Saturday, November 20, 2010

何が意味ですか?

I took this picture in the restroom at the Nagoya International center where I take Japanese classes on Sundays. I was curious as always what this sign was trying to communicate to me, so let's translate!


お願い(おねがい)- 'wish' usually お願いします 'please do this favor' commonly used expression at the end of a request when doing just about everything.

ビル - Katakana word for 'building'

の - the possessive particle to declare 'the building's ...'

設備(せつび)- 'equipment'

~につき - this is a type of special particle that works as either a preposition, adverb or sometimes an article with meanings like 'for, to, from or a' in this form we read it as 'for'

待ち(まち)- 'wait'

~出さないで(ださないで)- normally 出す is 'take out' and in the negative is 'don't take out', but here it is used together with 待ち that changes the meaning to 'begin' or since its in the negative 'don't begin'

下さい(ください)- 'please'

Translation: "Please don't begin to wait for the building's equipment"

名古屋(なごや)- Kanji for the city of Nagoya
国際センター(こくさい)- Kanji for the International center aka Kokusai center
防災センター(ぼうさい)- Kanji for the Disaster Prevention center

The title of this post is 何が意味ですか?that means "what is the meaning?' because this sign seems to have no context until we get to the bottom and see 防災センター. Now we may have a clue to why we shouldn't begin to wait for the building's equipment, that probably infers not waiting in an emergency for such things as back-up power, water sprinklers, etc. そうかな。。。

これは以上です。

ジョシュア