Life In 19x19

Which of these words can be used as a verb, without using the word "play" in subtitled videos?

tenuki, hane, nobi, kosumi, keima, atari

For English go terms, we say "White extends, and black wedges" rather than "white plays extend, and black plays wedge."

Are these Japanese terms commonly used as verb, like extend and wedge in English?

In the third person is, "he/she tenukies, hanes, nobies, kosumis, keimas, and ataries" reasonable?

Finally, to make it past tense, is it sufficient to throw on a "d" for hane and keima and "ed" for the others?

Thanks.

wineandgolover wrote:Which of these words can be used as a verb, without using the word "play" in subtitled videos?

tenuki, hane, nobi, kosumi, keima, shimari, atari

For English go terms, we say "White extends, and black wedges" rather than "white plays extend, and black plays wedge."

Are these Japanese terms commonly used as verb, like extend and wedge in English?

Finally, to make it past tense, is it sufficient to throw on a "d" for hane and keima and "ed" for the others?

Thanks.

The way I think of them, nobi, kosumi, keima, and shimari are only nouns. Tenuki and hane can be either verbs or nouns. I prefer atari as a verb, but can use it as a noun for a state, as in, "black's group is in atari."

In my mind, all of these as nouns are count nouns, so they take articles ("a/an" or "the") and use plural markers like "after black's two tenukis, white had better have a good result locally". I don't see "play a hane" or "play the atari" as marked (i.e. incorrect or jarring grammar) but "play atari" and the like are right out.

For what it's worth, I speak a somewhat urban southern/mid-atlantic US dialect natively.

As for the second question, the 3rd person singular gets the typical /z/ sound on verbs, and the -ed past tense marker, but as for spelling, who the heck knows? Native words generally don't end in -i or a -e that is pronounced as such, so it's hard to apply the standard rules.

Shimari is already on the way out, there is a good equivalent with enclosure.

skydyr wrote: The way I think of them, nobi, kosumi, keima, and shimari are only nouns. Tenuki and hane can be either verbs or nouns. I prefer atari as a verb, but can use it as a noun for a state, as in, "black's group is in atari."

In my mind, all of these as nouns are count nouns, so they take articles ("a/an" or "the") and use plural markers like "after black's two tenukis, white had better have a good result locally". I don't see "play a hane" or "play the atari" as marked (i.e. incorrect or jarring grammar) but "play atari" and the like are right out.

Thank you and sorry, but I don't think I completely understand. Are you saying if I want a verb for hane or atari, then just use hane or atari, with modifiers like "make or play"?

But what about the others? If in a video, somebody is saying the equivalent of nobi as a verb meaning "to extend", how shall we write that in a subtitle? I would like to say, "In this shape, white should nobi." Are you saying that is just wrong? Is "In this shape, white should play nobi" also wrong? Do I need to say, "In this shape, white should make the shape known in Japanese as nobi." I'm only being a little sarcastic. I'm really hoping to keep it simple. The simpler the better.

Thanks again.

wineandgolover wrote:

skydyr wrote: The way I think of them, nobi, kosumi, keima, and shimari are only nouns. Tenuki and hane can be either verbs or nouns. I prefer atari as a verb, but can use it as a noun for a state, as in, "black's group is in atari."

In my mind, all of these as nouns are count nouns, so they take articles ("a/an" or "the") and use plural markers like "after black's two tenukis, white had better have a good result locally". I don't see "play a hane" or "play the atari" as marked (i.e. incorrect or jarring grammar) but "play atari" and the like are right out.

Thank you and sorry, but I don't think I completely understand. Are you saying if I want a verb for hane or atari, then just use hane or atari, with modifiers like "make or play"?

But what about the others? If in a video, somebody is saying the equivalent of nobi as a verb meaning "to extend", how shall we write that in a subtitle? I would like to say, "In this shape, white should nobi." Are you saying that is just wrong? Is "In this shape, white should play nobi" also wrong? Do I need to say, "In this shape, white should make the shape known in Japanese as nobi." I'm only being a little sarcastic. I'm really hoping to keep it simple. The simpler the better.

Thanks again.

As I see it, you can use "atari", "hane", and "tenuki" as stand alone verbs, as in "He approached my corner and I tenukied to play in the upper left". My objection is to use "play nobi" without using an article; I think it should be of the form "play a nobi" or "play the nobi" instead. I'm not entirely opposed to using nobi as a verb, but I would be much more likely to use it as a noun.

That said, I can really only speak for how I perceive them in my own dialect, even though it is pretty close to standard American English. If you were to ask someone from, say, Britain, Australia, India, or even the US west coast, they may have a slightly different idea of what sounds correct and what sounds wrong. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you if everyone at my local club would feel the same way about this usage, though I imagine they will have a similar perspective. You might have good luck with a poll for a set of sentences describing a particular move, to see how people prefer to phrase it.

In Japanese, these Go-terms are used as nouns, so I would like to suggest to do so in English, too.

I would prefer "White plays nobi.", "White answers with a nobi.", but "White extends." would also do the job, I think.

When writing "Igo Hatsuyôron 120 -- An Elephant in Slices", I was asked (from USA, as well as from UK) to use as few Japanese terms as possible. I suppose that there are only a few "core" terms that do not have a suitable English equivalent (e.g. atari, hane, ko).

Regardless of your selection of phrasing, how the quality is perceived will vary depending on your audience.

The whole point in making subtitles is to communicate the meaning of the video to the viewer. Some Japanese words are used so commonly that the audience is nearly guaranteed to understand their meaning. "Atari" is a good example. Almost everyone that plays go knows what "atari" means. So if you use this directly as a verb, you convey the information perfectly to the viewer. If someone knows all Japanese words, then you can use all such terminology in the same manner - they will understand you perfectly.

But let's say that Joe Schmoe, go video junkee, is watching the video. Joe knows go, so he knows what "atari" means. He knows it as well as any other English word he knows.
But let's consider "nobi". Let's assume it's a less common word than "atari". Then there are different levels of understanding:
1. Joe knows the meaning, but it is not ingrained into his vocabulary as much as other English words (like "atari" may be). In this case, it'd be good to say, "play nobi". This conveys to Joe, "play this concept you aleady know - it's a move called 'nobi', remember?" In his mind, he's like, "Oh yes. Play the concept associated with this Japanese word - it's called 'nobi'". Yeah, I know that."
2. Joe kind of knows what this is, but doesn't quite remember (Eg. Is "nobi" a move, or is it a way to describe the board...?). In this case, it'd be good to say, "Make the shape in Japanese known as nobi". This conveys to Joe that this "nobi" word is a Japanese word, associated with a shape.
3. Joe has no idea what "nobi" is. In this case, better have an English word or description. That way he can understand.
4. Joe knows "nobi" just as well as "atari", and just as well as any other English word. In this case, go ahead and use it as a verb.

So basically, there's an order of progression:

"nobi" (as verb) > "play nobi" > "Make the shape known as 'nobi' in Japanese" > Some English description (eg. "solid extension", maybe?)

I think, the greater the audience understanding of the word, the more you should aim toward the left on this scale. The less the audience understands about the term, aim to the right.

In Japanese, these Go-terms are used as nouns, so I would like to suggest to do so in English, too.

I disagree with this argument. If you are communicating in English, you should fit foreign words into English grammar. And in English, if you have a particular technique/move that you can play, it can be used as a verb (eg. He dribbles down the court). Japanese also does this with borrowed words - the words are fit into the existing grammar structure. For example, "ジョギングする". This treats the borrowed word "jogging" as a noun in cases where it'd be much more natural as a verb in English.

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tl/dr: Prefer to treat techniques/moves as verbs when the audience understands the terms fluently, because this is how it is done with tequniques/moves in English. If the audience has less understanding of the term, move to the right on this continuum:


"nobi" (as verb) > "play nobi" > "Make the shape known as 'nobi' in Japanese" > Some English description (eg. "solid extension", maybe?)

Thanks, all. I am fascinated that there is no concensus. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

This is how I use one particular term.

"Tenuki ?!? I kill you!! "