November 14th, 2006

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Movies, Words
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Is There a Japanese Word For ‘Hunt’

This weekend I watched Babel. More on the movie later, but for now I have a question for any Japanese-speaking readers. A section of the film takes place in Tokyo. More than once during the course of an onscreen conversation, two Japanese characters use the term ‘hunt’ or ‘hunting’.

On the film’s soundtrack, the English version of the term is clearly audible. That is, it sounds like “blah, blah, blah, blah, hunt, blah, blah”. This leads me to believe that Japan has borrowed that term from the English language. Is this the case? It seems like a curious word to borrow from another language. ‘Internet’ or ‘MySpace’, sure, but ‘hunt’?

Comments: 8 Responses so far

brem
November 14th, 2006
3:26 pm

I think the closest to the word hunt in Japan would be the word “to fish”. ;)

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Jack
November 15th, 2006
5:57 am

As a rule English words converted to Japanese are pronounced with the available Japanese syllabary so hunt would become something like “hunto”or “huntu. It is certainly possible that the characters were using that word, but I think a more likely explanation is that there is a Japanese word “honto” which means (sort of) “really”. It is in common use so I would expect to hear it in ordinary speech.

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Paolo
November 15th, 2006
8:11 am

I thought it meant “truth” or “true”.

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darren
November 15th, 2006
8:14 am

Jack: It was definitely ‘hunto’ or ‘huntu’, and the word definitely seemed to coincide with the subtitles displaying ‘hunt’ or ‘hunting’. It could have been this other Japanese term, but it’d be a real coincidence.

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Jack
November 15th, 2006
10:55 am

If it matched the subtitles, then yes it would be just a transliteration. Modern Japanese is full of them.

“really” also means true. I suggest it is closer to “really” in usage. If someone says to you “I killed a bear with just my hands and teeth” you might answer “really?” but you are unlikely to reply “truth?” or “true?”. Truly might be OK.

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Jonah
November 30th, 2006
7:58 pm

Hantu would probably be the closest Romanization of the word ‘Hunt’ when written with Japanese Katakana - ハンツ. This is because Huntu would sound like “Hoontu”, with the U being much harsher. Then again, I have been known to be wrong.

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Tristin
December 2nd, 2006
2:49 pm

Just to point something out. The Japanese sentence structure is much different from our own. So even if the words matched up, it was most likely talking about something else. This may have been said previously but the word for really, is pronounce much like hunt but is spelled hounto. so it would sound like their saying hunto but to be honest with you many times nouns are at the very beginning of the sentence and verbs are last if their are not conjuncted with other verbs

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maliek
November 30th, 2007
4:24 pm

thanks so much for being my friend in my heart i really wish i can meet u becase u r very butieful and look very bright so thats all i have to same thanks and bye

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