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Comment by bojo | Hacker News Reader

My daughter will ask my wife, "Can I please have shuwa-shuwa orange juice?", meaning she wants her to add carbonated water to it. It's entertaining to watch these words used in action because there's no equivalent in English outside of the underlying meaning.

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What do you mean by no equivalent? To my ears asking for "shuwa shuwa orange juice" is just like asking for "fizzy orange juice".

In Japanese there's a very clear distinction, because adjectives conjugate and sounds don't. Sounds also stand alone: it's possible and common to label a drink in a manga (cartoon) as "shuwa shuwa", while labeling it "fizzy" in English would be quite weird. The GP's daughter is really asking for "fizz juice", but again, that doesn't compute in English.

Labelling drinks as fizzy is very normal. And it's doubly apt because fizz/fizzy are also onomatopoeia.

No, I mean having a freefloating "fizzy!" next to the drink, like the red text here: https://dailyportalz.jp/b/2018/05/13/c/img/pc/i001.jpg

Basically, it's a sound coming from the drink, not a description by a third party (adjective).

Yes that's what onomatopoeia is and what fizz/fizzy are.

https://tinyartroom.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/20140109-135...

You could certainly have a freefloating "fizz" next to the drink?

'Fizzy drink' is very common, it's what children call carbonated beverages. In Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Charlie and his grandfather drink 'fizzy lifting drink', for one notable usage.

Edit: oh, I just saw your clarification. That makes more sense

I've been learning Japanese for a long time as well, and I often hear this response by folks saying there's "no equivalent in Japanese" (aka the reverse).

Truth is you can communicate it, it's just communicated differently. Folks like to pretend there are mystical properties to a language, but reality isn't like that.

They said "outside of the underlying meaning," so I think they meant you can translate it, but there's no equivalent for the type of word?

Either way, I agree it was a poor example; I don't see any particular benefit to the Japanese word in this case.

Fizzy wizzy juice. Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Buzzing bumble bee.

The difference is that it’s seen as childish in English and people stop talking this way in late elementary school, aside from limited uses (like buzzing)

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