"Nani wo Omou n' Darou"
Douglas Litten
trying to translate it. After 3 years of studying Japanese on my own, I
feel like I've worked my way up to the 4th floor of a 100 story
building, and this song, though apparently fairly simple is still up
there at the 50th floor, far above my understanding. Anyway, I think
I've had some success with a few lines, such as:
Mimi wo sumashitara hareta konna hi wa
Kodomotachi no warari koeta ga tooku kara hibiki
(If I'm 'all ears" on this sort of day, the children's raucous laughter
echoes from afar)
But other lines baffle me:
Saisho wa umaku dekiru to omoutteta
Suki dakara aisuru koto nante kantan
Dakedo ima anata wa nani wo omou n' darou
Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
(At first, I thought I could do it successfully
I love [you?] so how easy love is
But now I wonder what you're thinking
It's no one's fault [season????}; as for love,
say it right away.)
Kuki no nai biki tama no naka no you ni
Boku te kurushii anata ga inai to
(Like being inside a ball without air
I...[???] ...pain... if you're not there.)
Bart has been enormously helpful in the past, but I continue to struggle
with several issues - syntax and idiomatic language among others.
Beyond any help anyone can offer on the flawed translation attempt, I'd
also appreciate any rules, strategies, etc. any of you may have when
dealing with spoken/sung Japanese.
Thanks a lot for any advice.
Doug
Hecho
<clipped>
>But other lines baffle me:
>
>Saisho wa umaku dekiru to omoutteta
>Suki dakara aisuru koto nante kantan
>Dakedo ima anata wa nani wo omou n' darou
>Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
>
>(At first, I thought I could do it successfully
>I love [you?] so how easy love is
>But now I wonder what you're thinking
>It's no one's fault [season????}; as for love,
>say it right away.)
>
At first, I thought I could do it successfully
I thought it would be easy since I love you
But what are your thoughts right now
Hirofumi Nagamura
>
> Mimi wo sumashitara hareta konna hi wa
> Kodomotachi no warari koeta ga tooku kara hibiki
>
> (If I'm 'all ears" on this sort of day, the children's raucous laughter
> echoes from afar)
You forgot the "hareta" ("clear, sunny") in the first line. Note that
"hareta konna hi-wa" qualifies the second line, not "mimi-o sumashitara".
Surely the second line is "Kodomotachi-no waraigoe-ga..."?
> Saisho wa umaku dekiru to omoutteta
> Suki dakara aisuru koto nante kantan
> Dakedo ima anata wa nani wo omou n' darou
> Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
>
> (At first, I thought I could do it successfully
> I love [you?] so how easy love is
> But now I wonder what you're thinking
> It's no one's fault [season????}; as for love,
> say it right away.)
Adding a bit of punctuation for clarification, the first two lines are:
Saisho-wa umaku dekiru-to omotteta:
"Suki-dakara aisuru-koto-nante kantan"
At first I thought I'll be able to do it:
(I thought to myself) "because I love him(?), it'll be easy
for me to love him(?)"
Obviously the two "love"s on the second line is strange, but "suki" is
a state of the mind, while "aisuru" means to actively love someone. I
can't think of any way to express this difference in English.
I can't parse the fourth line. Are you sure there are no typos in there?
> Kuki no nai biki tama no naka no you ni
> Boku te kurushii anata ga inai to
>
> (Like being inside a ball without air
> I...[???] ...pain... if you're not there.)
I'm having trouble figuring out what "biki tama" might be.
"Kurushii" = "iki-ga kurushii" in this case, i.e., "having difficulty
breathing; suffocating".
Cheers,
--
Hirofumi Nagamura
Kobe, Japan
Hecho
As you can see, my response makes no sense at
all (lol).
I guess since I'm typing this I might as
well ask...what is the title of the song?
Some of the lines you posted seem to be
missing things or doesn't seem to make
any recognizable Japanese words. Seeing
the actual Japanese lyrics might help.
Douglas Litten
the possibility of typos or errors in transcribing the lyrics into
romaji. What I've posted is based on my listening to the song as Sakura
sings it (incidentally the song's title is "Nani wo Omou n' Darou"; it's
the second track on her "Heart of Gold- Complete Singles" CD. I've also
tried to transcribe the printed lyrics, which appear in kanji & kana, as
part of the CD liner notes. The typography is very small and difficult
to read without a magnifying glass. The kana is rather straightforward;
the kanji is far more difficult to distinguish (and I am also woefully
unskilled in Kanji). I have used Nelson's Compact J-E Character
Dictionary to verify what the kanji are, and relied on Sakura's
pronunciation for the appropriate readings. Nonetheless, I fear you may
be right about the problems in the romaji text I've posted.
Nagamura san, I've already made the corrections in lines 1 & 2 that
you have suggested. And your translation of the next three lines has
really clarified my own earlier efforts. Can you offer any suggestions
for the line:
into it?)
Thanks.
Doug
Don Kirkman
<20214-3E6...@storefull-2316.public.lawson.webtv.net>:
>i've been listening to a song by Sakura that I like very much, and
>trying to translate it. After 3 years of studying Japanese on my own, I
>feel like I've worked my way up to the 4th floor of a 100 story
>building, and this song, though apparently fairly simple is still up
>there at the 50th floor, far above my understanding. Anyway, I think
>I've had some success with a few lines, such as:
I wonder about some of the transcriptions - hard to catch them by ear
sometimes
>Mimi wo sumashitara hareta konna hi wa
>Kodomotachi no warari koeta ga tooku kara hibiki
'waraigoe' ?
>(If I'm 'all ears" on this sort of day, the children's raucous laughter
>echoes from afar)
When I listen carefully on such a fine/clear day the laughing voices of
the children echo from afar
>But other lines baffle me:
>Saisho wa umaku dekiru to omoutteta
>Suki dakara aisuru koto nante kantan
>Dakedo ima anata wa nani wo omou n' darou
>Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
I have trouble with the double 'wa' and with the 'tte-yuuku'
Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu 'da ga'/'ni wa'? 'itte-yuku'?
At first I was thinking "I can do that easily."
Because I love you, such things as love are simple
But I wonder just what you're thinking
Now, when by nobody's fault love has gone.
>(At first, I thought I could do it successfully
>I love [you?] so how easy love is
>But now I wonder what you're thinking
>It's no one's fault [season????}; as for love,
>say it right away.)
>Kuki no nai biki tama no naka no you ni
Couldn't find 'biki' or anything that would explain it.
>Boku te kurushii anata ga inai to
'Boku-tte'? 'kurushii anata ga' troubles me a little, but if it's
'kurushii, anata ga' I think it would pass.
>(Like being inside a ball without air
>I...[???] ...pain... if you're not there.)
Just as if I were inside an airless [biki] ball I'm tormented,
if/when/since you're not here
>Bart has been enormously helpful in the past, but I continue to struggle
>with several issues - syntax and idiomatic language among others.
>Beyond any help anyone can offer on the flawed translation attempt, I'd
>also appreciate any rules, strategies, etc. any of you may have when
>dealing with spoken/sung Japanese.
The old guesswork seems to be surprisingly useful at times.
>Thanks a lot for any advice.
Thanks for the puzzel.
--
Don
don...@covad.net
B. Ito
"Douglas Litten" <DougnV...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:3983-3E6...@storefull-2315.public.lawson.webtv.net...
[..........]
> Nagamura san, I've already made the corrections in lines 1 & 2 that
> you have suggested. And your translation of the next three lines has
> really clarified my own earlier efforts. Can you offer any suggestions
> for the line:
> Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
> - which seems to be about who is to blame (but how does "kisetsu" fit
> into it?)
>
> Thanks.
>
> Doug
-------------------------------------------------------------
How about:
"Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wo ubatte yuku."
...........................but the season is going to rob our love (of us).
---------------------
B. Ito
Douglas Litten
I am beginning to wonder whether when one is attempting to translate
between Japanese and English (at least as far as song lyrics go), one
should seek intellectual & emotional "correspondences" rather than
strict linguistic "equivalents." The old expression "something's lost
in the translation" seems especially true if one tries to stick to the
exact dictionary definitions. But how far afield can one go before you
turn the original song into something entirely different and betray its
message?
Don Kirkman
My tendency is to go for the intellectual (sic!) and emotional parallels
rather than the literal. IOW, I try to translate contexts and social
connotations rather than dictionary meanings. I also think that's what
the language student should always be trying to pull out of the
textbooks and practice sessions. To politicize summat, I think the
failure to do that is the cause of a lot of mischief in the world.
--
Don
don...@covad.net
Bart Mathias
> [...]
> Nagamura san, I've already made the corrections in lines 1 & 2
> that
> you have suggested. And your translation of the next three lines
> has really clarified my own earlier efforts. Can you offer any
> suggestions for the line: Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi
> wa tte-yuuku
> - which seems to be about who is to blame (but how does "kisetsu"
> fit into it?)
How about "dare-no see-de-mo nai kisetsu-wa koo owatte yuku," which
would be, "Thus ends a season for which no one is to blame."
If that's really stupid, I'm just kidding.
Bart
Douglas Litten
patience and the insightful offerings you have provided. Whatever Sakura
may actually be saying, I rather like the lyric interpretaions you've
given.
Clearly I have provided a corrupted text. I think I need to go back and
listen to the song a few more times, and also see if I can magnify the
microscopic kanji on the line in question (the " ...Koi wa tte yuku"
part especially). It may be easier, now that you have provided several
possiblities. I will let you know if I have any luck.
Thanks again for your assistance. I now have a much better understanding
of the song.
Doug
Hirofumi Nagamura
>
> Nagamura san, I've already made the corrections in lines 1 & 2 that
> you have suggested. And your translation of the next three lines has
> really clarified my own earlier efforts. Can you offer any suggestions
> for the line:
> Dare no sei de mo nai kisetsu wa koi wa tte-yuuku
> - which seems to be about who is to blame (but how does "kisetsu" fit
> into it?)
(Sorry for the late reply.) Just a thought, but it might be
Dare-no see-demo nai / Kisetsu-wa kawatte-yuku
It's nobody's fault / The seasons will go on changing
Tsumari, something like "Just as seasons change, so will people's
feelings; it's neither your fault nor mine that we don't understand
each other any more." Sound plausible?
Douglas Litten
ennunciation of the words in the problematic line. It does sound more
like a "ka" rather than a "ko" or "koi." Furthermore, when I magnify it
as much as possible, the nearly indecipherable kanji in the liner notes
seems to have a shape closer to "kawaru" than "koi." So it seems that
"kawatte" would work. That would solve the problem of the two "wa" s
that Don brought up. And Hirofumi Nagamura san's most recent suggestion
would make the whole line work within the context of the overall song's
meaning. I think it's interesting how in the translation Nagamura san
has chosen to go for the "emotional-intellectual correspondence" rather
than a strict literal level linguistic equivalent - a point Don
discussed earlier.
Thanks to everyone for your assistance. I hope some of you get a
chance to actually listen to the song someday. If you like a semi-folk
bluesy style, you'd like Sakura's rendition of this piece.
Doug
Don Kirkman
<n2fs6vg05l3s82col...@4ax.com>:
Expanding and clarifying (I hope).
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Douglas Litten wrote in article
><11975-3E...@storefull-2312.public.lawson.webtv.net>:
>>I am beginning to wonder whether when one is attempting to translate
>>between Japanese and English (at least as far as song lyrics go), one
>>should seek intellectual & emotional "correspondences" rather than
>>strict linguistic "equivalents." The old expression "something's lost
>>in the translation" seems especially true if one tries to stick to the
>>exact dictionary definitions. But how far afield can one go before you
>>turn the original song into something entirely different and betray its
>>message?
>My tendency is to go for the intellectual (sic!) and emotional parallels
>rather than the literal. IOW, I try to translate contexts and social
>connotations rather than dictionary meanings. I also think that's what
>the language student should always be trying to pull out of the
>textbooks and practice sessions. To politicize summat, I think the
>failure to do that is the cause of a lot of mischief in the world.
On the literal semantic side, I think its useful for language students
to pay attention to meaning groupings; i.e., clusters of words that
share semantic roots. For two quick examples, the "bright" aka- things
like akai, akarui, and the "dark" kur- things like kurai, kuroi.
A simple advantage is that it makes it much easier to remember
vocabulary if you don't try to pin a meaning on each individual word as
a separate entity, especially if the words in the student's own language
don't share roots, as is the case with 'red' and 'bright.'
A more important reason, IMO, is that approaching meanings that way can
give insight into how the NSO'X', and especially the originators of the
language, perceived their world and structured their understanding of
and relationship to it. Why many words for bamboo and one word for both
ravens and crows? Why names for dozens of kinds of snow?
--
Don
don...@covad.net