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I am attempting to combine 異能 (i nō - supernatural power) with 殊才 (koto sai - special talent), with the finished phrase being written as 異能殊才.

With various engines (I'm RomajiDesu for this specific example), it lists the Romaji as being 'i nō koto sai' (which looks correct and is what I would like to use), but the English translation it presents is just 'extraordinary talent'.

Is this an accurate translation? And would 異能殊才 'extraordinary talent' be an accurate way to describe a special ability or power that a person has (anything from a real-life person having a photographic memory to a fictional character having a superpower, like the ability to fly or turn invisible)?

I would like to use 'i nō koto sai' as a very specific term for such a thing in my writing (even though simpler and more common translations definitely exist), but only if it IS an accurate translation and the context/meaning is correct.

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Connie
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    I would have expected 殊才 to be shusai. – Leebo Mar 15 '23 at 05:21
  • "with the finished phrase being written as 異能殊才." - and what do you want it to mean, exactly? I can't understand the form of the question: you talk about "translating an unusual phrase", but I don't know whether you mean from English to Japanese or from Japanese to English. That said, I don't think it's reasonable to expect to just make up your own 四字熟語 out of whole cloth and expect Japanese readers to understand your intended meaning and nuance exactly. – Karl Knechtel Mar 15 '23 at 06:37
  • Ideally, I'd like to be able to use condense 'i no koto sai' into the title 'Ino Kotosai' and have it mean something related to special or unique talents/powers. Probably a more accurate title for the question would be 'I want to find out what these four kanji translate to when grouped together'? I'd like to use them for the Romaji, but (as mentioned above) I'd like it to actually mean something (or at least be a word salad of related words, like 'special power extraordinary talent'), instead of just being a bunch of nonsense (like 'sea plum abahagaga'). – Connie Mar 15 '23 at 06:59
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    I'm not sure why you would want to use kotosai. If you're making a yojijukugo, it's much more natural to use all on'yomi, so shusai. Setting aside the whole issue of if this is a good idea to begin with. Just... on-on-kun-on is a very weird yojijukugo to create. If none of what I said makes sense to you, it might be best to not attempt this until you have a better grasp on Japanese. – Leebo Mar 15 '23 at 07:29
  • It seems 殊才 is an extremely rare but existing surname and it seems to be pronounced ことさい. – aguijonazo Mar 15 '23 at 15:52
  • @aguijonazo What a coincidence! – jogloran Mar 15 '23 at 22:49

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Unfortunately 殊才 with the reading ことさい is nonsensical. I believe a more normal term for a superpowered individual is simply 超能力者 or エスパー, but these are just dictionary words.

As a meta point, you shouldn't rely on things like "RomajiDesu" or machine translation in general to judge what is a correct reading or a correct translation. They certainly won't give you meaningful results in case you're coining new phrases.

jogloran
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  • Oh, that's rather disappointing to hear.

    I was really hoping to use it as a book title (but not as a phrase or word that appears in the book or in the text itself), but if 異能殊才 just looks like pure nonsense, then I'll need to try and figure something else out.

    Does 異能殊才 / Ino Kotosai at least translate into comprehensible words (such 'supernatural ability special talent', or something similarly word salad-y), that might be usable for a book title? Or does it just read/translate as an incomprehensible pile of random syllables that are completely unusable?

     – Connie Mar 15 '23 at 05:48
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    Does the title really have to be in Japanese? It seems nonsensical for an English work to have a Japanese title consisting of coined words. And you really need an especially good Sprachgefühl to be able to come up with novel terms that would sound right to Japanese speakers. Ultimately if you don’t care about that comprehensibility then you’re free to name it however you wish. After all, J. K. Rowling did canonically name one of her magical schools “Mahoutokoro”. – jogloran Mar 15 '23 at 05:56
  • I'd ideally like to have a Japanese (well, Romaji) title, or a short Japanese title followed by an English subtitle, as the feel of the story itself is heavily influenced by fantasy manga, light novels, and Japanese storytelling conventions, with a largely Japanese cast and an even the occasional splash page of manga-style artwork. It feels to me that a Japanese title would do the book justice and help readers get an idea of what they're in for, whereas potential readers seeing an all-English title might just think 'generic Western fantasy novel'. (I also don't want to be lazy, like Rowling.) – Connie Mar 15 '23 at 06:24
  • Doesn't エスパー refer to a very specific supernatural power ("extrasensory perception", consisting of things like telepathy or clairvoyance)? And not, for example, superhuman strength, eidetic memory, at-will invisibility etc.? – Karl Knechtel Mar 15 '23 at 06:41
  • @Karl: Yes and no. From the Wiki disambiguation page for エスパー: 狭義では超感覚的知覚（ESP）を持つ者（ESPer）。広義では超能力を持つ者（超能力者）全般を指すSF用語。 – jogloran Mar 15 '23 at 07:37
  • Naruhodo. (Although DeepL seems to think that 超能力者 also has only the narrow-sense meaning, although it clearly doesn't.) – Karl Knechtel Mar 15 '23 at 08:44
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While 異能 is a widely recognized term among people who read manga and similar media, 殊才 is not. How did you come across the word 殊才? If you simply connected two kanji that seemed fitting to you, you should avoid doing so. Basically it would mean nothing.

I have read hundreds of manga, but I have never come across the word 殊才, and don't even know how to read it. As for its meaning, I can guess that it refers to some kind of special skill, but I cannot determine whether it applies to someone like Shohei Ohtani, who excels in sports, or to someone with supernatural abilities such as precognition or psychokinesis. The term doesn't even exist in the first place, so I cannot determine what is correct, nor can I determine how to translate it.

If you're referring to supernatural abilities such as telekinesis or generating flames, simply use terms 超能力. If you mean a genius athlete or chess player, use phrases like 特別な才能, 天才, etc. 異能 is a word that can potentially refer to both, but in recent manga, it normally refers to supernatural ones.

As an exception, professional writers sometimes create entirely new words and use them in titles. However, this is a highly creative and rare endeavor by those who are intimately familiar with the Japanese language. Whether such a new word is good or bad cannot be objectively discussed on a site like this.

naruto
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  • 殊才 seems to be Chinese? https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%AE%8A%E6%89%8D and is also listed on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%97%E3%82%85%E3%81%95%E3%81%84 – Malady Mar 16 '23 at 03:47
  • @Malady I don't know, Chinese and Japanese use the same script but they are totally different languages. Even if there is such a word in Chinese, that's irrelevant. – naruto Mar 16 '23 at 05:50
  • It exists in 精選版 日本国語大辞典 with the reading しゅさい but it's not like it seems to be used at all. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%AE%8A%E6%89%8D-2049116 – Leebo Mar 16 '23 at 06:41
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    You asked "How did you come across 殊才?" and "Through Chinese" is a possible answer. Also, Google Translate pronounces 殊才 as "koto sai". – Malady Mar 16 '23 at 12:23
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    Do not think of Google Translate transcriptions as authoritative, particularly for made-up compounds like this. – jogloran Mar 17 '23 at 04:01