Thoughts About The Buffyverse, Installation 1

This series will consist of random thoughts that occur to me about the Buffyverse, that it’s likely I thought of before, but haven’t written down before now. So here goes.

In “All The Way” (which I rewatched because I hadn’t realized that Amber Tamblyn, currently starring as Martha Masters on House, M.D., played a noticeable role in — and whoa, midriff! o_O), Giles responds to Justin’s “It’ll only hurt for a second” with “I bet you tell that to all the girls.” The last time I watched this, I hadn’t caught how dirty these lines were… GILES! And this only two episodes before we find out his reason for cleaning his glasses all the time, heh.

I find Buffy’s lyrics in “Give Me Something To Sing About” interesting (beginning of the song is below — but not the ending, of course, because that’d be a spoiler!).

Life’s a show
And we all play our parts
And when the music starts
We open up our hearts

It’s all right
If some things come out wrong
We’ll sing a happy song
And you can sing along

Where’s there’s life, there’s hope
Everyday’s a gift
Wishes can come true
Whistle while you work
So hard All day…

To be like other girls
To fit in in this glittering world
Don’t give me songs…
Don’t give me songs…

See, “The Glittering World” is the title of a comic, collected in the “Tales Of The Slayers” series, wherein the story of a Navajo slayer is told to Richard Wilkins (later known as Mayor Richard Wilkins III). Considering that the episode came before the comic, perhaps these lyrics served as some sort of inspiration for the comic?

There’s also the comparison of our world to Hell in both Buffy and Angel: in Buffy, this happens in OMWF, and in Angel, it happens in “Reprise,” the episode where Angel steals the ring that allows him to travel to the Home Office of the Senior Partners, which is reputed to be synonymous with Hell (though, in the buffyverse there are frequently said to be many different kinds of hell dimensions), and after the trip, he ends up exactly where he started: Earth.

Also interesting is the fact that Rack says that Willow smells like strawberries, which now mostly reminds me of Kaylee and how she finds strawberries so full of amazing. That I like both Willow and Kaylee doesn’t hurt my connecting the references to strawberries, either ^_^

So canonically everyone says that Buffy died twice, but didn’t she die three times? Warren shot her, after all, and I think she died momentarily before Willow removed the bullet and healed her.

The story arcs also seem to run away with the writers of the two TV shows. The season 6 finale of Buffy totally starts in “Seeing Red,” which is the fourth episode from the end. And seasons 3 and 4 of Angel totally blended together in my mind. I mean, the Connor storyline obviously ties in with the apocalypse, since he’s the one who started it (well, with help from the evil that’s been planning things since episode 9 of season 1 of Angel), but his origins definitely start in season 3. Basically, it felt like a storyline that was too long for one season so they found a remotely plausible cut-off point and ended season 3 there.

This Week…

What with Strike yesterday, and my responsibilities during it having increased yet again (third show in a row, in fact), I have been too swamped to write anything, and am kind of thinking of dropping iron-blogger altogether (especially given my complete lack of enthusiasm for it over the last month), and just finishing the few incomplete post series at my own pace. What do you guys think? The only downside is that I’d be in danger of never finishing those series, I guess….

Blog Status Update

So I entirely forgot, last week, that another week had rolled to an end on Sunday because I was at Put-In for MITG&SP’s production of Patience. I spent pretty much all of it helping with light hang, specifically, and for the first time, which was really kind of awesome; I learned a lot of stuff on the fly, as I usually do, and it was like, “yay, informations!” I also finally learned how the skysheet goes up, so I understand more of what’s going on when I direct taking it down (which I have somehow managed to be in charge of — and done well, according to Rob when he unpacks it to put it up at the following shows — for the last two shows we’ve done).

Unfortunately, I bring this post to you mostly with one hand, and so it will be on the short side compared to my usual posts. My wrist decided to act up, possibly having to do with environmental factors, but not, as far as I can tell, directly with my efforts at Put-In, because it was a sudden onset near the beginning of focus the following night,  and it’s still recovering. Typing seems to twist my wrist out of place more and results in more cracking, so I’m letting it rest on the corner of my laptop. Maybe it’ll be recovered by the end of next week? Strike is on Saturday and I’d like not to be useless for it, so that would be great…. I experienced something similar during prodweek for Sweeney Todd, too, and was mostly okay by Strike, so I am hopeful.

Anyway, I will leave you with a plug for the show: I don’t have the stamina to type the synopsis for you, but wikipedia has an article on it, and you can reserve tickets on the MITGSP website. Our remaining shows are Thursday (11/7) at 8PM, Friday (11/8) at 8PM, and Saturday (11/9) at 2PM. Hope to see you there!

“元素” (Elements) Lyrics and Translation

So recently there was an article on boingboing titled “The Elements Song (Tom Lehrer tune), Super Cute Japanese Version,” which featured two 13-year-old girls singing “元素” [genso]*, meaning “element” (Japanese doesn’t have articles or plural forms of nouns), a Japanese rendition of the well-known tune “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer. Because it is awesome, I’ve decided to transcribe the lyrics and translate them (obviously, for most of the song, the translation is fairly obvious) here. First, I’ve made a table of the elements in the order that they are sung — unlike Tom Lehrer’s version, there are no extra words like “also”, etc, so these are the lyrics to most of the song — with chemical symbol in the left column, Japanese name (as written in the youtube video — there are alternate ways to write some of the names, which I’ll talk about later) in the middle column, and Hepburn romanization in the rightmost column, followed by the final sentence in the song….

The final line of the song is “これが今ま派遣された全てな元素の集まりです” [kore ga ima made haken sareta subete na genso no atsumari desu], which roughly translates to “this is all of the elements collection that have been sent up ’til now.”

Here comes the random spew of notes about the song, transcription process, translation process, etc: the order of the elements is the same as in the original, but there are more of them, which have been tacked on to the end of the song. In fact, the last element in the song is new enough that when I was going through and checking my transcription/romanization using WWWJDIC, I found that the dictionary didn’t have it. And in checking the transcription/romanization, I ended up finding two mistakes. I’m also considering giving this mass of katakana to my Japanese-Learners students for practice. How about it, guys?

Anyway, to the last line: it’s hard to get the number of syllables exactly right for everything, so some of the vowels are stretched out when sung. The problem is, in Japanese, the length of the vowel is a differentiating trait between words. The final line is sung with extra elongated vowels (so that it sounds like “haaken saareta”), but given that we’re probably trying to approximate the last part of the original “The Elements” song, I settled on the word 派遣 [haken] (defined in WWWJDIC as dispatch/send) as the noun to form the compound verb “send” when combined with された [sareta], the perfect/past form of the potential form of する [suru], meaning “do.” Thus, the combination “派遣された” [hakensareta] roughly means “was sent,” and it modifies the noun phrase “全てな元素の集まり” [subete na genso no atsumari], where 全て [subete] means “all”, な [na] is a nominal-connecting particle, 元素 [genso] means “element” (or, as pointed at near the beginning of the post, could be interpreted as “the elements” because of the lack of articles and plural noun forms in Japanese), の [no] is the other nominal-connecting particle, and 集まり [atsumari], derived from the verb 集まる [atsumaru], which means “gather up” or “collect”, means “collection.” Thus, the noun phrase can be translated as “all of the elements collection,” and since it is modified by “派遣された” [hakensareta], I translated that chunk of the sentence as “all of the elements collection that have been sent.”

As for the rest of the sentence, これ [kore] is a demonstrative that means “this” (and here refers to the aforementioned elements, of course), が [ga] is a subject marker that indicates that “これ” [kore] is the subject of the imperfect, distal copula, です [desu], at the end of the sentence. And the “今まで” [ima made] component of the sentence can be broken into 今 [ima], meaning “now,” and まで [made], a particle meaning “until.”

So now, some comments about the names of the elements, because I find them somewhat intriguing: most of the element names are from English, German, or Chinese, as exemplified in アルミニウム [aruminiumu], アンチモン [anchimon] (from “Antimon”), and ヒ素 [hiso], respectively. Okay, so the completely katakana names have origins that are fairly obvious — they’re nipponizations of either English or German, mostly (I’d say all, but some are potentially ambiguous, and superlatives are difficult to support). A handful of elements share the exact same kanji as their Chinese counterparts: Fe/鉄 [tetsu], Au/金 [kin], Ag/銀 [gin], Pb/鉛 [namari], and Cu/銅 [dou]. Another handful of elements are derived from the Chinese: As/ヒ素/砒素 [hiso], I/ヨウ素/沃素 [youso], B/ホウ素/硼素 [houso], Si/ケイ素/珪素/硅素 [keiso], and F/フッ素/弗素 [fusso]. (All of the non-素 [so] 漢字 [kanji] are not considered common kanji, according to WWWJDIC.) Going down the list one at a time, then: 砒 is pronounced pī​ and means “arsenic” in Chinese, which is where the Japanese pronunciation derives from. The Chinese word 沃 is pronounced wò​ and means fertile/rich/irrigate; again, Japanese pronunciation derives from the kanji and is thus written with katakana because it’s a loan word of sorts. Oddly, the Chinese 硼, which does mean “boron,” is pronounced péng​, so this nipponization is beyond me…. Both 珪 and 硅 mean “silicon,” though the first character has a radical that is generally used with precious materials and can refer to a “jade tablet” (according to MDBG), while the second character refers specifically to the chemical element and is the character used in the Chinese periodic table; both characters are pronounced guī​, for which the nipponization makes sense again. Finally, we have 弗, pronounced fú​ and meaning “not” in Chinese (according to MDBG), though the meaning of the 漢字 [kanji] in Japanese is “dollar” (according to WWWJDIC); the pronunciation makes sense, but I’m unsure as to the rationale behind the meaning….

Of course, some of the names are original to Japanese: H/水素 [suiso] meaning “water element,” O/酸素 [sanso] meaning “sour/acidic element,” N/窒素 [chisso] meaning “plug-up/obstruct element,” Br/臭素 [shuuso] meaning “stinky element,” Hg/水銀 [suigin] meaning “liquid silver,” Pt/白金 [hakkin] meaning “white gold,” S/硫黄 [iou] meaning “yellow sulfur” (the first character is the same as the Chinese character for elemental sulfur, while the second character means “yellow”), Zn/亜鉛 [aen] meaning “come-after lead,” Cl/塩素 [enso] meaning “salt element,” and C/炭素 [tanso] meaning “charcoal/coal element.” The hypotheses for nitrogen and zinc that Ben came up with on zephyr follow:

[Nitrogen] blocks oxidation and/or breathing.
Traditional early experiments in such things involved burning metal in a confined volume of air, allowing one to measure that 30% of the air’s mass was added to the metal and 70% was left unreacted. Isolation and further study of that remaining portion shows that it obstructs breathing, etc..

I think it has to do with the refining process — if you have mixed zinc and lead ore, the lead will reduce out first, but if you go to higher temperature (???) then the zinc will come off.

So there you have it. “The Elements” song in Japanese!!

* Japanese in this post is followed by the Hepburn romanization in brackets, as it is through most of the blog.

F.I.R. – “I Don’t Care” Translation

More or less complete lyrics (I say more/less because there’s this yelled part that involves the world “this world is not fair / it’s not fair … you know I don’t care” but I can’t make all of it out and apparently no one on the internet cares enough to have published it):

Hey

Hey

So what did you want to talk about?

I…I want to break up.

What?

Look, I’m just tired of all of this. We always fight.

You can’t just leave.

You know what? I can, and I am. I, I’ve had enough of this.

You think you can just walk out on me?

Are you threatening me?

Get over here! I’m not gonna let you go!

Let me go!

It’s not over, you can’t do this!

Let go of me, let go of me!

*slap*

A! It’s over, I don’t care, it’s over!

风轻吹
吹干泪
泪流了一夜 才觉得浪费
是错对
无所谓
我让你去飞

别再做无畏的美梦想去挽回
就别再做困兽之斗去挣扎一切
那些美丽容颜如今都已破碎
飞越谎言冲破无力改变的世界

I don’t care
It’s not fair
就让你犯你得罪
I don’t care
No more care
带着下一个梦去追我不后悔不后退
就是那么的绝对
我要的完美不是不是不是你能给
将一切毁灭
I don’t care

风轻吹
吹干泪
泪流了一夜 才觉得浪费
是错对
无所谓
我让你去飞

别再做无畏的美梦想去挽回
就别再做困兽之斗去挣扎一切
那些美丽容颜如今都已破碎
飞越谎言冲破无力改变的世界

I don’t care
It’s not fair
就让你犯你得罪
I don’t care
No more care
带着下一个梦去追
我不后悔不后退
就是那么的绝对
我要的完美不是不是不是你能给
将一切毁灭
I don’t care

I don’t care
I don’t care
No more care

I don’t care
It’s not fair
就让你犯你得罪
I don’t care
No more care
带着下一个梦去追
我不后悔不后退
就是那么的绝对
我要的完美不是不是不是你能给
将一切毁灭
I don’t care

All three of the non-redundant verses:

风轻吹
吹干泪
泪流了一夜 才觉得浪费
是错对
无所谓
我让你去飞

别再做无畏的美梦想去挽回
就别再做困兽之斗去挣扎一切
那些美丽容颜如今都已破碎
飞越谎言冲破无力改变的世界

I don’t care
It’s not fair
就让你犯你得罪
I don’t care
No more care
带着下一个梦去追
我不后悔不后退
就是那么的绝对
我要的完美不是不是不是你能给
将一切毁灭
I don’t care

And the translation for those non-redundant verses:

The wind blowing gently
Blows dry my tears
Only after tears flowed an entire night do I realize it’s a waste
Whether it’s wrong or right
It doesn’t matter
I’ll let you fly

Don’t keep dreaming those fearless dreams, trying to redeem [yourself]
Just don’t keep acting the bound animal, only fighting to struggle against everything
Those beautiful looks [facial features] are now already broken
Fly over/past the world that no power/force can change, thoroughly broken by lies

I don’t care
It’s not fair
I’ll just let you commit your sins
I don’t care
No more care
Go chase the next dream [you] brought along
I don’t regret, won’t retreat
It’s just that absolute
The beautiful conclusion I want isn’t isn’t isn’t something you give
Everything will be ruined
I don’t care

Interestingly, the translation I had on file was as follows:

The wind blowing gently
Blows dry my tears
Only after tears flowed an entire night do I realize it’s meaningless
Whether it’s wrong or right
It doesn’t matter
I’ll let you fly

Don’t keep dreaming those fearless dreams of turning it all around
Just don’t act the bound animal, fighting and struggling
Those beautiful features are now already broken
Fly over the lies that crushed the world that cannot be changed

I don’t care
It’s not fair
I’ll just let you commit your crimes
I don’t care
No more care
I’ll chase the next dream
I don’t regret, won’t retreat
It’s just that absolute
The beautiful conclusion I want isn’t isn’t isn’t something you give
Destroy everything
I don’t care

The first, second, and third lines of the second verse have changed a moderate amount, seeing as some of the adjectives have shifted to modify different things, etc. More importantly, the line immediately following “no more care” changed quite substantially, and I can’t tell whether it’s just because I’m really out of it because it’s past bedtime, or what. We might find out in next week’s post, or I’ll just edit this when my mind is clearer. Ta!

Language Classes Update #5

For the last class and the upcoming class (which is over a week from now), we’re going over homework worksheets in class. Last time, there were just a few exercises, but I still managed to make a mistake or two (one was debatable, because we did manage to come up with an explanation for the slightly unexpected sentence).

While writing up the homework assignment for the next class, I tried to maintain a balance of grammatical forms, to keep them equally fresh in the students’ minds. Some of the sentences are to be translated from Japanese, some into Japanese; some of them use the distal form, some the direct form; the vocabulary words used are picked from as many different sets of vocabulary as possible: some are colors, some have to do with shopping, some have to do with the weather; some time expressions refer to the date, some refer to the day of the week, some refer to the time of day, etc; so on and so forth. Where possible, I tended towards the more frequently used or irregular vocabulary or measure words, to really emphasize those.

It’s an interesting process, writing worksheets like this, because I get to think about the sizable amount of knowledge that we’ve covered. And yet at the same time, I did have to revise the sentences that came to mind every now and then because they did, in fact, contain grammatical structures or vocabulary that we haven’t covered yet.

Both last time and this time, I threw in a katakana loan word that we hadn’t covered in class, that the students get to sound out and figure out on their own, which I hope adds some entertainment value and a sense of accomplishment in figuring out vocabulary words without having to be taught them or look them up.

Last class session, the students said that going over the worksheet was very useful, and possibly more useful than just the class sessions we’ve had so far where we’ve covered conversations and the grammar and vocabulary contained within, probably because we get to really think about the structure of the sentences instead of just going along with precomposed constructs. If anyone has more suggestions or feedback on what else might be useful to really solidify concepts that students have previously been exposed to, I’d be glad to hear it.

Youtube Fanvids, Part 1

So Piper brought to my attention two well-done Buffy fanvids, by N0ReturnPr0ductions. The cuts between shots are a little faster than what I’d prefer, but the shots are so well-timed and well-chosen that I deem the videos to be well-done. And since I can’t come up with anything else to write about just now, I thought I’d pick out some of the well-chosen shots and perhaps say a little about where they’re from, their backstory, and what makes them good picks. So yes, there will be spoilers.

The first video is one set to “You Found Me” by The Fray. Interestingly, it’s in a different key and there are some differences in phrasing from the more common version that the official music video is set to, which I also like. So here goes:

I found God: Buffy and Spike, in a church, where Buffy first realizes that Spike, who had disappeared for some amount of time, has returned with a soul (”Beneath You”, season 7). It’s a church, has imagery of a cross, and Spike has found…well, perhaps he hasn’t found God, but he has found something spiritually deep, for a demon, and it’s going to save him.

On the corner of First and Amistad: Buffy and Angel’s first meeting (”Welcome To The Hellmouth”, series premiere), when Angel gives her a silver cross as her welcome to the Sunnydale Hellmouth. They’re in a dark alley, which kind of fits how I envision this line of the song — a dark night, mostly alone — and the cross, of course, fits the “I found God” part of the line.

Where the West was all but won: these are different shots of the desert, which are associated with the First Slayer and the beginnings of the Slayer line. The latter shots in this set are from “Get It Done” in season 7, when the first watchers, who were just men, picked a girl to infuse with demon powers to fight vampires and demons. They had set something big in motion, to fight their war, but they haven’t won it yet.

All alone, smoking his last cigarette: The first three shots are just shots of some of the main characters alone (perhaps the shot of Angel is from season 3, when he first gets back from the hell dimension?), and the later shots in the set are of Spike, smoking one last cigarette before he drives off to fight for his soul to be returned to him (end of season 6).

I said, where you been? He said, ask anything: Oz and Willow (”A New Moon Rising”, season 4). What more can I say? Oz left for a while in the middle of season 4, and the shots during “ask anything” are of when Oz reveals to Willow what he’s been up to; namely, learning to control his wolf-side.

Where were you when everything was falling apart?: Joyce’s death, when she leaves Buffy to fend for herself and Dawn (”The Body”, season 5), followed by Buffy’s stint as a mind-reader (”Earshot”, season 3) when she started to lose her mind because she couldn’t control her power and started to hear everything, which was slowly driving her mad and was going to kill her. The last shot is of Anya, immediately after she wreaks havoc on a fraternity house as a vengeance demon (”Selfless”, season 7). The only problem is, she spent several years as a human, learning compassion and love, and the weight of the destruction she’s caused at the frat house is numbing.

All my days were spent by the telephone: Faith entering the jail’s courtyard, alone, repenting (season 4 of Angel, I’m guessing), followed by a set of shots, not all of which I can place, but, containing the notable shots of Xander drinking in his apartment, alone, after he left Anya at the altar (”Normal Again”, season 6).

That never rang when all I needed was a call: A series of shots of various characters crouched in pain and/or tears, beginning with Angel in misery in the alternate timeline where Cordy never received the visions from the Powers That Be (PTB) and Angel inherited them instead, which drove him mad with grief and resulted in Wesley and Gunn fighting the demons on their own and Wesley losing an arm (”Happy Birthday,” season 3 of Angel). Next, Spike crouched in the basement at the beginning of season 7, wallowing in the guilt that he feels as a result of just having regained his soul. The next few shots are too quick to identify with any sort of real meaning, since they’re more generic shots of characters being sad, but the last shot is from “Selfless” again, and Anya is looking at the carnage she caused at the frat house.

That never came to the corner of First and Amistad: Wow, the changes start going fast towards the end of this line, so I’ll point out the notable shots. Cordy in the hospital after she fell on a piece of rebar, having just discovered that Xander was cheating on her with Willow and consequently feeling heartbroken (”Lover’s Walk”, season 3). Dawn cuddling up to the Buffybot (probably at the beginning of season 6, before they bring Buffy back?) and the closing shot of season 5, of Buffy’s tombstone. The beige jacket Buffy’s wearing seems likely to have appeared in season 7 when she was voted out of her leadership position and is wandering the streets, but I’m not entirely certain. The distinctive shot of Faith wearing the red sweater that she took from the girl she beat up, though, is definitely from “This Year’s Girl” (season 4) when she first recovers from her coma and breaks out of the hospital. The shots of Anya and Xander are post-breakup, though it’s hard to say when (sometime in the latter third of season 6, obviously, but season 6 kind of meshes together in my mind).

Well, that’s nearly the first minute, and I should post this before the 6AM deadline. To be continued…

Translation Musings

I was re-watching a Japanese movie recently, and because the last time I saw it, my Japanese was still the self-taught variety, I paid more attention to the translation of the dialogue into the subtitles this time. Considering how ubiquitous this version of the subtitles was, one would normally assume that they had won out over the other crappy translations floating around, but with translations of Japanese material, it was entirely possible that this was simply the most widespread translation that got floated around more than other ones did. Turns out, the latter case seems more applicable. (I will also be making random comments about amusing lines and other thoughts I had during the movie, and not just about translations, in this post.)

One of the amusing lines was “耳落ちるぞ” [mimi ochiru zo], which was delivered in such a deadpan, indifferent tone that the subtitles just didn’t convey. Personally, I think it would’ve sounded ridiculous if it had been said in English.

I should point out to my Japanese classes that “どうしたの?” [doushita no] is a useful phrase: “what’s up?” or “what’s the matter?”, loosely. I should also point out to them two interesting sentence endings that I noticed and didn’t realize were usable. The first was when a girl used the sentence final particle “ぞ” [zo], which was explained to me, by a guy who lived in Japan until the age of 16, that it was the brutish-guy equivalent of “よ” [yo]. Karl likes to refer to it as the “yakuza particle,” but after hearing it in this context, I am really not-confident in the truth of that moniker. The second unexpected sentence ending was when the hospital security guard was speaking to the dark, empty room and said “誰がいます?” [dare ga imasu] with the inflection on “す” [su] that indicated a question. I had always thought that such a usage was fairly girly (and my Japanese 先生 [sensei] may have said as much, too), but maybe not? The guard did not seem particularly effeminate, at any rate.

One scene seemed particularly rife with interesting translations (or maybe I was just managing to pay closer attention, which seems likely). After saying that some previous situation was messed up, the detective then said “今こそ” [ima koso], which I would literally translate as “now too,” meaning that the current situation was also messed up; personally, I find this perfectly comprehensible in context as a translation. The subtitles, though, read “all of it.” Later in the same scene, one guy picks up the phone, hears the voice ask for another guy in the room, and hands the phone to him, at which point the guy who just received the phone says “変わりました” [kawarimashita], which is the distal perfective form of the verb “change,” to indicate that the speaker has changed. The subtitles, though, have been translated as “Hello?” (At some later point in the movie, the new speaker says “今変わりました” [ima kawarimashita] — literally, “now changed” — which gets translated as “Hi, there.”) Finally, in this scene, the verb “消える” [kieru] is translated as “lose,” while it should be more accurately translated as “disappear.” I think “does your connection disappear” makes just as much sense as “do you lose your connection,” and kind of fail to see why this particular choice in translation was made.

I’m also fairly certain that some of the numbers in the movie are mistranslated. A few times when the characters say “50″ the subtitles read “54,” and so on and so forth. And about ninety minutes in, a boy clearly says “あなたとあなたは” [anata to anata wa] which doesn’t get translated at all — the subtitles entirely skip this item in the boy’s list.

Last thing in this mini-rant/examination: when a computer screen displays “明日…のライブ会場に集まれ” [ashita...no raibu kaijou ni atsumare] it is translated as “…concert tomorrow” as opposed to “come to the concert venue tomorrow.” I … disapprove.

蔡依林 (Jolin Tsai) – “你快乐吗” (Are You Happy) Translation

谁都没权利
要求你离开他
即使他总让你
伤心牵挂

我只能在你身边
听你说说话
听你说着他
泪如雨下
跟自己挣扎

其实很多人
都爱得很傻
天真的守着
相爱承诺的话

不问自己快乐吗
只是一味爱他
直到黯然心碎
才知心乱如麻

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
没有人多潇洒
爱好像燃烧的火花
会随时间升华

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
你不必逼自己离开他
别去管别人怎么看你
说你是傻瓜
问问你自己
你快乐吗

其实很多人
都爱得很傻
天真的守着
相爱承诺的话

不问自己快乐吗
只是一味爱他
直到黯然心碎
才知心乱如麻

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
没有人多潇洒
爱好像燃烧的火花
会随时间升华

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
你不必逼自己离开他
别去管别人怎么看你
说你是傻瓜
问问你自己
你快乐吗

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
没有人多潇洒
爱好像燃烧的火花
会随时间升华

我想这就是所谓爱的代价
你不必逼自己离开他
别去管别人怎么看你
说你是傻瓜
问问你自己
你快乐吗

No one has the right
To request that you leave him
Even though he always gives you reason to*
Worry about heartbreak

I can only, by your side,
Listen to you saying things
Listen to you talking about him
Tears falling like the rain
Struggling with yourself

Actually, many people
All love very foolishly
Naively holding on to
Words promising mutual love

Not asking yourself if you’re happy
Just blindly loving him
Until sad heartbreak
Only then do you realize how confused your heart is

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
There are no people who are naturally unrestrained
Love seems like a flaming spark
That will, with time, grow

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
You don’t need to force yourself to leave him
Don’t go caring about how other people see you
Saying that you’re a fool
Just ask yourself
Are you happy

Actually, many people
All love very foolishly
Naively holding on to
Words promising mutual love

Not asking yourself if you’re happy
Just blindly loving him
Until sad heartbreak
Only then do you realize how confused your heart is

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
There are no people who are naturally unrestrained
Love seems like a flaming spark
That will, with time, grow

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
You don’t need to force yourself to leave him
Don’t go caring about how other people see you
Saying that you’re a fool
Just ask yourself
Are you happy

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
There are no people who are naturally unrestrained
Love seems like a flaming spark
That will, with time, grow

I think this is simply what is called the price of love
You don’t need to force yourself to leave him
Don’t go caring about how other people see you
Saying that you’re a fool
Just ask yourself
Are you happy

* The words here more literally translate to “even though he always lets you,” but such a phrasing did not seem to give the intended meaning, so I translated it slightly differently.

F.I.R. – “你的微笑” (Your Smile) Translation

As per my usual, implied words are in [brackets].

喜欢用我的音调
唱出你的味道
这一秒
有种感觉甜蜜的发笑

一百种言语知道
爱有一个声道
才明瞭
是你眼神传来的暗号

太多的幸福报到
拼凑爱的美妙
笑一笑
投入你怀里然后撒娇

不需要别人来教
把爱紧紧抓牢
这一秒
决定拥抱你给的美好

爱情是你独特的味道
在我的心中围绕
别人都不了
只有你知道
因为你
世界不再单调
我的微笑
你明白就很好

你就像月亮绕着轨道
拥抱着地球闪耀
在我的星球
写下惊叹号
有了你
世界神魂颠倒
你的微笑
编制了每一个奇妙

太多的幸福报到
拼凑爱的美妙
笑一笑
投入你怀里然后撒娇

不需要别人来教
把爱紧紧抓牢
这一秒
决定拥抱你给的美好

爱情是你独特的味道
在我的心中围绕
别人都不了
只有你知道
因为你
世界不再单调
我的微笑
你明白就很好

你就像月亮绕着轨道
拥抱着地球闪耀
在我的星球
写下惊叹号
有了你
世界神魂颠倒
你的微笑
编制了每一个奇妙

爱情是你独特的味道
在我的心中围绕
别人都不了
只有你知道
因为你
世界不再单调
我的微笑
你明白就很好

你就像月亮绕着轨道
拥抱着地球闪耀
在我的星球
写下惊叹号
有了你
世界神魂颠倒
你的微笑
编制了每一个奇妙

[I] like to use my (musical) note
To sing out the flavor of you
This very second
There’s a sort of laughter with a sweet feeling

A hundred kinds of speech know
Love has one soundtrack
It just became clear
It’s the sign conveyed by the look in your eyes

Too much happiness arrives
To piece together the beauty of love
[I] laugh a little
[And] throw myself into your arms and then pout

[I] don’t need other people to come and tell [me]
To hold on to love very tightly
This very second
[I] decided to embrace the beautiful goodness you’re giving

Love is your unique flavor
It surrounds my heart
No one else understands
Only you know
The world is no longer monotonous
My smile
You just understand [it] so well

You’re just like the track the moon revolves on
Embracing the sparkling glory of the Earth
On my planet
Write down an exclamation mark
[Now] that [I] have you
The spirit of the world has been turned upside-down
Your smile
Has built the foundation of every single happiness

Too much happiness arrives
To piece together the beauty of love
[I] laugh a little
[And] throw myself into your arms and then pout

[I] don’t need other people to come and tell [me]
To hold on to love very tightly
This very second
[I] decided to embrace the beautiful goodness you’re giving

Love is your unique flavor
It surrounds my heart
No one else understands
Only you know
The world is no longer monotonous
My smile
You just understand [it] so well

You’re just like the track the moon revolves on
Embracing the sparkling glory of the Earth
On my planet
Write down an exclamation mark
[Now] that [I] have you
The spirit of the world has been turned upside-down
Your smile
Has built the foundation of every single happiness

Love is your unique flavor
It surrounds my heart
No one else understands
Only you know
The world is no longer monotonous
My smile
You just understand [it] so well

You’re just like the track the moon revolves on
Embracing the sparkling glory of the Earth
On my planet
Write down an exclamation mark
[Now] that [I] have you
The spirit of the world has been turned upside-down
Your smile
Has built the foundation of every single happiness