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Thursday, May 1, 2008

紆余曲折

うよきょくせつ
uyo kyokusetsu

Today's yo-ji doesn't really come from anything in particular. Rather, I just wanted to find a way to tie it into the video I'm going to post a little further down.

Uyo kyokusetsu is a combination of two words - the first means "meadering," and the second means "turning." It describes arriving at a point or a destination (or a conclusion) in a round-about manner. Therefore I translate it as:

1) taking the "scenic route" (figuratively)
2) having twists and turns
3) taking "your own path" on the way to a conclusion
4) the vicissitudes in life (on the way to a conclusion)

I also want to note that this is different from the yo-ji that Brett translated as "the vicissitudes." How so? This is somewhat more neutral - its more horizontal than vertical. I think of it this way - 紆余曲折 means having twists and turns, while 七転八起 means more having ups and downs.

On to the example sentence.

「人生の意味」を探していろいろと紆余曲折したんだけど、この曲に出会って初めて分かった気がする。
I had a lot of twists and turns searching for the "meaning of life," but now that this song has touched my life, I feel like I've gotten it for the first time.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

The example above sounds a little awkward to me, because we don't say 「紆余曲折をする」. When we use this word, we usually say, 「紆余曲折を経る」or 「紆余曲折がある」, which means we experience 紆余曲折 or there are 紆余曲折.

So....

・紆余曲折を経て二人は結婚に至った。
・さまざまな紆余曲折があったが、ようやく見通しが立てられるようになった。

などなど。