User blog:Damesukekun/Song Translating and Mistranslating

This tutorial is written by a native Japanese speaker. About romaji mistransliteration and unrecommended romaji transliteration sites, see here.

日本語での概要はこちら.

Many volunteer translators in the Vocaloid fandom are active on YouTube and other sites. Since the release of Hatsune Miku, tens of thousands of Japanese Vocaloid songs have been created and they have caught many music lovers around the world. Many fans, however, do not understand Japanese lyrics so translators are very much needed. Those volunteer translators have made a great contribution to the fandom, but not all of the translators are qualified enough. Unfortunately a lot of grave mistranslations which totally corrupt the original lyrics are going around. Here is an example.

Re_birthday by mothy/Akuno-P. You will be shocked to see a disastrous "translation" by a "translator" who doesn't understand Japanese at all.
 * Recommended translation1
 * Recommended translation2
 * Unrecommended translation - unfortunately the most popular on YouTube earning more than one million views.

Translating other people's words brings responsibilities. Responsibilities both to the authors and to fans. Making mistakes is not an embarrassing thing, and there is no "perfect" translation. A beautiful translation is not faithful and a faithful translation is not beautiful. Yet "Practice makes perfect" is not true if you dare to own responsibilities as a translator. If you spread misconceptions about songs with the mistranslations you made, who wipes out the widespread mistakes among the fandom? "Tell me if you find mistakes" is another sign of your giving up the responsibilities. Constant asking of quality check means you still have a long way to go, and you should concentrate on your Japanese study more than translating songs for practice or fun. You are supposed to have the ability to read Japanese newspapers and magazines and write Japanese documents fluently without always reffering to dictionaries if you call yourself translator.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.


 * Index
 * Damesukekun Native Japanese speaker who also speaks English

Understanding Language
Japanese language is one of the most difficult languages for westerners. Its words, word order, grammatical rules and sentence structure are totally new to those who speak Indo-European languages. U.S. Department of State says an American needs about 4,000 hours of study for basic Japanese skill whereas Ministry of Education and Science of Japan says a Japanese needs about 2,000 hours for basic English skill - compare the hours of study. Japanese people surely have disadvantage of learning English, but westerners spend twice as much time and effort to learn Japanese as Japanese do to learn English. When you start Japanese lessons, you will soon face a set of complicated particls, verb conjugation and adjective inflection list. A slightest misreading can easily lead to a grave misinterpretation - misreading of subjects and objects, positive and negative, active and passive, modifiers and modifiees, present and past and so on. (This can cause a problem in English too. Compere there were few residents who escaped from the hurricane and there were few residents, (comma) who escaped from the hurricane. But the misreading is more frequent and serious in Japanese.) Japanese sentences without interword spaces makes reading them very tricky. Most Kanji characters have several different meanings in Japanese.

Self-learning
Learning Japanese through animes or J-pop songs is an awkward idea. It is compared to learning English through Disney or Hollywood films. If you teach yourself with famous Japanese textbooks, you will achieve only basic conversation skills. If you are going to learn the language, you should take a Japanese class with a qualified teacher. Yet some months of studying basic words, conversations, conjugations and particles is not sufficient to grasp the whole framework of Japanese grammer. You need to memorize five conjugation patterns for verbs, two inflection patterns for i-type adjectives (形容詞) and na-type adjectives (形容動詞) and more than 200 particles, many of which have irregular inflections. Furthermore not a few Japanese idioms and metaphors don't have the corresponding idioms and metaphors in English so you will make word-to-word translations that make doesn't make sense at all if your knowledge of idioms and metaphors is poor.

Sentence Structure
Japanese is a topic-prominent language. Topics and predicates are emphasized more than subjects and objects.

Here is an example. "朝食はパンを食べた. " English translation:
 * 朝食        は       パン        を      食べ>食べる       た.
 * Breakfast - topic - bread - object    -    eat    -    perfective.
 * I ate bread for breakfast.

The subject I is omitted in the original Japanese sentence. Subjects and objects are less important than topics and precicates in Japanese and other East-Asian languages, so native Japanese speakers often omit subjects and objects when topics and predicates are clear to those who engage in the conversation. In this case the topic is breakfast and the predicate is ate. This word omitting, however, is very much confusing to non-natives. You need to read the context with the topic and predicate carefully to restore the right subject and object. This is often a very difficult task for English speakers, for English always requires subjects and objects except for broken comments or conversations.

Understanding Culture
Translating never means simple exchange of words between two languages. A translator needs integral knowledge of the culture of the souce language as well as the language because language and culture are indivisibly united, influencing one another. Even people who speak the same language but have different backgrounds suffer communication gap. Think about this case - first floor. Americans say "second floor" when they see British walk on the "first floor" in a building. This example shows your thinking pattern does not always work correctly when you place yourself in a culture which is new to you.

Here is an overview about Japanese way of thinking and view of life.

Way of Thinking
Unlike English way of thinking, Japanese way of thinking is not linear. Japanese and other East-Asian language speakers' way of thinking may be likened to drawing a large circle to the center of the topic. In other words, their thinking is like watching a multiple viewpoint drama. Japanese people often describe one thing from various standpoints. Even third person viewpoints can represent first or second person viewpoints. Thus "this man" or "that woman" sometimes means "I" or "you" in Japanese songs and literature.

View of Life
Japanese culture has developed under the influence of Shintoism (神道), Mahayana Buddhism (大乗仏教) and Confucianism (儒教). These three religions have different doctrines, but they all emphasize the harmony between you and the society you belong to and "great nature", the cradle of all living things. If you live in Japan you will be expected to act in accordance with what others expect to you "to maintain the harmony of society". This belief leads Japanese people, especially women, to be modester, humbler and shier than western people. In many Vocaloid songs Japanese girls show much more modesty and shyness than western girls.

Another important point to mention. Looking into inner self is a common Japanese reaction when facing difficulties. Zen class Buddhism (禅宗), from which traditional Japanese arts such as Ikebana (生け花, flower arrangement) or Sadou (茶道, Japanese tea ceremony) were inspired, says enlightment and the truth can be found by looking into your inner self through Zen-mondou (禅問答, profound riddles) and Zazen (座禅, Zen meditation). This view of life strongly associated with self reflection makes a sharp contrast to Christianity, in which the relation between you and your family, friends or the God serves as a key factor for your finding the reason of exisence and the truth. In fact the concept of the God as the sole creator is totally absent in the Shintoism, Buddhism and Confusianism teachings.

When restoring omitted subjects and objects, you need to read the context in line with this Japanese way of thinking. Usually I is the omitted subject unless other words are suggested by the context. Here is an example. "見上げた空は青かった. " Most beginners mistakenly interpret this sentence as "When you looked up into the sky, it was blue." English speakers say "you" or "they" when mentioning common topics, but Japanese speakers mean in most cases Or more accurately
 * 見上げ>見上げる      　  た      　 空      は    青かっ>青い      た.
 * Look up 　  -     perfective - sky - topic   -   blue   -   perfective
 * When I looked up into the sky, it was blue.
 * The sky I looked up into was blue. > The sky in my eyes was so blue. ("so" is added to convey the feeling.)

The omitted subject, of course, is not always I, depending on the context. Still you should know this Japanese inner-self thinking to restore omitted subjects and objects in the right way.

For further study, see Minue622's case study on Yukiguni by Kawabata Yasunari.

Lang-8 Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Forum

Machine Translating
Japanese and English practically share nothing except for adopted words and idioms. Unlike translating languages stemmed from the same origin such as German-English or French-English, machine translators cannot correctly translate Japanese from/to English. Machines often misinterpret conjugations, inflections, particles, positive and negative and other grammatical rules.

Here are examples.

Google translation: Result - misreading of positive and negative. Correct translation in natural Japanese expression.
 * A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
 * 尻尾猫を運ぶ男は他の方法で学ぶことができる何かを学習します. (This sentence is very awkward and weird to native Japanese speakers.)
 * A male person who carries a tail-cat learns something that can be learned in (some) other ways.
 * 猫の尻尾をつかんで運べば、他では得られない教訓を学ぶだろう. Or in more natural expression 何事もやってみないと、学ぶことはできない.

Even a simplest sentence may be gravely mistranslated.

Google translation: Result - negligence of the idiom. Correct translation in natural Japanese expression.
 * The night is young.
 * 夜は若いです. (This sentence also hardly makes sense to native Japanese speakers.)
 * The night is in young age.
 * 夜はまだこれからだ.

Retranslating from English to Other Languages
Retranslating or second-hand translating should be avoided. A best translation cannot fully convey the feelings behind the original work. In addition, no translation is free from the translator's personal interpretations. A translator's Japanese and English vocabularies, knowledge of Japanese language, culture and history, life experience and other things set the limit on the quality of translations he/she makes. Furthermore the translation you refer to can be a grave mistranslation unless you have the skill to read the original Japanese lyrics to tell good and bad translations. A second-hand translator doesn't know Japanese at all, and the quality of his/her translations is very doubtful.

Common Mistakes
Here are typical mistranslations beginners often make.
 * Misreading of sentence structure
 * The word order in Japananese is free. Objects can be placed before subjects. The only rule is that verbs and predicative adjectives should be placed at the end of the sentence, but this is often broken in poetic lyrics with word inversion.
 * Misreading of omitted subjects and objects.
 * In English songs each line usually makes each sentence. In Japanese songs, however, two or more lines often make a sentence cluster. Beginners often cut a sentence cluster into several phrases by lines. This misreading leads to the grave misreading of omitted subjects and objects.
 * A line with high-intonation ending composes a sentence cluster with the following line(s), and a line with low-intonation ending suggests the end of the sentence cluster. You need to listen to speech intonation carefully.
 * Japanese multiple-viewpoint thinking. As mentioned above, "this man" or "that woman" sometimes means "I" or "you" in Japanese songs and literature.
 * Another Japanese way of thinking - self-reflection. Again, Japanese people usually mean "I" rather than "you" when talking about common events.

青い空に浮かぶ 白い雲がきれいだ. The white cloud(s) floating in the blue sky is/are beautiful. The word-to-word translation is  In-the-blue-sky-floating white cloud(s) is/are beautiful. Many beginners often confuse attributive form with terminate form and misread the sentence as ''The blue sky is floating. The white cloud(s) is/are beautiful.'' - phrase cutting. This mistake also leads to grave misinterpriting of omitted subjects and objects.
 * Misreading of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs.
 * Japanese transitive verbs do not necessarily need objects. More accurately, transitive verbs often appear with omitted object words . 
 * Misreading of main verbs and subsidiary verbs. Example. 行ってみる is "I try to go" or simply "I will go", not "I go and see it".
 * Misreading of 連体形 (attributive form). 連体形 works like the English participial phrase or relative clause.
 * The Japanese verb in attributive form is exactly in the same form as 終止形 (terminate form). This is an example. The attributive phrase is marked red.
 * Misreading of the particle は. は usually works as a topic marker, but sometimes works as an adverbial marker.
 * Misreading of the particle が. が works as either of a subject marker or as an object marker. The common misconception is が always works as a subject marker.
 * Misreading of the particle の. の works as each of a possession marker, apposition (word linking) marker or a subject marker. The common misconception is の always works as a possession marker.
 * Confusing the adverbial particles では, とは, には and のは with the subject particle は.
 * Interjuctions あの, あのう, あのぅ, ねえ or ねぇ. Many translator always interpret these words as "hey". However, "please", "dear" or "look/see" is more suitable in cases when a girl expresses shy requests in lyrics. Again, with their cultural background Japanese girls express shyness more often than western girls.

Listings
'''This translators list is subject to change without notice. Please refer to the latest version.''' Last update on Dec. 18, 2017

日本語のリストはこちら. （リストは随時更新されます）