Iroha Karuta 13: THIS Brings You Good Luck!
The merry Japanese merchant in the top illustration of the thirteenth Japanese proverb in the Iroha Karuta series reminds of the Nine of Cups tarot card, which, in the Morgan-Greer interpretation of the Rider Waite tarot, depicts a medieval European type of "merry merchant" beaming beneath nine goblets.
The thirteenth card illustrates "wa," the thirteenth syllable in the traditional Japanese "Iroha" syllabary.
The proverb goes like this:
笑う門には福来る
Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru
Let's break it down:
笑う = warau = laugh
門 = kado = gate
に = ni = at (or "through" in this context: in this proverb "ni" indicates the direction or the destination of an action)
は = wa = with regard to. "Wa" is a common "topic marker"
福 = fuku = good luck / good fortune
来る = kitaru = approach - a more poetic sense than the plain form "kuru" = come.
My Translations
I made three translations of this proverb, and then made a final adjustment to the second one to get to my final version...
Translation 1
Good luck comes through the gate of laughter.
This is a basic translation that attempts to get the sense of the original in plain English.
Translation 2
Laughter is the gate through which good luck enters.
In this translation I stuck more closely to the original Japanese word order:
Warau kado = Laughter is the gate
ni wa = through which
fuku = good luck
kitaru = comes
I was quite pleased with that effort.
Translation 3
This is a more compact version that omits the verb:
Laughter is the portal of good luck.
My Final Translation: Catching the Word Order AND the Syllable Count!
I noticed that my second translation consisted of eleven syllables while the original Japanese consists of twelve syllables. I therefore decided to give the gate a more poetic feeling by calling it a "portal" to create a translation with the same number of syllables as well as the same word order:
Laughter is the portal through which good luck enters. = 12 syllables
Wa-ra-u ka-do ni wa fu-ku ki-ta-ru = 12 syllables
I Challenge ChatGPT to Translate the Proverb
I asked ChatGPT to "translate and talk about a Japanese kotowaza that is the 13th in the iroha karuta card series."
ChatGPT immediately got it wrong by translating the first (and most famous) proverb in the series, so I offered another hint:
"Actually, the 13th begins with "wa"..."
This time, it got it right, but I felt that the translation was a bit off:
笑う門には福来る
(Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru)
Literal translation: "Good fortune comes to the house that laughs."
I suggested,
"doesn't "kado" mean gate?"
To which ChatGPT replied:
You're absolutely right! "Kado" (門) does indeed mean "gate" in Japanese, so a more literal translation of 笑う門には福来る (Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru) would be "Good fortune comes to the gate that laughs."
Hmm. It's not a great translation, is it. It seems to think that a literal gate is literally laughing whereas "gate" is a metaphor for that which enables good fortune to "enter" one's life, namely, laughter.
What about Google Translate?
I finished off by plugging the Japanese proverb into Google translate, and it gave me this compressed, but clear, interpretation:
Laughter brings good fortune.
Well done, Google Translate! That translation does the job of conveying the essential meaning without getting caught in the gate!
Cheers!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
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