A small concrete public manners reminder along busy Yasukuni Street in Shinjuku. Embedded in a strip of green where a pedestrian crossing cuts through a median, it reads: "If you're going to spit, do it on the grass (not the street)."
Actually the sign doesn't say all that. Japanese uses grammatical particles that often perform a function similar to noun declension. This helps to fill in words that are left implicit.
With parentheticals indicating the location and meaning of the particles, the sign literally translates to "(with regards to) spittle, (onto the) green." Ahhh, high-context languages...
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Actually the sign doesn't say all that. Japanese uses grammatical particles that often perform a function similar to noun declension. This helps to fill in words that are left implicit.
With parentheticals indicating the location and meaning of the particles, the sign literally translates to "(with regards to) spittle, (onto the) green." Ahhh, high-context languages...
I was there!
You were sooo there.
Thought you might get a kick out of this link.
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