# 通り土砂降り



## Riccardo91

Dear Japanese forum,

here I am again! New cartoon to translate, with lots of talking bugs and little animals.

Some ants are on the road searching for food, but it suddenly starts to rain a lot. The road gets flooded, and the ants are struggling not to drown.

Ant A: いきなり土砂降りだぜ
(A sudden downpour!)

Ant B:通り土砂降りだ！
(It's a road downpour!)

Does the second sentence make sense to you? To me, it seems like the ants are using a peculiar expression to describe the event, that they perceive as "the road being flooded" instead of "lots of rain falling from the sky".

In fact, soon after that they say that the downpour 引いちゃった, a verb that should be used for tides, as far as I know.

Am I getting it right? Thank you!


----------



## Contrafibularity

通り does not mean a road in this instance.  

We have an expression "通り雨 (a passing rain/shower)", and Ant B is giving a twist to it, changing 雨 into 土砂降り, to fit their own situation.  This is not what we would normally say.


----------



## SoLaTiDoberman

Hi,
There are two interpretations.
通り、土砂降りだ。
は　is abbreviated.

Or, and more likely,
transient rain, 通り雨,
transient heavy rain, 通り土砂降り.


----------



## Flaminius

Your 通り土砂降りだ is often transcribed: 通り、土砂降りだ。

This way, it’s easier to see that 通り is only loosely connected with the predicate, 土砂降りだ.  As you probably know, Japanese nominal sentences can associate two nouns that are not the subject or the predicate to each other.  E.g., ぼくがウナギだ is not evidence to the speaker’s deluded mind, but simply means that *they* are *the person who ordered an eel meal set*.

Your sentence means it’s pouring in the street.


----------



## Riccardo91

Oh, wow. I didn't know about 通り雨. Seeing the scene again, I think this may be the right guess, since the downpour does stop after a short while.

What about the 引いちゃった they say later, then? Is it normal to use it for downpours or they're conceiving it as a tide, this time?

Thank you!


----------



## Flaminius

The idea of reflecting ants’ perspective in their vocabulary is great, but I am not yet convinced they used such a noun as 通り土砂降り.  A compound noun often has a different accent from that of a sentence consisting of the same morphemes.  I expect the compound noun 通り土砂降り to have the highest pitch on _tōri*do*shaburi_.  Oh, I just realised this won’t work since you are translating a cartoon work.

引く is not just for a tide but for any kind of water to subside.  The street was flooded with rain, but when the water subsides or goes down (水が引いたら), these ants can safely go out again.


----------



## Riccardo91

Flaminius said:


> The idea of reflecting ants’ perspective in their vocabulary is great, but I am not yet convinced they used such a noun as 通り土砂降り.  A compound noun often has a different accent from that of a sentence consisting of the same morphemes.  I expect the compound noun 通り土砂降り to have the highest pitch on _tōri*do*shaburi_.  Oh, I just realised this won’t work since you are translating a cartoon work.


Why wouldn't it work with a cartoon? Could a video clip of that segment help you?

To add some elements:
- In the script there is no comma between 通り and 土砂降り;
- If judging from a human perspective there is no actual "road", but since they're passing through vegetation I think the ants could consider it a road.



Flaminius said:


> 引く is not just for a tide but for any kind of water to subside.  The street was flooded with rain, but when the water subsides or goes down (水が引いたら), these ants can safely go out again.


That's what I meant, sorry if it was unclear. I wanted to confirm that they were referring to the road being clear and not to the fact that the rain stopped in itself.

Thank you!


----------



## Flaminius

It didn’t occur to me that it’s an animated cartoon.  Duh!  If 通り土砂降り were a compound noun, the _do_ syllable should get a considerable high pitch.  It’s fine to post the video clip, but please make it less than 3 seconds long and wrap the URL with tags [plain] and [/plain].



Riccardo91 said:


> not to the fact that the rain stopped in itself.


Oh, I see.  For rains to stop with the sun back on, we say, 雨が上がる.


----------



## Contrafibularity

Flaminius said:


> I expect the compound noun 通り土砂降り to have the highest pitch on _tōri*do*shaburi_.


This is exactly what I thought too, but even without the pitch, I'm pretty sure Ant B meant "通り土砂降りだ"、not "通り、土砂降りだ", though the expression admittedly sounds unusual.   "通り、土砂降りだ" simply does not give their dialogue a natural flow.  It is what they would say if they are sitting in a cafe looking outside, but they are actually on "the street".  And as a response to Ant A's remark, it sounds a bit off. "通り、水浸しだ" or "通り、洪水だ" might work, referring to the resultant state of the downpour.

As to 引いちゃった、I don't see why it cannot refer to the rain stopping.  It can include the water on the ground, but 通り in this instance has nothing to do with any kind of road or street.   The normal collocation would be "土砂降りが止む（やむ）", but 引く also works for me here, since a passing rain suddenly comes and goes away.


----------



## SoLaTiDoberman

Had the heavy rain stopped when he said so? At least, peaked out?
Or was it still raining heavily?


----------



## Riccardo91

As you can see, it's still raining a lot when the dialogue occurs.

Here's the clip.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b5RR-kOsN_WT8aAsVO2TNBzoFn4visaR

Thank you!


----------



## Flaminius

Contrafibularity said:


> "通り、土砂降りだ" simply does not give their dialogue a natural flow.


I know _Doraemon_ and little more about catoons, but conversations in fictions do not necessarily follow natural patterns.  One of the reasons is that a fictitious conversation is a device to insinuate the protagonists’ perspective in the mind of the audience.  What looks to human eyes a narrow strip of dirt is a wide street to the tiny ants.  This is a clue with which the audience are ushered into the scale of the insects’ world.  Another thing I know about fictions is that only poetry introduces new words in such an unceremonious way.  I gather from the other thread that this is a children’s cartoon.  Well, *Contrafibularity*, this thread is my first encounter with the compound 通り土砂降り.  Are there other useages of this word or words of similar coinage?

I’d like usages for this too.


> The normal collocation would be "土砂降りが止む（やむ）", but 引く also works for me here, since a passing rain suddenly comes and goes away.


Do we say 土砂降りが引く, or 雨が引く?


----------



## SoLaTiDoberman

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> Had the heavy rain stopped when he said so? At least, peaked out?
> Or was it still raining heavily?





Riccardo91 said:


> As you can see, it's still raining a lot when the dialogue occurs.
> 
> Here's the clip.
> 
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b5RR-kOsN_WT8aAsVO2TNBzoFn4visaR
> 
> Thank you!





Flaminius said:


> I know _Doraemon_ and little more about catoons, but conversations in fictions do not necessarily follow natural patterns.  One of the reasons is that a fictitious conversation is a device to insinuate the protagonists’ perspective in the mind of the audience.  What looks to human eyes a narrow strip of dirt is a wide street to the tiny ants.  This is a clue with which the audience are ushered into the scale of the insects’ world.  Another thing I know about fictions is that only poetry introduces new words in such an unceremonious way.  I gather from the other thread that this is a children’s cartoon.



I got it.
通り雨 can be predictable to stop soon even before it stops, according to our (humans') experience. 通り雨 is a common natural phenomenon.
Mediocre 雨 for humans are 土砂降り for very small insects, ants.
通り雨 for humans are 通り土砂降り for ants. So they can predict that it will stop soon.

I think the subject of 引く is more likely to be "the flood."
水が引く=水位が下がる, 地面が現れる、地面が乾く
But 通り雨が引く is acceptable too, meaning "peak out."


----------



## Flaminius

I am not still convinced about this hapax legomenon (a word attested only once), *SLTD*.  Listen to the clip that Riccardo posted.  A conspicuous hiatus separates 通り and 土砂降り.  The morphological boundary does not get a hightened pitch either (_do_ is level with _ri_ and _sha_).  I find it tenuous to suppose a compounding here.

雨が引く: Oh, stupid me.  Didn’t know this expression but it exists!


----------



## Contrafibularity

Flaminius said:


> conversations in fictions do not necessarily follow natural patterns.


When I said natural, I meant "natural _as a dialogue_", not "natural f_rom_ _human/ants' perspectives_".  They can refer to the vegetation as their street, but that has nothing to do with my point.



Flaminius said:


> this thread is my first encounter with the compound 通り土砂降り. Are there other useages of this word or words of similar coinage?


This is my first encounter too, and yet I'm still sure this is it. 
I cannot think of a good example, but how about this:
A: 今朝早く起きたからコーヒー買いにいったら、お金拾ったよ。
B: へえ、早起きは三文の得だね。
A: むしろ、早起きは５００円の得だな。
Do you ever not say something like this, something with a twist on fixed expressions?  If you see a really strict person weeping, don't you say 〇〇さんの目にも涙？ 
I understand 通り土砂降り in the same vein.  Ant A said いきなり土砂降りだぜ, and Ant B replies to it with a twist on 通り雨 because 雨 would have too weak an impact for the strength of the rain.   This is not a high-minded attempt at coinage, this is just an ordinary sense of humour.  Ant B is, so to speak, improvising over the established expression 通り雨, and this kind of phrasing works exactly because it sounds unusual.  I can imagine myself saying something like this.  And this is not about human/ants' perspectives.


----------



## SoLaTiDoberman

The tone and pitch of the 声優 seems neutral to my ears.
The both interpretations are equally possible with that pronunciation.
However, it might not be helpful to judge.
What if the 声優 read the screenplay poorly, but the director went through it because of the time schedule or something? （声優はかんだが、時間が押していたので、ダメ出ししなかった。「通りは土砂降りだ」の「は」の発音ができてなかったが、ダメ出ししなかった。とか。）
What if the 声優 didn't understand the line correctly?　（「通り土砂降り」という造語の意味がわからず、正しいイントネーションで発音できなかったが、スルーされた。）
The screenplay writer only knows what it actually means.
Let's ask him or her!

BTW, 通り雨 is often a heavy but transient rain, like a squall.
So we usually don't have to say 通り土砂降り.
If we wanted to emphasis "heavy," we would usually say 激しい通り雨 or 酷い通り雨 or something. This is why you think it weird. But I think the screenplay writer's intention was probably the wordplay explained by *Contrafibularity*.　（「通り土砂降り」というユニークな造語である説に一票）


----------



## Tokyo Jeff

通り土砂降り　does not make sense to me. We do not have a word for road downpour.


----------



## Riccardo91

It seems like the sentence created a lot of chaos.
(By the way, I have an official English script for the movie that translates the sentence as "Our path will flood".)

Seeing again the following scene, I realized that after the rain stops one of the ants says 引くのも早かったな.
So they didn't seem to know in advance that the downpour wouldn't last for long.

If we're in doubt about the meaning, maybe "A downpour in the road!" is what fits better in my context.

Thank you!


----------



## SoLaTiDoberman

This was a very interesting thread. Thank you for sharing!


----------



## Contrafibularity

SoLaTiDoberman said:


> wordplay


Yes, that's the word!  I should have come up with it by now, though I have been trying to explain along this single line from the start.  

通り土砂降り is a _wordplay_ invented by Ant B, so there is no use discussing its usage.  And again, it has nothing to do with ants' perspective. Humans might say it.   For example:
A: いきなり降ってきたな。
B: 通り雨だね。
Fine.  Then we have
A: いきなり土砂降りだな。
B: 通り雨ならぬ、「通り土砂降り」だね。
Doesn't it make sense? 



Riccardo91 said:


> Seeing again the following scene, I realized that after the rain stops one of the ants says 引くのも早かったな.
> So they didn't seem to know in advance that the downpour wouldn't last for long.


No one knows how long a rain will last, even though it is 通り雨.  It can last several minutes, or only 10 seconds.   It just comes and goes away abruptly, so it is a totally natural thing to say something like:
A: すごい通り雨だったね。
B: 来るのも急だったけど、引くのも早かったな。
If you get caught in a rain when you don't expect it, you can refer to it as 通り雨 even though you don't know how long it will last.  Ant A's mentioning "いきなり" and "土砂降り" together is a trigger for the wordplay.


----------



## Tokyo Jeff

通り雨ならぬ「通り土砂降り」sounds Ok. It must be used in Rakugo.


----------

