The Puffer Forum

suvat wrote:

yunachin wrote:Here is Puffer fish in kanji: パッファーの魚

How can we pronounce it? Would you pls try to spell it in English?
By the way I think "Baiacu Verde Pintado" is GSP and, puffer fish is baiacu en Espanol, isn't it?
In German it must be something like kugelfisch or kugel fisch.

That would be "paffaa no sakana" and is literally "puffer fish".

The scientific way to write animal names is with katakana so it's usually written フグ (fugu), but the regular way is with hiragana ふぐ or kanji 河豚. 河 (kawa) is river and 豚 (buta) is pig. Sometimes Japanese people will write "fuku" instead of "fugu" because that makes it synonymous with 福 (fuku) which means good fortune. So puffers are sometimes associated with good luck and happiness.

Some Japanese puffer names are-
hachi no ji fugu (figure of eight puffer, F8)
midori fugu (green puffer, GSP)
harisenbon (thousands of needles, porcupine puffer)
tora fugu (tiger puffer, Takifugu rubripes)
hako fugu (box puffer, boxfish)
manbou (waving wheel fish, ocean sunfish)

If anyone wants anymore, I can look them up.

I've seen dwarfs and GSPs labelled as "baby/doll/baby doll fish" in LFSs. I'd write down my own personal brand of pinying, but I can't figure out how to write "fish" - there just isn't anything that sounds the same in English.

In Holland we say "kogelvis"

In Norway we say Kulefisk

Beun wrote:In Holland we say "kogelvis"

Same thing in Dutch speaking part of Belgium.

Kogel meaning bullet or (more appropriate) cannon ball. Vis is Fish (surprise, surprise).

French speaking part of Belgium is same as in France.

So your country speaks 2 totally different languagues? Are most people bi-lingual there? How do they both get along?

now i cant speack from experience but dosent most of Europe country's speck more then one language?

In Cantonese puffers are called 雞泡魚, translated to "chicken bubble fish". It's cool to know that the basic elements of this term is pretty universal.

why chicken bubble fish? i mean bubble fish yes but the chicken part doesnt makes sense, did they not see one eat?

Some people say they taste like chicken.... I wonder if that's the reason.

i would never eat any puffer!

In Malay, its Ikan Buntal. Ikan meaning fish, and buntal, meaning fat, round, or filled with air...which all seem to fit.

lets hope for less of the 3rd one

Pufferpunk wrote:So your country speaks 2 totally different languagues? Are most people bi-lingual there? How do they both get along?

well, you didn't catch the news the last few months about Belgium, appearantly.

We actually speak 3 languages, one part speaks Dutch, like in the Netherlands, another speaks French, like in France and to finish there is one very little part of Belgium that speaks German. The part that is, indeed, next to the German border.

We used to get along quite well, but now we recently had a major political crisis, because of the issues between the two major communities (Flemish and Walloon). The Flemish communities wants more local responsibilities, while the Walloon want to keep it as it is. Luckily we are not so violent as people in Georgia now, and there is only verbal war between politicians. I won't get any deeper into this, and explain why we have 9 different gouvernments, and so, but now you know a little bit more.

And no, most people are not bi-langual, but tri-lingual or even quadro-lingual.

Either Dutch or French as mothertongue, and then the other one as major 2nd language in school.
Then English (although most speak better English than the other major language) and some also had German, although that was not very much. I can help myself though when in Germany. I am also thinking about taking Spanish lessons. Just for fun. But I'm a bit busy now, so that'll have to wait a few years.

jimi wrote:now i cant speack from experience but dosent most of Europe country's speck more then one language?

Well, in most countries of Western Europe, people speak their native language and English. Depending on where they are situated, some speak other languages too. But there are exceptions as always...

Scandinavian people tend do know a little german as well, but generally people speak English quite good.
French people know some English, but mostly only in the big cities.
Spanish people only go on holiday in South America, because they only speak Spanish (which really sucks).
Swiss people have no official own language, but speak German, French or Italian. And in some parts a special dialect which is a mixture of mainly German and French, but no one else would understand.
In Austria they only speak German.

And then in Eastern European countries they mostly only speak their native language and if you're lucky a little bit of English or German. But again: only in the big cities and people that work in positions where they work with tourists (hotels, bars, museums, tourist information desks, ...).

So, no, most European countries only have one native language, but in most countries people try their best to learn other languages. I think this is because there are so many countries, and people travel a lot to different countries, since the distance is quite small to go to another country. E.g.: if I drive in my car for one hour, I can be in the Netherlands or in France, if I drive for two hours, I'm in Germany. That's how small Belgium is, and how close other countries are.

I think in every West-European country English is tought, except maybe in Spain. Because they really really really don't speak any English at all!

Hope you have learned a bit from this. And now, back to the translations of Pufferfish!