Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 November 22

= November 22 =

Asian language film
What are some especially good, but sad foreign-language films? I'm especially interested in Eastern Asian language films (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) I thought about asking on the Humanities desk but thought I'd get a better answer here. Thanks. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 02:38, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Old Boy are both rather dark Korean films. Silmido (film) is based on a true story, which is somehow uplifting and sad at the same time (its a military thing I guess). --Ghostexorcist (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Grave of the Fireflies (Japanese) is the one I recommend to everyone. There was a live action version of it, but both versions always manage to jerk a tear or two. --  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  03:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I second Grave of the Fireflies. The animated version is excellent. Very powerful. L ANTZY T ALK 06:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I third Grave of the Fireflies, especially the animated version.
 * Recent Chinese blockbusters (which are sad) that I recommend: A World Without Thieves and the Infernal Affairs trilogy. They are action movies with deeper emotions. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought Departures (film) was pretty good. My first instinct was to recommend Children of Heaven until I read that you were more interested in Eastern Asian films.  Kingsfold   (Quack quack!)  15:34, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Branching out of "Asian" limitation, I suggest you have a look at Bosnian "No Man Land". Oscar winner, third act will have you crying for sure. Please don't let anyone spoil it for you, it is a very sad, very powerful film with a strong message and incredible characterisation. --202.124.88.134 (talk) 15:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Pretty much the whole fifth generation of Chinese cinema (representative directors are Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige) is sad. I would particularly recommend Farewell My Concubine and Red Sorghum; probably the most famous (among Americans who study Chinese) and most shamelessly sad of these films is To Live, although personally I think Farewell My Concubine gives you the same thing but does it better...
 * In reply to some of the above ones, I second PalaceGuard in recommending Infernal Affairs, it's more known for being cool but it's also quite sad as well. As for Departures, it has a really interesting and unique concept, although personally I thought it got a little overwrought after the first half or so and I didn't really like the lead actor... r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, you might get more responses if you move this to the Humanities reference desk. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 16:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * To Live (活着) fits your criteria very well, and I've also seen 妈妈再爱我一次 (I'm not familiar with the English title, a direct translation would be 'Mother, love me one more time'), which was also very good. Intelligent  sium  20:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Ikiru (which also means "to live") by Kurosawa is an obvious choice. Most of Kurosawa's movies are tragic, if not exactly sad, and a lot of them are extremely good. I'm a big fan of The Hidden Fortress, High and Low, and Ran (film). Also Late Spring and Tokyo Story and others by Ozu. I fourth the animated Grave of the Fireflies, which is by Isao Takahata. Like Kurosawa, most of his other movies are tragic in some way, and most of them are very good. The animated adaptation of Night on the Galactic Railroad is an amazing, unique movie, very dark and disturbing. Outside Asia, Carl Theodor Dreyer directed some really depressing films that are highly regarded, though I found them unbearable, except for The Passion of Joan of Arc which is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's silent, though, so I'm not sure it counts. Fellini, obviously. Bicycle Thieves. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Jean de Florette. Marius (film) and the sequels. The Three Colors Trilogy. Children of Paradise. Beauty and the Beast (1946 film). M (1931 film). I'm sure I could come up with a million others if I kept thinking... -- BenRG (talk) 00:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

A City of Sadness, from Taiwan. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * How about Black Rain - no, not Ridley Scott's Yakuza thriller starring Michael Douglas & Andy Garcia, but the much more thoughtful 黒い雨, Kuroi ame by Shōhei Imamura. Astronaut (talk) 09:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Most popular U.S. president worldwide

 * Question moved to Humanities desk. --  the Great   Gavini  08:02, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Woops. I forgot which desk I was on! L ANTZY T ALK 09:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Destiny Turns on the Radio
As it stands, doesn't the capitalization of this movie mean that Destiny is (literally) turning... on the radio (as in, on top of it)? Isn't "Turn On" the verb? I wanted to submit a correction to IMDB.com but quickly found nearly every website shows "on" as lowercased. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  09:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think English-speakers would make any distinction between "Turn On" and "Turn on". It is customary for some (especially Americans) to spell all prepositions in minuscule, and customary for others (especially in the U.K.) to put all prepositions in upper-case. However, I don't know of any style which alternates between lower-case and upper-case according to grammatical distinctions. L ANTZY T ALK 10:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia Manual of Style makes the distinction (note the mention of phrasal verbs), as do many other style manuals. I know nothing about the film, though—could the meaning be "destiny hinges on the radio", in which case a lowercase "on" would be correct? Deor (talk) 12:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Or, of course, it could be a pun and the character could be called Destiny Turns. 86.166.40.2 (talk) 14:08, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * "On" is not a preposition in that title; if it was, you wouldn't be able to rearrange it as "Destiny turns the radio on" with the same meaning. It could be viewed as an adverb or particle, or even an adjective (compare "sunset turns the forest red", although this one does not admit the other word order).  In any case, there are many styles of title capitalization and not everyone would choose to capitalize an adverb but not a preposition, for example.  Personally, I would, so I'd write "Turns On".  --Anonymous, 05:00 UTC, November 23, 2010.


 * "Turn [radio, TV, etc.] on" used to be the proper expression (as with the gospel song, "Turn Your Radio On"), but "Turn on [radio, TV, etc.]" seems to be used more and more, perhaps influenced by "turn on" meaning specifically "to arouse". Or maybe something to do with not ending a sentence with a preposition? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:55, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

"Hauptkustus"/"Hauptkuatos"
Hi all,

What do "Hauptkustus"/"Hauptkuatos" mean? What's more, are they extant words? Google only knows the words in relation to Wilhelm Michaelsen, and I've taken the liberty to translate them as "senior curator" in the article. Given that Michaelsen (tho Michaelsen suggests Danish background) was a lifelong Hamburger, is they possibly West Low German variations of a Standard German term? Thank you!--Shirt58 (talk) 12:11, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ther "Haupt-" prefix just means "head" or "main". "Kuatos" looks like a typo to me, "Kustus" is a (rather rare) germanized spelling of Latin "custos" - it means something like "curator" or "guardian", its exact meaning depends on the job being described. "Senior curator" sounds like a good translation in the context of a museum. -- Ferkelparade &pi; 13:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant German article is de:Kustos (Museum) which actually redirects to de:Kurator (Museum). --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't translate it "senior curator" because, in the English-speaking world, "senior" as part of a job title suggests just a couple of steps up from the bottom of the ladder or middle management at best. I think a better translation would be "chief curator" or "executive curator".  Marco polo (talk) 15:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Is it original research if we assume that *"Hauptkuatos" was an OCR error when the old issues of Nature were scanned for its online archives?  Article now fixed as per the above. Of course, this does raise the problem of whether Reference_desk/language is a reliable source, etc, etc.  Thanks again --Shirt58 (talk) 10:18, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe he's the head Kuato. He wants you to start the reactor! Free Mars! Adam Bishop (talk) 21:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Quick question: Japanese
How does one say "Corporate headquarters in Tokyo"?

Would it be "東京の本社"?

I'm trying to add a Japanese description to Commons:Category:Corporate headquarters in Tokyo

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 18:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 東京の本社 sounds a bit too unofficial to me. While we wait for Mari, may I suggest 在東京本社 as a bit more of a formal way of putting it? Both of these make most sense if you use them while seated at a desk in a branch office, though. If you want to say "the company has its HQ in Tokyo, none of the two would really fit... TomorrowTime (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just trying to say "Corporate headquarters in Tokyo" as a name of a category of images, as in "this category has images of corporate headquarters in Tokyo" WhisperToMe (talk) 19:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * How about 本社が東京にある会社 then? "Companies with HQs in Tokyo" - that would seem to be neutral enough for a cat title. TomorrowTime (talk) 19:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the images portray the headquarter buildings, which is why it is "Corporate headquarters in Tokyo" - That isn't the same thing as "Companies with HQs in Tokyo" WhisperToMe (talk) 20:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * How about 東京にある会社の本社？　--  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  22:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems to work, KageTora. Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 23:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * En WP has a Category:Companies of Japan by location and its link is ja:Category:日本の企業 (都道府県別). One of the subcategories is 東京都の企業. I suggest the translation would be 東京都の法人 or 東京都に本社(?)を置く法人. I first thought to use 企業/kigyo or 会社, but Bank of Japan is in the category too. Is Bank of Japan a 企業/会社? It is not a profit-orientated organization. So I think 法人 would be more correct. Or remove the bank from the category and use 東京都に本社を置く企業? Oda Mari (talk) 06:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Old Boy (manga) - Japanese help
How does one write the name of the protagonist of Old Boy (manga), Shinichi Goto, in Japanese? I tried looking at the Japanese Wikipedia article and doing google searches, but I couldn't find the answer... WhisperToMe (talk) 20:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's in the Japanese WP article: 五島慎一. -- BenRG (talk) 23:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah - for some reason I missed that - Thank you :) WhisperToMe (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

What does "Fragko" mean? (Greek, I'm assuming)
For months now, I've seen an IP editor adding the word "Fragko" to the article on Vassilis Spanoulis, a Greek basketball player. . What does it mean? I can't find any evidence that this is a real nickname. Zagal e jo^^^ 21:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * See Greek orthography, where γκ in Modern Greek corresponds to g in Modern English. Fragko appears to be a rendition of Frago.  From my Google search for vassilis spanoulis frago, the first result was YouTube - Vasilis Spanoulis a.k.a Frago-kill Bill (0:51).  I watched the video, but I did not listen to the sound.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * [I am revising my reply.—Wavelength (talk) 23:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)]
 * From my Wikipedia search for greek frago, I found Frankokratia (Francocracy) and Elafonisos, which mentions, in paragraph 4, "Cape Frangos (Greek: Φράγκο)".
 * —Wavelength (talk) 00:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have checked the article "Greek name", but I have not found there any name which I consider to be relevant to your question.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 00:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how it might be appropriate as a nickname, but φράγκο is the Greek word for franc (the unit of currency). Deor (talk) 01:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have left a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Greece and the same message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy, each message linking to this discussion.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 04:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 05:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hah, you'd have to be Greek to catch that... Φράγκο of course comes from the Franks, but it also means the Franc, and by extension money in general. "Fragko-kill" is evidently a mistranslation of φραγκοφονιάς (literally, "money-killer"), i.e. greedy, thrifty, etc., someone who would "kill for the money". The whole issue with Spanoulis comes from his "defection" from Panathinaikos to arch-rival Olympiakos. Much venom has been directed at him for this decision, as you'd expect. Constantine  ✍  08:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * From my Google search for φραγκοφονιάς, I found φραγκοφονιάς -&gt; pinchpenny, where "pinchpenny" is one of 43 translations.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 20:40, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Thanks for the replies, Constantine and Wavelength! That's everything I could have hoped for and more. Now it all makes sense. :) Zagal e jo^^^ 00:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My pleasure :) Constantine  ✍  16:58, 24 November 2010 (UTC)