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Thread: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

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    Default Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    Not a very popular or well-known song, but I came across it by chance and liked the harmonies. You can listen to it on piapro.

    I uploaded my translation here. I want to make a sub for it so I would appreciate if anyone had any constructive criticism on my translation.

    In particular, I'm struggling with good ways to express 切ない, 真っ赤な瞳 and 二人ぼっち in the context of the song.

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    >切ない

    [Feeling] depressed, maybe? "Agonizing" could also work.

    >真っ赤な

    Hmm... Other than "bright/deep red", I'm out of ideas right now. Although I don't think it sounds awkward,
    Or poorly expressed, or anything like that, really.

    >二人ぼっち

    Can't think of anything else.

    Hope that helps!
    Last edited by Haze~; 06-16-2015 at 10:50 AM.

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    I keep getting blocked and I can't figure out why, so I'm going to try posting smaller bits of what I originally tried to say.

    I think "agony" is too strong a concept for 切ない.

    In my mind 切ない is about being in pain (mental/emotional pain), but it's not necessarily so strong as to be agony.

    I also think "agony" doesn't match the general tone of the song because it's a very serious, "heavy" word, while the song has a certain playfulness to it.

    ---------- Post added at 10:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:13 PM ----------

    Last but not least, I like the direction you took with 二人ぼっち, but I think you're still missing an important part of the meaning.
    Think about the difference between 二人きり and 二人ぼっち. 二人きり is "just the two of us" with a positive, romantic connotation. It's "alone together, just the two of us".
    二人ぼっち has the opposite connotation. It has a more negative connotation. It carries an air of loneliness that I don't think is conveyed just by "just the two of us", which seems positive rather than negative.

    There's a funny exchange in Futurama that touches on this point.


    In Futurama's "Xmas Story" (The Trope Namer):
    Leela: You didn't need to buy me a present, Fry.
    Fry: I just wanted to do something to make you happy. I mean, I miss my family but you never even had a family.
    Leela: It's OK. You're lonely and I'm lonely. But, together, we're lonely together.
    [They hold hands]
    Fry: Merry Xmas, Leela.
    Leela: Merry Xmas.
    So I think you should think about how you can convey the loneliness factor.

    ---------- Post added at 10:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:15 PM ----------

    As for 真っ赤な, I'm not sure what you should say for that, but I think saying "blood-red" has the same sort of connotation mismatch problem that "agony" has.

    It conjures up images of anger and violence, which does not seem to be what the song actually means by it. I'm not sure you should even use the word "red" at all.

    I don't know if I completely understand what 真っ赤な瞳で is supposed to mean. Is it a literal description of some character's appearance, or is it a metaphor?

    If it's a metaphor then it's probably about having ____ (it won't let me say this part *shrug*) or "fire" in one's eye, and that might be a better phrasing or a better translation.

    ---------- Post added at 10:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------

    I don't want to push all my beliefs on you or make your translation choices for you, so I'll try to give brief comments.

    If you'd like me to say more just ask.

    I'll start with some general comments.

    One thing that can help you when your stuck is to try different "approaches" to say the same thing.
    For example, using several words instead of one, or writing down something that means the opposite and negating it (simplistic example: sad=not happy).
    Or you can try thinking about the purpose of the song or the basic message of the song.
    So I guess I was wondering what kind of approaches you have tried.

    Also, I think 光 by Utada Hikaru and "Simple and Clean" can be a good example of the above approaches and very non-literal approaches.
    For example, the Japanese version of the song uses a lot of metaphors about light and darkness, but the English version talks about feeling "simple and clean".
    Saying "simple and clean" is an example of using 2 words instead of one and also of approaching the "translation" by thinking about the purpose and fundamental meaning of the song.
    I think those sorts of approaches could help you with 切ない and 真っ赤な瞳. Possibly also 二人ぼっち

    My other general comment is that you seem to have formed a translation habit that, in my opinion, isn't a good one.
    Basically it's a habit of putting all subordinate clauses at the front of the English sentence just because they come "at the front/beginning" of the Japanese sentence.
    Here are some examples from your translation.

    悲しい時に涙が出ないのは
      何故(なぜ)だろう?
    Why is it that at a time I'm sad,
      the tears don't fall?
    What I wan't you to think about is this: Would you actually say that in English? Why did you choose "at a time"? Why did you put that first? Does it mean the same thing the Japanese meant?

    小さな音で、驚きながら、
      一人ぼっちで歩いてた
    While I jumped at a tiny noise,
      I've been walking alone.
    I would ask you the same questions about this too, with a little extra:
    Would you say that in English yourself? Why did you put the "while" part first? Why did you use "while"? Does what you wrote mean the same thing as the Japanese?

    These questions aren't meant to be criticisms. I'm curious about what your answers are.

    Anyway, that was all meant to be constructive criticism and to help you think rather than to tell you what to do. I hope it helps.
    Last edited by GrammarNinja64; 06-18-2015 at 09:23 PM. Reason: Formatting

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    Thanks, that's food for thought, and absolutely constructive. I don't feel dogmatic about any part of my translation -- it's a work in progress and any suggestions are welcome.

    Some answers, maybe incomplete until I have time to think about it some more.

    When it comes to word order, I use natural English where I have no other choice, but word order is important also in that certain information is imparted to the listener before other information. If I feel that the information flow significant enough to make a particular emotional impact, then I will try to preserve information flow over what one would normally say in English.

    Only a secondary consideration, but the other reason for preserving some order is that from the point of view of someone who is not so fluent in Japanese, it's easier for them to match up the original and the translation if at least the line by line translation is intact.

    I'm not sure why you question my translation for 悲しい時に涙が出ないのは何故(なぜ)だろう?? My translation is how I would say it, except that it should be "come", not "fall". I could have said, "Why is it that when I'm sad ...", but to me that means something subtly different and personally I think "Why is it that at a time when I'm sad ..." makes more sense. If you have a different opinion I'd be interested to hear it.

    I agree blood-red eyes sounds strong (Actually Greek has a word for makka but English doesn't ...). Thinking about the phrase in context like you suggest, however, I think does help. My original impression that her eyes were red from crying doesn't fit because it's clear she's been holding back the tears. It may well be anger, her walking off in a huff, so blood-red might not be far off the intended impression.

    Oh, I have to go now. Thanks again, I'll try to come back later.

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    You've already got a lot to think about here and I don't want to overwhelm you or anything, but I do have a few comments:

    I'm not sure how I feel about "instead of saying sorry" for「ゴメン」が言えずに. I mean "Without being able to say I'm sorry, I'm alone" is a bit clunky and I get the desire to take some liberties, but the verb is 言える and not 言う, and I think the distinction between not saying something and being unable to say something is a fairly important one for the nuance of the line.

    "A frightened alone" and "A regretful alone" sound awkward to me; it's not a very natural construction in English, I think. I would go with something more like "frightened/regretful and alone."

    I'm also not sure about translating "あやまることが出来ない" as "Apologizing isn't possible"--I think it can be reasonably inferred that the singer is the one who can't apologize. "Apologizing isn't possible" isn't wrong, but it does sound sort of stiffer than the original does. Then again, 許すことが出来ない is a little more ambiguous, so.

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    I got the block thing again so I have to try posting in pieces again.

    Quote Originally Posted by Raichu View Post
    When it comes to word order, I use natural English where I have no other choice, but word order is important also in that certain information is imparted to the listener before other information. If I feel that the information flow significant enough to make a particular emotional impact, then I will try to preserve information flow over what one would normally say in English.

    Only a secondary consideration, but the other reason for preserving some order is that from the point of view of someone who is not so fluent in Japanese, it's easier for them to match up the original and the translation if at least the line by line translation is intact.
    I see. I suppose I take a slightly opposing stance on both of those issues. For your secondary consideration, I think it's better for beginners in the long run if the lyrics don't match up line by line.

    As for your primary consideration, I agree that it's important to preserve the order in which information is presented in some cases, but when in doubt I tend to default to the position that the order is probably not important. There's definitely room for differences in opinion about when order is important.

    I tend to look for clues in the melody or in other parts of the lyrics or some aspect of the context and try to make my decision on that "partially objective" basis. Also, I tend to look at the order of words within a clause as something that is important for the meaning of the Japanese sentence but not important to preserve in the English, unless the order actually preserves the meaning in English. That means that I tend to be flexible on order for subordinate clauses and try to preserve the order of information across coordinate clauses/sentences. Also, if I decide to preserve order of information, then I would try to make whatever changes to the lyric/sentence structure that would be necessary to create the order.

    ---------- Post added at 01:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 PM ----------

    That's probably hard to understand without an example so I'll use a part of your song as an example.

    悲しい時に涙が出ないのは
      何故(なぜ)だろう?
    You took that line and decided that the order of "悲しい時" compared to 涙が出ない was important and should be preserved.

    Why is it that at a time I'm sad,
      the tears don't fall?
    There is a slight aspect of the melody that seems to put some focus there, and I assume that's why you decided to preserve the order. From my point of view that's tempting, but when viewed in the context of the other lyrics the line seems to me more like a whole sentence that should be taken as one unit. That aspect of the melody seems to be just a coincidence to me.

    And so I would translate the line as "Why is it that tears don't come out when I'm sad."

    If I were going to say that some part of the order in which the information is presented is important, I would actually choose to preserve the order of 悲しい時に涙が出ないのは
    and なぜだろう. So then I would change the translation to this: "Tears don't come out when I'm sad. Why is that?" or ""Tears don't come out when I'm sad. Why might that be?""

    And now that I think about it, you used that splitting strategy in other parts of your translation
    It's not like there's anything to be sad about.
    Surely that's why the tears don't flow.


    ---------- Post added at 01:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Raichu View Post
    I'm not sure why you question my translation for 悲しい時に涙が出ないのは何故(なぜ)だろう?? My translation is how I would say it, except that it should be "come", not "fall". I could have said, "Why is it that when I'm sad ...", but to me that means something subtly different and personally I think "Why is it that at a time when I'm sad ..." makes more sense. If you have a different opinion I'd be interested to hear it.
    Before I give my opinion I just want to note that in every single option you mentioned, the translation for "悲しいとき" comes at the beginning of the clause and comes before the translation for "涙が出ない". I mention that because I don't think you considered any other options. There's a difference between "When I'm sad tears don't come out" and "Tears don't come out when I'm sad". It's easier to see if you think in terms of questions and answers: "What happens wen you're sad?"->"When I'm sad I become unable to cry" vs. "When are you unable to cry?"->"I can't cry when I'm sad"/"I am unable to cry when I'm sad".

    ---------- Post added at 01:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 PM ----------

    Now back to your question.

    ---------- Post added at 01:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 PM ----------

    "at a time when" is a semi-roundabout way to talk about how the world is now by framing it as a time. In contrast "when" tells you what happens in general and not necessarily right now. "At a time when I am sad the tears don't fall" can be rephrased as "I'm sad right now. The tears [don't fall/ aren't falling]". "When I am sad the tears don't fall" cannot be rephrased that way. It means "On occasion I am said. On each occasions in which I am sad the tears don't fall." and does not imply whether "I" am sad at the moment.

    ---------- Post added at 01:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:20 PM ----------

    The Japanese lyrics for the most part seem to be talking about things in general and not necessarily a particular situation or what is happening now. There is some switching back and forth between the two, of course, but that part of the song is talking in general.

    Did all that make sense?

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    Yep, sure makes sense, and I respectfully disagree on one point. It's talking about a specific time. The context appears to be that she got into an argument, said something hurtful, and left him in anger. Now that she's away from him, she's regretting what she did, and ultimately she goes back for forgiveness.

    That's why I'm inclined to phrase in a way that indicates a particular time. Normally, when she's sad, the tears come. This particular time, though, in spite of being sad, the tears don't come, which is strange and she asks why.

    As for sentence structure and word order, I still think that if information flow is important for artistic purposes then it's better to try and preserve it if possible, but I'll take your point in trying to be more flexible about how to achieve that.

    With the title, I don't think "just the two of us" fits very well either. I found that when 二人ぼっち occurs in the text of the song, that translation doesn't work, nor does it fit the tone of the song as a title. On the other hand, I think it tends to carry more of a positive feeling than a negative one, esp. 笑い合った二人ぼっち. Maybe "Us two"? I think it conveys the sense a bit better as it suggests loneliness but doesn't preclude enjoyment together.



    blue, yep thanks, i missed that it's "iezu", not "iwazu" ... I gotta be more careful!!

    With "ayamaru ... yurusu", at that stage it wasn't clear yet who was in the wrong, so I wrote it in a way that preserved the ambiguity in case that was significant, but in hindsight the ambiguity is probably not that important. Later she sings "yurusaretai", I want to be forgiven, so I think I can change it, e.g., "there's no way I can apoligize ... there's no way you'll forgive me" (unless someone can suggest better wording).

    With "a frightened/regretful alone", the unusual English construction is a deliberate attempt to convey that the Japanese construction is also unusal.

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    Default Re: Help with translating 二人ぼっち

    Quote Originally Posted by Raichu View Post
    Yep, sure makes sense, and I respectfully disagree on one point. It's talking about a specific time. The context appears to be that she got into an argument, said something hurtful, and left him in anger. Now that she's away from him, she's regretting what she did, and ultimately she goes back for forgiveness.

    That's why I'm inclined to phrase in a way that indicates a particular time. Normally, when she's sad, the tears come. This particular time, though, in spite of being sad, the tears don't come, which is strange and she asks why.
    I agree with you that that's the general situation (though I'm not sure there's a "him" in the story). For some reason the grammar of the lyrics doesn't seem to me to be describing the situation in that way, but in any event, even if I am correct about that you can choose to deviate, especially in order to convey the situation, so no big deal I suppose.

    Since that's the stance you're taking, you might want to take another look at this later part.

    Why is it that after a squabble,
      the tears don't fall?
    Why is it that after causing a hurt,
      the tears don't fall?
    The English phrasing of that part seems more general to me. If you're going for a "specific" interpretation there might be a clearer way to convey it (but maybe not).

    On a separate note, after looking back at the lyrics I noticed that the song regularly employs a shift in narrative point of view. I'm not sure if you want to try to maintain it (or if you even agree on that). Each of the stanzas that contain 一人ぼっちが is sung from a third-person limited point of view (even though the singer is the ひとりぼっち). The third person point of view is a little tricky/goofy because the first two lines of each of those stanzas give the 一人ぼっち's thoughts. Those thoughts look like they are the singer's direct thoughts, but I think they are meant to be interpreted as the 一人ぼっち's thoughts.

    Quote Originally Posted by Raichu View Post
    With the title, I don't think "just the two of us" fits very well either. I found that when 二人ぼっち occurs in the text of the song, that translation doesn't work, nor does it fit the tone of the song as a title. On the other hand, I think it tends to carry more of a positive feeling than a negative one, esp. 笑い合った二人ぼっち. Maybe "Us two"? I think it conveys the sense a bit better as it suggests loneliness but doesn't preclude enjoyment together.
    Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly. It is a positive feeling/connotation within the context of the song, but that's because the song reverses the implications of the "loneliness factor" expressed by ぼっち, in part by saying 二人ぼっち and in part through the context of the song. I think your observations about 二人ぼっち point toward a certain type of solution, namely that you should not necessarily use the same translation for 二人ぼっち each time it appears in the song. Alternatively, you should use some extra words or information. For instance, you could say "two lonely people", "lonely together", "alone together" or maybe something else entirely. It's up to you.

    Basically it's the same idea behind how 一人ぼっち sometimes describes a particular person but also sometimes describes the state of being all alone and lonely. You used different translations in each case.

    Quote Originally Posted by Raichu View Post
    With "ayamaru ... yurusu", at that stage it wasn't clear yet who was in the wrong, so I wrote it in a way that preserved the ambiguity in case that was significant, but in hindsight the ambiguity is probably not that important. Later she sings "yurusaretai", I want to be forgiven, so I think I can change it, e.g., "there's no way I can apoligize ... there's no way you'll forgive me" (unless someone can suggest better wording).
    This is just a thought, but they could both be in the wrong. She might think she's done things she needs to apologize and that she needs to forgive the other person for whatever that person did. If she thinks she needs to apologize then she would also want to be forgiven. Basically, she can be both the apologizer and the forgiver in one stanza and then be the forgivee in a later stanza.

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