Natasha Ivanovna Manteca Van Spluut (lionex92) wrote in linguaphiles,
2012-10-05 23:14:00

Cartoon animals

Hello,

I would like to have the expression 'cartoon animals' translated into languages other than English. By 'cartoon animals', I do mean animal characters as used in animation or drawn in a cartoon style like Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Hare and Wolf in Nu Pogodi, etc. The languages I would like the expression translated into in priority are:
Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, Japanese and Korean. I hope it is OK to ask for this and I thank you all in advance.
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  • 27 comments

helenadax

October 5 2012, 21:58:04 UTC 7 months ago

In Spain we call them "personajes de dibujos animados". I guess you could call them "animales de dibujos animados", but it isn't something we really say.

s0unds0

October 6 2012, 10:52:25 UTC 7 months ago

Same in Italian, I´d just call them "personaggi dei cartoni animati".

mayanas

October 5 2012, 22:20:31 UTC 7 months ago

In Danish we call cartoons 'tegnefilm' (drawn movies) but we tend to call all drawn characters, be they animated or not, 'tegneseriefigur' (pl. -er) (tegneserie = comic). We don't really make a distinction between humans or animals there. You might call them 'tegneseriedyr' (dyr = animal(s)) though it's not what we usually say...

totesmasc

October 6 2012, 02:42:31 UTC 7 months ago Edited:  October 6 2012, 02:45:03 UTC

yeah, this is the same for norwegian. technically/directly translated "cartoon animal" would be "tegneseriedyr", but no one says that, it's tegneseriefigur whether it's human or not.

eta: tegnefilmfigur also works if it's specifically an animated cartoon as opposed to a comic.

lied_ohne_worte

October 5 2012, 23:38:06 UTC 7 months ago

Same as in Danish, German doesn't really denote if the figure displayed is humanoid. The word commonly used is "Comicfigur" (singular), "Comicfiguren" being the plural.

German Wikipedia categorises articles about cartoon animals as "anthropomorphe Comicfiguren" (plural form) - "anthropomorphic comic figures". That expression is however not something I'd use in a casual context, as many people probably wouldn't know what "anthropomorphic" means. It'd more be used in some kind of academic meta-literature about comics, rather than, say, in a shop where you try to sell comic figures to customers.

lied_ohne_worte

October 6 2012, 09:41:35 UTC 7 months ago

Oh, from reading the Dutch I realised I forgot another expression. If the content is animated, you have a "Zeichentrickfigur" (singular), again with "-figuren" as the plural (literally, that compound word means "drawing-trick-figure". I suppose that here, too, you could say "anthropomorphe Zeichentrickfiguren" to make clear that it's an animal given human traits.

One can say "Comictiere" (for non-animated things, "Tiere" means animals) or "Zeichentricktiere" (for animation). There is a fair number of Google results for each of these. But to me at least, both words feel rather clunky and unusual.

lionex92

7 months ago

  • New comment

lionex92

October 6 2012, 16:09:47 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you for this added precision but I am not looking for the expression based on a humanoid depiction, just the graphic style: the animal can be quadrupedal with full animal characteristics and still be described as 'cartoon'.

akibare

October 6 2012, 01:44:06 UTC 7 months ago

I'm not sure if there's a single word for it in Japanese (people in the industry or at least fans should answer) but there's various ways to talk about it.

擬人化動物＝ぎじんかどうぶつ＝gijinka doubutsu="anthropomorphosized (is that even legitimate English I have no idea) animals" It's animals made to be like people, not necessarily anything to do with cartoons, they're in Aesop's fables too after all.

That's a noun-phrase shortening of 擬人化された動物＝gijinka sareta doubutsu="animals that are anthromorphosized"

You can also say of course

アニメに出てくるような動物＝anime ni detekuru you na doubutsu = "animals like those that appear in animations"

So you can marry it too and get

アニメに出てくるような擬人化された動物="anime ni detekuru you na gijinka sareta doubutu" = "anthropomorphosized animals like those that appear in animations"

And you can also use キャラ＝kyara="character" so you can have (maybe the simplest and best?)

擬人動物キャラ＝gijindoubutsu kyara = "anthropomorphosized (eff this word seriously I can't spell it it's wrong hopefully you can tell my meaning) animal characters"

But... it's not quite a catchphrase so maybe someone else has better ideas.

alleykitties

October 9 2012, 14:15:51 UTC 7 months ago

I'm by no means an expert in japanese, but I feel like it might be more natural to use the same expression i would use in my own language. As in here we would say "tegneseriefigur" which means "cartoon character" because it sounds awkard when animals get added in. My first thought was that アニメキャラ would be the most natural way to say this. Otherwise I have seen アメコミ used for american comicbooks, but I have no clue if there is an equalent abbrevation for american cartoon movies. If so that might be better than using アニメ.

akibare

October 9 2012, 14:33:35 UTC 7 months ago

After reading all the other comments in the thread now where people are happy with just "cartoon character" (not specifying literally anything about the animal bit) I agree with you that

アニメキャラ = animekyara

Is probably the easiest/best thing.

lionex92

7 months ago

  • New comment

verbranden

October 6 2012, 02:30:58 UTC 7 months ago Edited:  October 6 2012, 02:31:22 UTC

For comics the word is "stripfiguren". If the cartoon is animated, "tekenfilmfiguren". However these aren't specific to animals. You could say "tekenfilmdieren", but it makes a distinction that doesn't exist.

Forgot to mentioin - this is Dutch. -.-

moonplanet

October 6 2012, 08:50:22 UTC 7 months ago

I'd say "tekenfilmdieren" too. If you need to make the distinction, it's the clearest word I can think of.

lionex92

October 6 2012, 15:51:41 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you very much for your help. Yes, the distinction doesn't appear to exist in many languages. I guess I will have to ask people who work specifically in the industry for a complement of information but again, thank you very much for your input.

twerpalicious

October 6 2012, 08:00:37 UTC 7 months ago

"anthropomorphosized (is that even legitimate English I have no idea) animals"

More commonly, anthropomorphic. Increasingly, just anthro.

amles80

October 6 2012, 11:43:09 UTC 7 months ago

Swedish: "tecknade djur".

(It should be enough, but if the context doesn't make it clear that you're talking about cartoons, you could say "djur i tecknad film" = animals in cartoons, because "tecknade djur" literally refers to "drawn animals" so without a context it could be any kind of non-photographed pictures.)

lionex92

October 6 2012, 15:37:29 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you for your input. I was more referring to the style the animal is drawn in (in this case 'cartoon' as opposed to 'realistic' for example). It seems 'tecknade djur' is adequate in this context following a quick search online.

praiseinfanta

October 6 2012, 12:37:54 UTC 7 months ago

If you need Portuguese, it would be "personagens de/dos desenhos animados" ("cartoon characters"). If you need to be more specific and make it very clear that they're animals, that would be "(personagens) animais de/dos desenhos animados", depending on the context.

For the record, I would also make a distinction between characters from animation, or primarily from animation, and comic book characters. I might use a different word for a character drawn in a cartoon-style but not originally from cartoons (such as those cutesy animals you see on stationery that seem to have no works of origin).

I think that Italian, too, is more specific than English. I'd call Mickey Mouse a "personaggi dei cartoni animati" or "personaggi animali dei cartoni animati". You can use both language's equivalents of "anthropomorphic", like "personagens antropomórficas dos desenhos animados" but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, or just animals in general.

lionex92

October 6 2012, 15:13:23 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you for your answer: I actually needed the expression in Portuguese as well but forgot to ask for it :D The English doesn't make the distinction between animals drawn in a cartoon style but not originally from an animated film and those primarily from animation (like Mickey Mouse). I think the 'anthropomorphic' term is used more in relation to anthropomorphised animals in comics, that give the impression of animal heads stuck to human bodies kept in proportion.

k0dama

October 6 2012, 17:46:27 UTC 7 months ago

It sounds like the word you're looking for is 만화 캐릭터.
It literally means "cartoon character", but it's understood that cartoon characters are sometimes based on animals, so you do not have to explicitly state that.

lionex92

October 8 2012, 15:52:40 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you for your reply. Which language is it? I can't actually see the characters either.

lionex92

October 9 2012, 19:38:16 UTC 7 months ago

I am looking at this on another computer and can see now this is Korean... Thank you for your help.

aletheiafelinea

October 6 2012, 18:22:11 UTC 7 months ago

In Polish, the most natural would be to say 'postacie z kreskówek' = 'characters from cartoons', but if you need it as 'only animals', it's 'zwierzęta z kreskówek' = 'animals from cartoons'. 'Kreskówka' is a colloquialism, so if you need it formal, it should be rather 'zwierzęta z filmów animowanych' = 'animals from animated films'.

lionex92

October 8 2012, 15:55:12 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you so much for your answer and for including both formal and colloquial forms.

hersorelips

October 7 2012, 16:58:04 UTC 7 months ago

"Piirroshahmot" in Finnish. (and btw, Piirretyt = Cartoons, as the show that is on television). You can use "piirroshahmo" from all cartoons, not just animals. Kim Possible and Eric Cartman are also piirroshahmoja. If you're interested, here are some Finnish translations for the most common cartoon characters - http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luokka:Piirroshahmot

lionex92

October 9 2012, 19:39:04 UTC 7 months ago

Thank you very much for your help and for the link :)