These Fish Are Explosive

Friends, Funny Stories, Online, USA, Wordplay | Friendly | February 9, 2021

I have been Internet friends with this man for twelve years and I am a frequent viewer of his Twitch stream while he plays various games. He is a polylinguist, and part of the theme of his stream is that he will play a randomly selected game and also randomly select a language that the game has available, even if it is a language he does not speak, and he will learn the language as he plays. He’s very good at learning languages and it is impressive to watch.

Sometimes for grins, I will type a random phrase into Google Translate and post it into chat and he will try to figure out what I’m saying. He uses it as an opportunity to point out flaws in Google Translate and to pick up new words he does not know. This evening, he is playing a game in Japanese; it is nearing Christmas, so I write a “Star Trek”-themed version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” translate it into Japanese, and post it into chat.

Friend: *Translating* “On the twelfth day of Christmas, Star Fleet gave to me… twelve fish lightning?”

Me: “It’s supposed to be ‘twelve torpedo launchers.'”

Friend: “It says, ‘[Japanese],’ which literally means ‘fish lightning.’ Hang on…”

He looks up ‘torpedo’ in his Japanese dictionary.

Friend: “’Torpedo: [same Japanese words].’ Huh, apparently, the Japanese word for torpedo means ‘fish lightning.’”

Me: “Fire fish lightning, full spread!”

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