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, thousands of Vocaloid songs have been created in Japan and the songs have caught many music lovers around the world. Most overseas fans, however, do not understand Japanese lyrics so translators are of much need. Those translators have made a great contribution to the overseas Vocaloid fandom, but not all of the translators make high quality translations. Unfortunately a lot of grave mistranslations which totally ruin the original lyrics are also going around.

Examples.

Re_birthday by mothy/Akuno-P. A disastrous result by a "translator" who doesn't really understand Japanese will surprise you.
 * Recommended translation1
 * Recommended translation2
 * Unrecommended translation - unfortunately the most popular on YouTube with over one million views.

Stella by Dexie Flatline. Another grave mistranslation.
 * Recommended translation
 * Unrecommended translation

Translating other people's works brings responsibilities. Responsibilities both to the authors and to people who read your translations. 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 the case when you interpret other people's words. You are expected to be a professional of Japanese language as a translator, otherwise you should concentrate on your current study of the language. If you say you are a translator, you should have the ability to read Japanese newspapers and magazines without dictionary and the ability to write Japanese in the correct manner.


 * Index
 * Damesukekun Native Japanese who speaks both English and Japanese

Understanding Language
Japanese language is one of the most difficult languages for westerners. Its words, word order, grammatical rules  and sentence structure seem unfamiliar to those who speak Indo-European languages. U.S. Department of State says that an American needs about 4,000 hours of study for the basic Japanese skill whereas Ministry of Education and Science of Japan says that a Japanese needs about 2,000 hours for the basic English skill. You will face a set of complicated conjugations, inflections and particles when you start learning Japanese. A slightest misreading can easily lead to a grave mistranslation - misreading of subjects and objects, positive and negative, active and passive, modifiers and modifees, present and past and so on. (This causes a problem in English, too. Compere there were few residents who escaped from the hurricane and there were few residents , who escaped from the hurricane. But the cases are more frequent and much serious in Japanese.) Japanese writing system without interword spaces makes reading sentences tricky. Most Kanji have several pronunciations, and each of them has different meaning.

Self-learning
Learning Japanese through animes or J-pop songs is an awkward idea. It is like learning English through Disney or Hollywood films. Even if you teach yourself with Japanese textbooks, you will achieve nothing more than several basic daily conversations. If you are to understand the language rightly, you should take a Japanese class with a qualified teacher. Yet some months of studying basic words, expressions, conjugations and particles is not enough to grasp the whole framework of the 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. Japanese idioms and metaphors are completely different from those of English.

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

Here is an example. English translation:
 * 君が言った(topic) ことは(subject) 正しい. (predicate)
 * You　said　　　　　　thing　　　　　　　right.
 * The thing you told is right. / What you told is right.

Native Japanese speakers usually omit subjects and objects when topics and predicates are apparent, for subjects and objects are less important. But this word omitting is very much confusing to non-natives. You need to read the context carefully to know what the topic and predicate are to restore omitted subjects and objects. This is very hard for English speakers, whose language always requires subjects and objects (except for broken talks and comments).

Understanding Culture
Translating does not mean automatic word converting. A translator needs comprehensive knowledge of both a source language itself and the culture behind the source language. Even people who speak the same language from different backgrounds suffer communication gap. Think about this case. First floor. Americans say "second floor" when British walk on the "first floor" in a building. This example shows that your thinking pattern does not always work correctly when you place yourself in a community which is new to you.

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

Way of Thinking
Unlike English speakers, Japanese thinking is not linear. Their, and other East-Asian language speaker's thinking is like drawing a large circle to the center of a topic. In other words Japanese thinking is like watching a multiple viewpoint drama. They often describe one thing from various standpoints. Even third person viewpoint may represent first or second person viewpoint. Thus "this man" or "that woman" sometimes mean "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). Putting aside minute differences, these religions at large value the harmony between you and the society you belong to and "the great nature". If you live in Japan you are expected to act in accordance with what others expect to you "to maintain the harmony of the society and the nature." This belief leads Japanese people, especially women, to be modester, more obedient and shier than western people. In many Vocaloid songs Japanese girls  show much more shiness than western girls.

Another important point to mention. Looking into inner self is a common Japanese reaction when facing difficulties. Zen (or Ch'an) class Buddhism (禅宗), from which traditional Japanese arts such as Ikebana (flower arrangement) and Sadou (tea ceremony) were inspired, says that you can find enlightment and the truth by looking into your inner self through Zen-mondou (profound riddles) and Zazen (Zen meditation). This view of life and self reflection makes a sharp contrast to Christianity, in which one finds his/her reason of existence and the truth through the connection with his/her family, friends and the God. In fact Shintoism, Buddhism and Confusianism are all lack of the concept of the God as the sole creator.

When restoring omitted subjects and objects, you need to read the context in line with this Japanese way of thinking. Here is an example. Most beginners mistranslate this sentence as "When you looked up into the sky, it was blue." English speakers say "you" or "they" when talking about common events, but Japanese speakers usually mean or accurately
 * 見上げた(topic)　空は(subject) 　青かった. (predicate)
 * Looked up into　　　sky　　　　　　　blue (past tense).
 * "When I looked up into the sky, it was blue."
 * "The sky I looked up into was blue."

Of course the interpretation varies depending on the context, but you should take into consideration this Japanese inner-self thinking to restore omitted subjects and objects.

Machine Translating
Japanese and English practically share nothing except for adopted words and idioms. Unlike translating languages which stemed from the same origin such as German-English or French-English, machine translators cannot correctly translate Japanese from/to English. Machines easily misread conjugations, inflections, particles, positive and negative and so on.

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.
 * A man who carries a tail-cat learns something that can be learned in (any) 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 more naturally 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 awkwardly interpreted.

Google translation Result - negligence of the idiom. Correct translation in natural Japanese expression.
 * The night is young.
 * 夜は若いです.
 * 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 a translator's interpretation on what he/she translates. The problem is, the translator's English vocabulary, knowledge of Japanese language, culture and history, life experiences and other things limit the quality of translations he/she makes. If you just read English texts more than original Japanese texts, you are referring to altered works whose qualities vary by each translator's skill. Furthermore you may have the chance to be depending on a grave mistranslation unless you know Japanese and can tell good translations and bad translations. A second-hand translator is a translator who doesn't really know Japanese at all, and the quality of his/her translations is very doubtful.

Common Mistakes
Here are typical mistranslations beginners often make.
 * Negligence in 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 rule is often broken in poetic lyrics with word inversion.
 * Misreading of omitted subjects and objects.
 * 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 cluster into several phrases like English lyrics. This misreading leads to the grave misreading of omitted subjects and objects.
 * Usually a phrase with high-intonation ending makes a sentence cluster with the following phrase, and a phrase with low-intonation ending suggests the end of a sentence. You need to listen to the 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 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. This results in the misreading ''The blue sky is floating. The white cloud(s) is/are beautiful.'' - phrase cutting. This also results in grave misreading 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 the omitted objective words . 
 * 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. The attributive phrase is marked red.
 * Misinterpreting of the particle は. は usually works as a subjective marker, but sometimes adverbial marker.
 * Misinterpreting of the particle が. が works either as a subjective marker or as an objective marker. The common misconception is が always works as a subjective marker.
 * Confusing the adverbial particles では, とは, には and のは with the subjective particle は.

Listings
'''This translators list is subject to change without notice. Please refer to the latest version.'''

日本語のリストはこちら.