User blog:Damesukekun/Song Translating and Mistranslating

Many volunteer translators of Vocaloid songs are active on YouTube and other sites. Since the release of Hatsune Miku, many Vocaloid songs have been created in Japan and the songs have caught many fans. Most overseas fans, however, don't understand Japanese so translators are of much need. Those translators have made a great contribution to the Vocaloid fandom, but unfortunately not all of the translators do high quality translations. In fact many grave mistranslations that totally convert original lyrics are going around.


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 * User:Damesukekun

Understanding language
Japanese language is one of the most difficult languages for westerners. The Department of States saysthat an American needs about 4,000 hours of study for basic Japanese skill whereas the Ministry of Education and Science of Japan says that a Japanese needs about 2,000 hours for basic English skill. Learning Japanese is much more difficult than learning English. Japanese language has tons of conjugation and inflection patterns and particles. A slightest misreading can easily lead to a grave mistranslation - subject and object, positive and negative, active and passive, modifier and modifee, present and past and so on. Furthermore Japanese writing system is very complicated. Japanese sentences don't have interword spaces, which makes reading the sentences tricky. Most Kanji have several readings with different senses.

Self-learning Japanese achieves only simple daily conversations. If you want to understand the language properly, you should take a Japanese class with a professional teacher. Yet a few months of learning isn't enough to grasp the whole framework of Japanese. The simplified expressions with basic terms, conjugations and particles is the mainstream teaching in overseas schools, but that's not enough to translate Japanese lyrics and literature. The Japanese verb has five conjugation patterns. The i-type adjective and na-type adjective have different inflections. More than 200 particles are found in Japanese and many of them have irregular inflections

Common mistakes
Here are the typical mistranslations of Vocaloid songs by beginners. 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. To English speakers, the word order is  In-the-blue-sky-floating white cloud(s) is/are beautiful. Yet the prevailing mistranslation among overseas translators is confusing the attributive form with the terminate form. The result of the misreading is ''The blue sky is floating. The white cloud(s) is/are beautiful.'' This also leads to the grave misreading of subjects and objects.
 * Total negligence of sentence structure
 * Japanese word order is free. Objects can be placed before subjects. The only rule is that verbs and predicative adjectives should be placed at the end of sentences, but this rule is often broken in poetic lyrics with inversion.
 * Misreading of omitted subjects and objects.
 * Japanese language often omits subjects and objects. You need to read the context carefully to restore the words.
 * In English songs, one line usually makes one sentence. In Japanese songs, however, two or more lines make one sentence cluster. Beginners often cut a sentence into several phrases. This easily leads to the grave misreading of subjects and objects.
 * Japanese people tend to define their reason of existence by looking into their inner faces. This self-reflection makes a sharp contrast to the Western way, in which people define their reason of existence through the connection with their families, friends, and the God. This seems another reason many beginners often misread hidden subjects and objects. They mistakenly set "you" instead of "I" or "me" and "I" or "me" instead of "you".
 * Japanese thinking is like watching a multiple viewpoint drama. Japanese people tend to explain one thing from several standpoints. Even third person viewpoint is used to explain first or second person viewpoint. This means, "he" or "she" can mean "I" or "you" in Japanese songs and literature.
 * Misreading of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs.
 * The Japanese transitive verb does not necessarily require objects. More accurately, the transitive verbs often appears with omitted objects .  
 * Misreading of main verbs and subsidiary verbs.
 * Misreading of 連体形 (attributive form), which 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. Attributive phrase is in red.
 * Misinterpreting of the particle は. The particle は usually works as a subject marker, but sometimes adverbial marker.
 * Misinterpreting of the particle が. The particle が works either a subject marker or object a marker. The common misconception about が is が always works as a subject marker.
 * Confusing the adverbial particles では, とは, には and のは with the subject particle は.