• fireweed@lemmy.world
      175·
      10 months ago

      I know enough Japanese to not get this.

      Two problems: one, it’s tiramisu, not tiramasu, but I’d let that slide as a fudge to make the joke work if it weren’t for problem two.

      Problem two is that the unconjugated form of tiramasu would be tiraru. Except tiraru would be a “godan verb” because the “a” vowel prior to the “ru” ending, which means it would conjugate as tirarimasu and tirarimasen. At this point we’ve strayed too far from “tiramisu” for the joke to work IMO. Which left me staring at the meme for way too long trying to figure out if it was an attempt at a Japanese joke or not.

      Reference on Japanese conjugation: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese-grammar/verb-conjugation-groups/

        • fireweed@lemmy.world
          83·
          10 months ago

          If it’s a joke about Japanese conjugation, but that’s not how Japanese conjugation works, is it actually a joke about Japanese conjugation?

          If someone tried to make a joke about English conjugation that hinged on the past-tense of “to run” being “ron” instead of “ran,” would that even qualify as a joke? “He has such a sweet tooth, the moment his diet ended he didn’t ‘ron’ to the store, he ‘macaron’ to the store!” makes no sense. That’s what the tiramisu meme reads like, except it also misspells tiramisu, so the English joke would actually be more like, “he has such a sweet tooth, the moment his diet ended he didn’t ‘ron’ to the store, he ‘ice cron’ [misspelling of ice cream] to the store!” which makes even less sense.