Kono uta niwa kashi ga arimasen

A note on this Japanese transliteration

This is the "romaji" (Roman character) representation of the Japanese sentence, which literally is "As for this song, no lyric exists"; a strict
translation of the English sentence is not possible, and the most facile explanation is that, essentially, a Japanese "wouldn't say it that way."

The only other disclaimer I want to offer (in case someone is poking about for that funky old Japanese dictionary that's been gathering dust somewhere) is that "kashi" has several different meanings depending on the kanji (Chinese-based character) used to represent it; "lyric" is only one of at least six, none of which are even remotely related!

I'd include the specific kanji, but I doubt it would be supported on your website (there is Japanese character support for Internet Explorer, but using it makes Roman characters look very odd to Western eyes, and might even wreak havoc with your page layout).

So presumably, anyone who really knows Japanese won't misinterpret the sentence, and to anyone who doesn't know Japanese it won't make any difference anyway.

Thanks Kerry Canfield, from Portland, Oregon

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