[TAG] Japanese help

[Kat Tanaka]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2005 at 03:42:08PM +0000, Jimmy O'Regan wrote:
> 
> So, Kat, can you confirm that "ariga-meiwaku" means "an act someone does 
> for you that you didn't want to have them do and tried to avoid having 
> them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favour, and 
> then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end 
> social conventions required you to express gratitude", because I can 
> think of several times where that would have summed things up :)

Other than the fact that I know this word as "arigato meiwaku", yes, 
that's about the gist of it. "meiwaku" means bother/annoyance/imposition.

Of course the etymology of "thank you" in Japanese is peculiarly Japanese 
in concept as well. Quoting from someone quoting the sci.lang.japan faq:

    The word derivations are different too. Arigatou is related to 
arigatai .kind, welcome. and arigatagaru .be thankful., which conveys a 
grateful feeling for something that was done in favor of the one using the 
word. The first kanji is aru (. Unicode 6709) .exist, happen. and the 
second one, gatou < katai (. Unicode 978F) means .hard, difficult..


Kat
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