Talk:Den

Densuke? Is that really so? I wouldn't be terribly surprised, but where'd you hear that? That doesn't really sound like a girl's name... CorbeauKarasu 00:16, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

I can't recall exactly where, now, but it was either on the Sketch Book or an Arakawa Interview for New Type... She mentioned she had a dog named "Densuke" and she named Den after it. I'll try to find it here and I'll get back to you with where exactly that's said. ^^ Turdaewen 01:43, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

Found it!! It was neither XD It was an interview in Perfect Guidebook 2. Here's the link for the translation: http://www.zomgfta.com/hagaren/interview.html Turdaewen 01:48, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

About Den's gender
Just to clarify, altough many places have translated Den as a "he", according to Perfect Guidebook 2, in a 'character dictionary', Den is actually stated as female. Since it is a guide, it's more trustable (if that's such a word) than omakes and even more than translations by fangroups, who, not rarely, have no background research before releasing translations.

That being said, unless we have an official Guide or actual proof that the Perfect Guidebook 2 was actually wrong, Den should be regarded as a "she". Turdaewen 03:13, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

I always thought Den was female, and I don't know why I did, because I don't remember seeing it anywhere. In fact, I think there's an omake with Den and Hayate are together and Hayate calls Den "sir". Of course, that could be a mistranslation or have something to do with the fact that all the female officers in FMA seem to be called "sir" as well. By the way, how are you able to read the second Perfect Guidebook? I thought only the first was translated.--Fullmetal Fan 04:54, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

Fortunatelly, I know a little Japanese and I have the Scans to that Guide with me, but many parts have been translated into some languages by fans (I have some translations both to English and Spanish). Whenever I have doubts about a particular thing, I ask a friend of mine, who's fluent, to translate. About that omake with Den and Hayate, he actually adresses her as "sama", which holds no gender (as of most pronouns in Japanese), so noone could have taken a gender through that information. Since there's very little situations in Japanese where you can actually state an animal's gender through normal conversation, it would be almost impossible for us to know unless, like it is in the Perfect Guidebook 2, to be stated directly. Turdaewen 05:01, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

If it was "-sama" it makes me wonder why they would translate that as "Sir", rather than something like "Great Den", which would be a more accurate translation, given the context. Tommy-Vercetti 18:12, December 14, 2011 (UTC)

In the context, it makes no sense to translate "sama" as "Great", to be quite honest. The pronouns in Japanese have several meanings, when translated to our western languages, and "sama" can mean both something as "greatly superior" as much as it can mean merely that you consider than person to be "superior to oneself" and, therefore, "Sir" and "Madame" could fit just as nicely. It all depends. XD Turdaewen 23:47, December 14, 2011 (UTC)

But when gender plays no role, as in this case with dogs, I don't see why "Great Den" wouldn't work. Hayate was just calling Den superior to himself, and it would have worked just fine for that. Tommy-Vercetti 00:13, December 15, 2011 (UTC)

It would work! But it wouldn't be the best translation, cause that's not what it meant exactly, in Japanese... Unfortunatelly, due to the lack of vocabulary, Japanese is a language that can be tough to translate, cause there's always a matter of context involved. And the context also has a great deal of culture also involved. So, in some cases, sama can be better translated as "great", but, in others, no... sometimes, the best translation isn't even a literal one and it's not even in the dictionary as a translation to Sama... In this case, for example, Hayate calls "Den-sama" in a context that could be compared to a soldier calling a general after being scolded, and, in English, in a military context, we use "Sir"... so it all depends... It's not a matter of right or wrong, in this sense, but a matter of choice by the person who translated it: to give priority to the origin of the word or to its meaning in the context. In sum: translations are tough to make. lol Turdaewen 12:24, December 15, 2011 (UTC)