Topic: To Loveã‚‹ the answer

[UruseiNeo]

Okay, so many people know "To Loveã‚‹" and mostly cause somebody (too lazy to go look up who) posted a forum for it somewhere about its manga. This was a while ago, before the anime started.

So the title is called "To Loveã‚‹" and many people who watch the show already know that the "ã‚‹" is pronounced as "Ru"

So many people are thinking "What's 'Ru' stand for?" Well, while I can't guarantee that this is correct, here's MY perspective.

"Ru" doesn't actually stand for anything, "To Loveã‚‹" is just an English+Japanese clever joke title they thought up. Let me explain by first talking about Japanese verbs. There are three kinds (That I know of so far):

U-verbs, Ru-verbs, and irregular verbs. Now we don't really care about the U and irregular verbs now so ignore those.

That leaves us with Ru verbs. lol, don't beat me to the explanation

Each verb (so far in my class) is divided into 4 forms. I'm going to use the verb "to eat" as an example.


             Stem     dictionary form      present affirmative    present negative

To eat:   tabe        taberu                   tabemasu               tabemasen

Now, we don't really need to know the present affirmative and negative so let's scratch those out too to leave us with the stem form and its dictionary form.

Now this applies to all Ru-verbs: the dictionary form is basically what you get when you look it up, and I guess you can use it in impolite conversations, while the last two are used in polite and proper sentences. The stem, is basically used so you know where the difference is (ru, masu, masen).

To eat, for example LITERALLY translates to "tabe" without the "ru" at the end. I checked, the kanji section has a kanji for "to eat" and you add "ru" TO THE KANJI.

So... basically what they did was take whatever the stem for "to love" is and turned it to english, but used the dictionary form of the word and added "ru".

So basically, the title "To Loveã‚‹" is just a verb! Basically, if you were translate the english part to make it proper japanese, it would mean "love" or maybe "loving". It's quite fascinating, at least to me.

Again... I can't say 100% that this is the case but it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?

[janus]

doesn't the Hiragana "ã‚‹" at the end of "To Loveã‚‹" makes it more like "To love you"?

[UruseiNeo]

"ã‚‹" doesn't mean "you"
"anata" means "you"

if they were going for "to love you" they could have put "to loveうう"

Like I previously mentioned, "ã‚‹" is what usually goes on the end of "ru-verbs" and "to love" is a verb so I suggested that it's a pun/joke.

Example: one can say "to eatã‚‹"

the stem for "to eat" is "tabe" and the dictionary form of the verb is "taberu"

[Kroptik]

I thought "anata" meant husband. o.0

Ataru's mom says it a few times talking to Ataru's dad at least.

[FallinG_StaR]

anata: dear (what a wife calls a husband)
anata: you (fem pronoun)


That's what I got on my translator... but it depends on the conversation and who's doing it... I guess...

[UruseiNeo]

anata: dear (what a wife calls a husband)
anata: you (fem pronoun)

No kidding? cool. Anyways if you listen to Lum no Love song "Anata wa itsudemo kyorokyoro" or something like that where the subs say "you're always looking all over the place"

[cata]

I already knew the Anata: -you; -husband; thing. I think it's the same with Honey: honey from bees; darling, husband, etc.

[Kroptik]

This is what I have in my japanese TXT files:

Anata: Polite form of you. Girls use this most of the time and it is used when addressing elders. At times it can mean lover.
Anata- This is like "watashi". I also use this. It is very common. Although, you wouldn't use it talking to a teacher or someone older than you or if you are a guy. Guys just don't use this. ^^;;; I guess you would be a sissy if you do.

(If I ever find a way to upload these files, I'll do it. They have a lot of vocabulary.)

[cata]

Anata = watashi ?!?!!?! O_O I... don't think so. =S

I have a doubt regarding "ich" (means "one"). How do you pronounce it? Is it "itch" or "Ish"?

[UruseiNeo]

it's ichi, not ich. And it's pronounced "ee-chee"

here's how the vowels are pronounced:

A - ah (as in AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)
I - ee (as in I sEE)
U - oo (as in I'm a ghost, oooooo)
E - eh (as in I'm Canadien, eh)
O - oh (as in uh-oh spageti-oh

[FallinG_StaR]

I have a doubt regarding "ich" (means "one"). How do you pronounce it? Is it "itch" or "Ish"?

I think this may help you Cata...

http://japanese.about.com/library/blphrase.htm

Japanese audio phrase book...

[cata]

Thank you very much. ^^

[sidzero]

As a fan of To Love Ru (and I think I even mentioned once upon a time that I think Lala > Lum), I have to point out that the title is a play on words. If you say it in Japanese, the title sounds the same as the Engrish "Trouble".

[UruseiNeo]

hmmm I dunno... Japanese people would pronounce Trouble as "Toraburu" where as the title is pronounced "ToRobeRu" but it's still an interesting theory.

But I'm almost 100% sure that the title is a pun with verb conjugation.

[sidzero]

See for yourself

It's nowhere near as complicated as you make it seem.

[UruseiNeo]

"The title, when written in Japanese hiragana as (とらぶる, Toraburu?) translates to "trouble"."

Sorry but that's technically not true. Foreign words, such as english words like "trouble," are wirtten with Katakana NOT Hiragana. For it to be correct, the title would have to be written in Japanese Katakana: (トラブル) but that contradicts the ending "る" of the original title.

[sidzero]

Doesn't mean they couldn't have done it anyway, you know. Part of the whole "word play" thing.

[UruseiNeo]

I'm just saying that for it to translate to "trouble" it would have to be full katakana.

[sidzero]

You know, that reminds me of a thought experiment we did in one of my psychology classes once upon a time.

Look at the following word, and think "how do you pronounce this?"

GHOTI


The answer, surprisingly enough, is that it's pronounced like "Fish".

GH is pronounced like the GH in laugh, an "f" sound.
O is pronounced like the O in lemon, what's called a "schwa" (É™ if you want to get into phoenetics).
TI is pronounced like the TI in action, a "sh" sound.

Now, if we can do such things as this in English, why couldn't someone do the same in Japanese. I would think it would be much simpler in Japanese, because you could so something as simple as spelling something that should be in Katakana in Hiragana instead.

[UruseiNeo]

that contradicts the point of having katakana. It's different with English cause we're so screwed up in how we pronounce our own words.

But with Japanese, Hiragana is for Japanese words (such as sushi) while Katakana is for borrowed words (such as Ramen, which is chinese).

To write a borrow/foreign word in Hiragana would be to say that this word is of Japanese origin.

[sidzero]

Or to just screw with people.

[veehive]

Or just to screw with their own language. Artistic License and all that.