Talk:頑張って

When I was in Japan as an exchange student, in 1981, my Japanese friends in the Kendo club at high school said that "Ganbatte!" literally meant "Turtle!", implying "Be a turtle!", meaning "persevere and give it your best even though it is difficult for you to carry on, just like it is difficult for a turtle to drag their house along with them everywhere, yet they still do not give up!"

I don't know if their understanding was correct. I got curious today (2016) and couldn't find anything online that had this interpretation.

Do any readers, here, know?

12.226.148.10 23:59, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

It's a bit of a stretch, but 亀 can be read as かめ (kame), with the "k" sound voicing to がめ (game) in compounds. The "n" sound in this word is pronounced like "m" due to the "b" after it, so if you ignore the voicing difference and the "e" sound in かめ (kame), those comments might sort of make sense. My guess is that it's more like a mnemonic that uses the similar sounds to make a memorable association, sort of like people say "there's no I in team" without actually claiming that the spelling is due to the meaning or vice versa. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)