Japanese translation. Difficulty: penguins.

August 25, 2012 11:25 PM

Can you help me translate the kanji on this shirt?

Through a bit of guesswork using Google translate, I have been able to get the phrase "Painting the Penguin" from these characters: ペンギンのペンキ塗. Seems like a pretty decent pun as it is, but the last character is unaccounted for and it's bugging me.

So can anyone tell me what that last character is and what the complete/correct translation should be?

My penguin-loving friend thanks you in advance for your assistance.

posted by stefanie to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

Best answer: The last character is 塗 and means "coating", like of paint. It literally translates to something like "penguin's paint coating".
posted by jrockway at 11:44 PM on August 25, 2012

Response by poster: Sorry, I wasn't clear about which last character I meant. On the shirt, there's an additional character after "penguin paint coating". That's the one that's giving me fits.
posted by stefanie at 11:59 PM on August 25, 2012

Best answer: り is Hiragana and means "ri."

It's part of the word ぬり (coating), which can be written as either 塗り or just 塗.
posted by yellowlightman at 12:04 AM on August 26, 2012

Response by poster: Ahh, that would explain why I couldn't figure out what it meant. Thanks to both of you.
posted by stefanie at 1:06 AM on August 26, 2012

Best answer: Judging from the illustration, ペンギンのペンキ塗り in this case means "the penguin painter."
posted by misozaki at 7:53 AM on August 26, 2012

Maybe "The Painting Penguin."

This could be his super-hero name, or something like that.
posted by mule98J at 10:43 AM on August 26, 2012