[sumo] Non-Sumo, Non-Political "Shoganai"

[Achim Pawelczyk]

I'm neither a linguist nor a translator, but that "sho ga nai" was 
always one of my favorite hated expressions.
I can only tell how I sense the meaning:
While being a kind of fatalistic "nothing to be done against it" it also 
implies "we have to accept it" or "it's not worth to fight against it".

Being told "sho ga nai" always incensed my anger - in my view there 
always was some other possibility, but it wouldn't have been Japanese - 
so I accept the expression "sho ga nai" as "sho ga nai".

--
Akinomaki

Takanomizu schrieb:
> I'm trying to find a better translation for shoganai.
> 
> Saying that the bombing was "inevitable" or "could not be helped" doesn't seem to convey the meaning as shoganai in this case. It seems it's more like, " too friggin' bad."
> 
> Can anyone who's a better linguist than I am, help me out?
>