Talk:Side Pawn Capture

Side Pawn Picker ? redirect
I have only seen this translated as side pawn picker in 81Dojo and other English resources such as shogi shack but don't know about the commonness of the name from other sourcesGort2020 (talk) 22:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Well, picker is a mistranslation of 取り dori (from 取る toru). This verb is best translated as 'take' or 'capture.' In the context of chess (or checkers/draughts or xiangqi, etc.), we can't use the verb 'pick' to mean 'capture' in English. In the English sources that use a native English-speaking professional translator (namely Fairbairn), you won't encounter the word 'pick' since it doesn't make any sense.


 * The only way I can see the word 'pick' being used would be in the phrasal verb 'pick up' as in 'He picked up a piece,' but even that doesn't really entail capturing an opponent's piece and that's not what 取る means in this context. (And, the translation would have to be Side Pawn Picker-Upper if we follow the pattern of this translation – although I don't really see what we even need this agentive -er suffix in the first place...). If the intended meaning was 'pick' as in 'choose,' that's also not what 取る means in this context.


 * It's unfortunate that 81Dojo and other Japanese speakers use that terminology. I guess there wasn't enough input from native speakers? I don't know. – ishwar  (speak)  07:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * While I certainly don't know the origin of the terminology or the Japanese, what I what would note is that occasionally the verb pick in Western games is used when referring to gaining material in an exchange. While this is usually with the preposition "up", I have heard usage such as: "I picked a knight and a bishop for a rook." So it could be that someone was looking for a more colloquial expression. Gort2020 (talk) 20:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Well, that's ungrammatical for me. I can only say I picked up a knight & bishop for a rook. Omitting the up makes it illict for me. But, essentially, this meaning is like 'to gain' or 'to trade' and includes the associated prepositional for-phrase. 取る simply means to grab something with your hand/fingers. It's a translation error, which are common in amateur transations by nonnative speakers. – ishwar  (speak)  22:32, 20 May 2021 (UTC)