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I'm trying to translate this car parking sign/garage and I'm stuck on the part for 間時肆拾貳

enter image description here

Google just returns the translation "In between", so I still don't know what they mean. Maybe it's like parking in between the lines?

YTZ
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  • Is this easy to read for native speakers (especially when being distracted by driving)? Seems like a readability nightmare... – Darius Jahandarie Apr 17 '19 at 06:12
  • @Darius As long as anime doesn't become so overly popular that they start putting up signs like this in real life, we should be OK. – By137 Apr 17 '19 at 07:17

2 Answers2

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This is a tricky one because this sign is 1) written right-to-left, 2) using kanji for numbers, and 3) using old/traditional kanji for the numbers.

So rearranging it left-to-right and using simplified kanji would give us

(top) [時間貸]{じ・かん・かし}　→　Hourly Rental / Pay by-the-hour
(right, red) [五十M先]{ご・じゅう・メートル・さき}　[入口]{いり・ぐち}　→　Entrance (is) 50 meters ahead
(example in question) [二十四時間]{に・じゅう・よ・じ・かん}　→　(Open) 24 Hrs.
(lower left, green) [空車]{くう・しゃ}　→　Vacancy / Empty spaces availabe


istrasci
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  • Isn't the text actually in Chinese? – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 16 '19 at 18:29
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    @EiríkrÚtlendi 時間 doesn't mean hour in Chinese, it means time - as in, "Do you have time?". I assure you that most of the sign's vocabulary would be unnatural if read in Chinese, although most of us can interpret it without any issue. – dROOOze Apr 16 '19 at 19:05
  • @istrasci thanks! yea it makes sense now ;) – YTZ Apr 16 '19 at 19:16
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    @droooze: Very interesting. A quick scan of the red text didn't parse as Japanese, and the 镸 radical in 肆 looks like a non-Japanese simplification of 長, hence my guess at Chinese. – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 16 '19 at 20:11
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi 镸 is the left-side combining form of 長. Refer to the top left hand component of 髪. (Simplified Chinese reduces 長 to 长, but the character 肆 was unaffected; I don't really know why.) – dROOOze Apr 16 '19 at 20:17
  • @istrasci Unfortunately, I could not understand the meaning. It's not obvious for me yet :( Could you please add the meaning in your answer for others as well who are like me :) – tod Apr 17 '19 at 06:41
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    @droooze, FWIW, 時間貸 does appear as a contiguous string in Chinese (traditional, probably Taiwanese or Hong Kong), though presumably meaning something like "time loan" rather than "hourly rental". 也我會看也説就一點兒的中國話。 (Although I'm sure my phrasing and vocab are crap anymore. :) ) – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 17 '19 at 15:40
  • @tod: Updated. There you go. – istrasci Apr 17 '19 at 18:06
  • @EiríkrÚtlendi Unfortunately not! It's a contiguous string but not a contiguous phrase. The parsing for that first result is: "不同" (a different) "時間" (time) "貸放" (loan, but in a financial sense only). The string means: loaning money [to a customer] at different times to X. Also, nice try on the Chinese, but unfortunately it didn't turn out sensible haha :) – dROOOze Apr 17 '19 at 22:11
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    @droooze, fair enough. :) 我的中國話能力太低了。 – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 17 '19 at 22:13
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It means "24 hours".

First of all, the pic is wrong side out. Second, it is Japanese not Chinese（I mean the language not the characters). Japanese use a lot traditional Chinese characters. Third, it is an ad for parking lot and cars.

so, in the turns it was supposed to be:

時間貸⇒For rent by hour (時間means hour in Japanese but time in Chinese)

伍拾M先⇒50 meters ahead (this can be a very old ad,coz modern Japanese use 五十,伍拾 is traditional Chinese even in mainland china people are not using it in daily life, but in taiwan they still do)

贰拾肆時間⇒24 hours(means for rent for 24h of course) (same as above, it can be very old, i can ensure you many japanese people can not read this,they use 二十四時間 now, but they used to use traditional ones before)

空車⇒available car (usually used on taxi to let people know that that cab is available)

*Can not believe it my first answer is about this.

qkuma
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