Translating volitive expressions in ads into English


I saw this on an advertisement outside the construction site of a company that
makes wooden houses:

木{き}の家{いえ}と、暮{く}らそう。

I'm trying to think of a way to translate it other than:  
_Live with a wooden house._ (sounds like the house is your roommate)  
_Spend your life with a wooden house._ (a bit weird)  
_Experience a wooden house._ (too different from the original)  

I have a sneaking suspicion that the copywriter was aiming for a variation on
the construction **ADVERB + と + VERB** , for example, ゆうゆうと暮{く}らす or
ぎりぎりで生活{せいかつ}する. This would make the meaning something resembling "Live, wood-
house-ly" or "Live in a generally wooden-house-ish fashion."

Any ideas?

P.S. The best part was that the actual attempt at translation was "Feel Wood."
I took a photo (of course).




There's no adverbial trickery going on here. Indeed in a normal sentence it
would be something like 木の家で暮らそう, or "let's live _in_ a wood house." Taken at
face value it may seem like it's just saying that you should live with a tree
or 'with' a wood house (like a tree as a roommate, as you say), but this is
advertisement speak. The effect of saying it this way is ultimately emphasis
on the woodiness of the house. It is telling us to live _with_ the wood house
in a deeper sense of the word. My opinion would be that saying と evokes more
of an image of living 'naturally' _with_ your house rather than living _in_
it, that is, with natural materials rather than something synthetic. I don't
know how many would share that opinion, so take it for what it is! Chocolate's
comment above seems to corroborate this, too. It's a way of placing value on
wood, on trees, and invoking a consciousness of that in your daily life.

But at any rate it's _not_ using 木の家 as an adverb. It just wouldn't really
make sense that way, or at least it makes less sense than the alternative
interpretation. If all else fails defer to Occam's Razor here.

The translation question is probably off topic considering there isn't going
to be a right answer for it. The idiosyncratic nature of the phrase makes a
translation that captures the nuances in the same way impossible and would
probably be left up to a marketing team rather than translators to choose an
alternative (I guess, anyway!). Because there is no solid equivalent every
situation will require a different translation that captures that sentence's
unique meaning.




There's no adverbial trickery going on here. Indeed in a normal sentence it
would be something like 木の家で暮らそう, or "let's live _in_ a wood house." Taken at
face value it may seem like it's just saying that you should live with a tree
or 'with' a wood house (like a tree as a roommate, as you say), but this is
advertisement speak. The effect of saying it this way is ultimately emphasis
on the woodiness of the house. It is telling us to live _with_ the wood house
in a deeper sense of the word. My opinion would be that saying と evokes more
of an image of living 'naturally' _with_ your house rather than living _in_
it, that is, with natural materials rather than something synthetic. I don't
know how many would share that opinion, so take it for what it is! Chocolate's
comment above seems to corroborate this, too. It's a way of placing value on
wood, on trees, and invoking a consciousness of that in your daily life.

But at any rate it's _not_ using 木の家 as an adverb. It just wouldn't really
make sense that way, or at least it makes less sense than the alternative
interpretation. If all else fails defer to Occam's Razor here.

The translation question is probably off topic considering there isn't going
to be a right answer for it. The idiosyncratic nature of the phrase makes a
translation that captures the nuances in the same way impossible and would
probably be left up to a marketing team rather than translators to choose an
alternative (I guess, anyway!). Because there is no solid equivalent every
situation will require a different translation that captures that sentence's
unique meaning.

