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How exactly does Sousei no Onmyouji translate to Twin Star Exorcists?

I tried Google Translate, but that didn't give me any satisfactory results. So what do Sousei and Onmyouji literally mean?

Aki Tanaka
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devb
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    This is a bizarre question. "Twin Star Exorcists" is a literal translation of "Sousei no Onmyouji" (with some allowance for the fact that there is no direct English equivalent to _onmyouji_). – senshin May 03 '17 at 18:19

2 Answers2

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Here is an interlinear gloss for the title:

双    星    の  陰陽師
sō    sei   no  onmyōji
twin star ɢᴇɴ onmyōji
"Twin Star Exorcists"

Allowing some freedom in translating onmyōji (which has no direct English equivalent) as "exorcist" ― which is a reasonable choice, given that driving out evil spirits is basically what they do in the show ― this is an otherwise-literal translation and not really a question of much interest.

Do not expect Google Translate to be of any use when translating English ↔ Japanese.

senshin
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As per this sousei means twin and Onmyouji is a practioner who practices Onmyōdō also known as exorcist.
Onmyouji word is used in many animes e.g D grey man, Nura: Rise of youkai clan.

If we look at the wiki page , then Sousei no Onmyouji is written in japanese as 双星の陰陽師, which translates in to Twin stars Yin Yang teacher

Ichigo Kurosaki
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  • Ok but where does *Star* come from then ? – devb May 03 '17 at 12:25
  • @Nightshade It seems to be a pun. The word _sousei_ is usually written with the second character 生, which means "birth" or "life", but here it's written with 星, the character for star, which can also be pronounced as _sei_. – Torisuda May 03 '17 at 13:31
  • @Torisuda Oh that makes much more sense now. If only I could read Japanese :( Also why does sousei not show up as twin in Google translate ? Is it an uncommon word ? – devb May 03 '17 at 14:16
  • @Nightshade I can't either. Real fluency is hard, but I spent several years just learning little random tidbits, which is usually good enough for stuff like this. And yes, sousei did seem to be uncommon in my searches. The usual word for twin is _futago_. – Torisuda May 03 '17 at 14:21
  • @Torisuda Cool thanks. Also one doubt, since you know a bit of Japanese. What exactly does *no* stand for ? At first I thought it meant 'on' (Shingeki *no* Kyojin-Attack on Titan) But then Kyoukai *no* Kanata was translated as Beyond *the* Boundary. – devb May 03 '17 at 14:31
  • check [this](http://blogs.transparent.com/japanese/japanese-grammar-the-no-%E3%81%AE-particle/) grammer for no and also a [discussion](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090427071826AA2muMn) – Ichigo Kurosaki May 03 '17 at 15:15
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    @Nightshade actually it's not a pun, but it's literally "[twin stars](http://jisho.org/word/%E5%8F%8C%E6%98%9F)". The *sousei* mentioned in this post is actually for "[twin births](http://jisho.org/word/%E5%8F%8C%E7%94%9F)". – Aki Tanaka May 03 '17 at 18:03