# I love speed and Monica



## majlo

*I love speed and Monica [moderator addition]*

Hello,
Could you please translate this sentence into Japanese? It it's possible, please, provide Japanese characters as well as its Latin realizations.

Also, are human names translatable? Or is it only possible to transcribe the Latin letters for Japanese ones? Or is it impossible at all and I should leave out the Latin letter? 

If it's possible to realize the name _Monica_ with Japanese letters, I'd be very grateful if you did so. I'd like to put it after _and._

Thank you in advance,
majlo


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## Whodunit

I will give it a try:

速度又モニカを愛しています。
sokudo mata monica o aishite imasu.


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## majlo

Thank you, Whodunit  Is the full stop necessary? 

Must it be a whole string of letters? Or is it divided into words but I simply can't see the spaces?

Any confirmation from the native speakers, please?


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## Whodunit

majlo said:


> Thank you, Whodunit  Is the full stop necessary?


 
It depends. Your sentence has a subject and a predicate, even an object. So, grammatically regarded, it is a full sentence. Furthermore, the Japanese often use the full stop, to my knowledge, even after question clauses. The natives may correct me ... 



> Must it be a whole string of letters? Or is it divided into words but I simply can't see the spaces?


 
Japanese is always written in a string of letters. To be honest, you don't even need the space bar when writing Japanese, except for switching another alphabet (hiragana-katakana-kanji) or alternatives.



> Any confirmation from the native speakers, please?


 
Would definitely be appreciated, because my sentence is 100% wrong.


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## Flaminius

> majlo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, Whodunit  Is the full stop necessary?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It depends. Your sentence has a subject and a predicate, even an object. So, grammatically regarded, it is a full sentence. Furthermore, the Japanese often use the full stop, to my knowledge, even after question clauses. The natives may correct me ...
Click to expand...

 Full stop is optional for single sentences, slogans and mottos.  Period and comma were instituted in the 19th century but question mark remains to be optional.  Personally, I tend to avoid using it for aesthetic reasons.  ^ ^



> Japanese is always written in a string of letters. To be honest, you don't even need the space bar when writing Japanese, except for switching another alphabet (hiragana-katakana-kanji) or alternatives.


Space bar is needed in order to make paragraph indention. In the font set used below, the Japanese space is precisely this length _　_ to represent the space needed for one letter.  One can use this space after exclamation and question marks.

Now my take for the original question:
スピードとモニカを愛している
supīdo-to monica-o aishiteiru.


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## majlo

Do I pronounce it like this?   /sUpIdo tU monIka U AISIteIrU/


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## Whodunit

Flaminius said:


> Now my take for the original question:
> スピードとモニカを愛している
> supīdo-to monica-o aishiteiru.


 
Okay, I admit that _-to_ is much better than my _mata_, but what about the rest of my translation? Treat me mercilessly when a correction is needed.


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## Flaminius

majlo said:


> Do I pronounce it like this?   /sUpIdo tU monIka U AISIteIrU/



I am not sure what convention your capital letters follow, so let me present the phonetics in a style as close to IPA as possible.

/sɯpiido to monika o aiʃite iɺ̠ɯ/

For the details of Japanese phonology, see this Wikipedia article.


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## Flaminius

Whodunit said:


> Okay, I admit that _-to_ is much better than my _mata_, but what about the rest of my translation? Treat me mercilessly when a correction is needed.



Save the mata/to part, the main difference of your sentence from mine is _aishiteimasu _vs. _aishiteiru_, that is, the polite form or the plain form, of the verb _aisuru_.  I chose the plain form since I interpreted the phrase to be a monologue; either said to oneself or shown to unspecified number of people as a slogan or self-proclamation.  In that case, -masu seems to me to diminish the assertiveness of the statement.

If, however, the phrase is intended to be told to a specific audience, polite form may be in order.


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## papillon

> I love speed and Monica


May be it's just my perverted mind, but the first time I read the sentence I thought of speed as the slang name for a drug (amphetamine or meth). But surely it was intended as, say, fast driving?


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## majlo

Yes, papillon, I meant fast driving


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## cheshire

majlo, are you sure it's really Monica, not ミニカー　mini-car?


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