Kokoro by Toraboruta

[Raichu]

I've been looking at Hikarin's translation of Kokoro and I wonder if there are some minor mistranslations. I don't think they're misleading, just not as accurate as they could be.



v5 l2: nazeka namida ga tomaranai...
Why? My tears don't stop... → For some reason my tears don't stop ...


v6 l2: watashi wa shitta yorokobu koto o
I know; there are things to be happy about → I found out how to be glad



v6 l3: watashi wa shitta kanashimu koto o
I know; there are things to grieve about → I found out how to be sad



v7 l4: subete no kioku ni yadoru "kokoro" ga afuredasu
All the memories dwelling in my "heart" begin to overflow →The "heart" dwelling in all of my memories begins to spill out

[Fuukanou]

@Hikarin , please could you check these translations and see if you agree with them?

[Hikarin]

Actually, I re-translated this a few months ago. For whatever reason I just never submitted it for correction.
I didn't even look at my old "translation". The whole thing is done from scratch.

I'm too tired right now, so I'll send you a PM in the morning.

[Raichu]

Looking forward to seeing what you've got!

[Hikarin]

Looking forward to seeing what you've got!

Is that so? In that case, I'll post my translation here and I might ask you to tell me if it flows okay.
I kind of added full stops to this translation anyway, so some may disagree on where to end a particular section.

I could also never figure out if the line フシギ　ココロ　ココロ　フシギ was fine as is.
I tried to keep her sounding somewhat robotic. I don't know.

It's been pointed out to me that I talk a little strange sometimes, and things can become misconstrued.
In my opinion, translations should be a community effort anyway. That way the best translation possible can be presented, and you know that it's going to be understood by most.

Here we go.

 

A lonely scientist developed a robot.
His success was said to be a "miracle".

And yet it still wasn't enough, for there was one thing he couldn't make.
That thing was the program known as the "Heart".

Hundreds of years pass
in which the robot is left alone.
The miracle robot makes a wish.

I'D LIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT PERSON
HAD BEEN WORKING ON
UNTIL THE END OF HIS LIFE.
THIS "HEART".

Now that things have begun to move, a miracle is firing up.
WHy WON't THeSE TeARs StoP...?
WHY am I trembling? The beats are accelerating.
CouLD this be the "HEART" that I hoped for?


MYSTERIOUS HEART HEART MYSTERIOUS
I comprehend that there is joy to be felt.
MYSTERIOUS HEART HEART MYSTERIOUS
I comprehend that there is sorrow to be felt.
MYSTERIOUS HEART HEART LIMITLESS
It's all so deeply painful... <<<OR>>> All these things are so very hard to bear...

Now I have begun to realise the reason for my birth.
Being on your own is so very lonely.
So it was that on that day and at that point in time,
the "HEART" that dwelt behind every memory began to overflow.

Now I am able to speak my true words.
I would dedicate them to you.

THANK YOU...
For bringing me into this world.

THANK YOU...
For the days we spent together.

THANK YOU...
For everything that you have given me.

THANK YOU...
I will sing forever.

[Fuukanou]

I usually keep out of lyric discussions but I've got a few points:


私は知った　喜ぶ事を - I comprehend that there is joy to be felt.
I feel like 知る in this case isn't really like understanding that it's there, I'd say that would be closer to 分かる. I think it's more like "I experienced it for the first time and so it clicked what it meant" in this case. I think Raichu's suggestion of "found out how to" is a good middle ground.



捧げる あなたに - I would dedicate them to you.
Is there any particular reason why you didn't actually dedicate it (I will dedicate) to the dead creator? I feel like even though the creator's dead, you could still offer them your thanks.

EDIT: As per Raichu's suggestion below (about the epilogue text), I don't see why we couldn't stick them in the song footnotes. This, however, is probably best left up to Hikarin's discretion as translator as they're not sung lyrics and so there's no necessity to put them in.

[Raichu]

Wow, that's a much better translation (meaning, that's much closer to my translation ha ha)


Some feedback:


一つだけ出来ない / それは「心」と言うプログラム

I'm not sure "he couldn't make" is the right interpretation for 出来ない because as the story moves forward, we learn that it has been made, it just hadn't been installed. So I think it refers to the robot, "it couldn't do". You can see that an official English translation (can be found here) takes it the same way.



I agree with Fukanou about 知った, although the lyrics might be ambiguous. Since 知る can mean "to find out" (cf. 知っている, be in a state of having found out, i.e., "(now) know"), and 喜ぶ事 can mean either "things to rejoice about" or "the act of rejoicing" itself, the line can mean either "I found out things to be joyful about" or "I found out how to rejoice", "I discovered joy".


Since we're talking about a robot without emotions before and now suddenly running a program that gives it a new faculty, I would argue that it's the latter, "I found out how to rejoice".


Similarly with 捧げる, I think the robot, that now has feelings and experiences gratitude and wonder, actually does dedicate/offer the song to her creator.


A final point, there's an English epilogue to the song which appears in the song video and which has been transcribed here:

It was exactly a miracle.
The robot that obtained 'Kokoro' kept singing.
She sang all of her feelings.

But the miracle lasted only a moment.

The 'Kokoro' was far too big for her.
Unable to withstand that weight,
the machine shorted
and was never to move again.

However, her face was filled with smile,
she looked like an angel.

Should we add that? It shows the reason why the software hadn't been installed: it was so faulty it would cause the robot to short circuit and die.

[Hikarin]

私は知った　喜ぶ事を - I comprehend that there is joy to be felt.
I feel like 知る in this case isn't really like understanding that it's there, I'd say that would be closer to 分かる. I think it's more like "I experienced it for the first time and so it clicked what it meant" in this case. I think Raichu's suggestion of "found out how to" is a good middle ground.



捧げる あなたに - I would dedicate them to you.
Is there any particular reason why you didn't actually dedicate it (I will dedicate) to the dead creator?.

You'd say comprehend doesn't hold the same effect?
When picking that word, I imagined that she's looking at all her past encounters and the emotions that she never felt at that time and those emotions that hadn't surfaced finally falling into place.
The way that I intended it was that those things were there all along, she just couldn't tap into those feelings.

This is exactly why I asked for an opinion though. People will read things differently.
In that case, how about :
> I've learnt what it is to feel joy / sorrow
or
> I discovered how to rejoice / grieve

Isn't that implied by the "you"?
If that's the way you feel, then it's easily remedied.
> I would dedicate them to you, my creator.

And then if you wanted to carry it on, you could change the last line to
> I will sing for/to you forever
Up to you.

As for the epilogue text, I'm fine with also translating that (the official English translation is a bit..) and adding it on.
That would have to also be reflected in the romaji though, unless you wanted to tack it on as a footnote instead.

一つだけ出来ない / それは「心」と言うプログラム
I'm not sure "he couldn't make" is the right interpretation for 出来ない ....

A final point, there's an English epilogue to the song which appears in the song video ....

Hmmm, a valid point.
Okay.
> And yet it was still lacking, for there was one thing that the robot couldn't do.

In regards to the epilogue, if I remember correctly, it's actually also included in the lyrics booklet or Torabotic World.
Not only that, but it includes the text both in Japanese as well as in English, so I can clean that and put that up here. I'll just have to go and dig that out of its box.
Edit: Oh wait, I see that the Japanese text is on that page as well.
Eh, I'll pull out the CD anyway just to double-check everything.

[Fuukanou]

For the first point, I feel that either of your two suggestions would be fine.
For the second, my problem was with the choice of "would"-- I'd recommend "I will dedicate them to you" or "I dedicate them to you" because 'would' reads to me as if the line is saying "I would have dedicated them to you if you were here but you aren't so I won't".

[Hikarin]

For the first point, I feel that either of your two suggestions would be fine.
For the second, my problem was with the choice of "would"-- I'd recommend "I will dedicate them to you" or "I dedicate them to you" because 'would' reads to me as if the line is saying "I would have dedicated them to you if you were here but you aren't so I won't".

Ohhh, I see.
I intended "would" to be somewhere amongst one of these meanings :

3. expressing a desire or inclination.
"I would love to work in America"

5. expressing a conjecture, opinion, or hope
"I would imagine that they're home by now"

7. expressing a wish or regret.
"would that he had lived to finish it"

So, as in "It would bring me great joy to tell you this as I do now".
I don't really see it as a "I could, but I won't" kind of thing.

I mean, I can change it you think that I should.... but do I really talk that weird? (・∧‐)ゞ

[Raichu]

When I translate, I try to be conscious of possible ways a reader could misconstrue what I've said and choose a rendering that avoids ambiguity. A general reader doesn't have the capacity to talk with the writer (as we're doing now). An exception is if there is ambiguity in the original text, an ideal rendering would preserve the same ambiguity, although that's often a tall order.



In this case, while "I would dedicate" can mean "I wish to", it could be misunderstood as "I know I cannot but I say that I want to". Even the sense of "I wish to" leaves open the possibility that the wish will not be fulfilled when it is being fulfilled as the robot sings to us.


I think your previous translation, "I dedicate them to you," is simpler and closely matches the original.

[Fuukanou]

I dunno, I wasn't so great at English at school. It's just that in the context of the sentence (at least I'm assuming it's meant to be a sentence) "Now I am able to speak my true words, I would dedicate them to you." doesn't really sound right to me because we've got something that's actually happening in the first clause and what looks like something that only might happen under certain circumstances in the second. I don't think "I would love to" and "I would imagine" really fit here because you can't arbitrarily change the verb in them and make the sentence work, so they're more like set phrases.

I also don't see how you'd read "I would dedicate them to you" as "I wish to dedicate them to you" either. If it were "I would love/like to dedicate them to you" then sure that's fine, but I personally can't see "I would dedicate" as anything apart from "I would if I could dedicate".

[Hikarin]

Hmmm... That's fair enough really.
I also try to think of ways that my words may be misconstrued, but it's difficult coming from your own mind.

I need to remember that I'm only giving voice to the words in English here. This isn't my story, and I shouldn't try to write it as though it might be. That's the aspiring author running ahead of me there.

Okay. I think this is almost done then.
Which translation of なんて深く切ない do we prefer to flow with the rest of the paragraph?

It's all so deeply painful...
<<<OR>>>
All these things are so very hard to bear...

[Fuukanou]

I hate to not pick one of the given choices, but I think combining them into "It's all so hard to bear" or even "It's ever so hard to bear" would fit well.

though i get the funny feeling that's just me not wanting to really think about what exactly is being said to be hard to bear

[Raichu]

It's all so deeply painful...
<<<OR>>>
All these things are so very hard to bear...

I like both so it's hard to choose. The first one is closer to the original which is my preference in such situations, but it's up to you.

[Hikarin]

That's fine too. It could also be in between.

Are you worried that that part is confusing?
It's supposed to convey her being overwhelmed by the flood of new emotions.
In that regard, I suppose I could use the word "overwhelming", but....
I don't know.

But feel free to be blunt with me.
I won't be offended. It's nothing personal - only the tweaking of a translation.

[Fuukanou]

If you're talking about me then there was no real reason I went with that apart from the fact that the line itself in Japanese didn't explicitly refer to what was 深く切ない. You can ignore me, I think I'm just making things more complicated than needs be lol

[Fuukanou]

@Hikarin , I don't mean to rush you if it's not done, but do you have a final version of the translation to replace the old one?