The English translation of this sign seems to be straight out of an automatic translation machine. But in fact, Google Translate does an even worse job: "Summer. Passing tobacco and arms, naked." (This sounds like the beginning of a bad novel about a tough, chainsmoking mob boss who deals in weapons and prostitutes.) FreeTranslation.com is hardly any better: "Summer. The arm that passes with tobacco is nude." (This sounds like an erotic haiku for people with a fetish for smokers.)
But what does the sign actually say?
The Japanese reads: 夏。たばことすれ違う腕は、裸だ。
The first kanji simply means "summer", and is followed by a full stop. Next it says (in romaji, with translation): "tabako[cigarette] to surechigau[to cross paths without touching] ude[arm] wa, hadaka[naked] da[to be]." Suddenly, the translation in the image doesn't sound so bad. Let's go through the sentence:
- tabako to: not sure what 'to' means here, I doubt that it's 'and'.
- surechigau ude wa: the cross-paths arm [topic], the arm that crosses paths (with the cigarette).
- hadaka da: is naked.
So literally, it says "Summer. The arm that crosses the path of a cigarette is naked."
The sign is meant as a warning to smokers, that in summer, their lit cigarette may touch someone's naked arm and burn them. But note how the Japanese version is completely neutral, to the point that you don't even know if it's directed at the smokers or the short-sleeved people. Quite apart from that, even having such a sign is quite unusual outside of Japan.
All this goes to show that translating Japanese is about far more than vocabulary or grammar. (Cultural) context is everything.
