way that reflects the original grammar, one could say “it is the case that X.”

だ (da): is the copula.

Translation: “Ling: Even about this, I am serious.”

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