王光良 (Michael Wong) – “第一次” (First Time) Translation

Some editor’s and translator’s notes:

The song is sung by the guy. The colored parts are in the music video: blue is for the guy, red is for the girl, and italicized parts are voice-over’ed, as though the two people are looking back on the story and commenting on it in retrospect. Some of the things the girl says are clearly intended to be insults, but I have no clue how to actually parse them, so I have left them as is and you can feel free to inject a scoffing/frustrated tone.

The girl also says “拜拜！” a number of times, according to the subtitling in the music video, but in the translation I’ve written “bye bye” without an exclamation point; I think that the exclamation point is used differently in the Chinese (as in, it is always tacked on to the end of “拜拜”). (Pedantic note: I did mean “in the Chinese,” meaning in this example in Chinese, as opposed to “in Chinese,” which would imply that the meaning of punctuation is quite different between English and Chinese, and that is not really true.) Anyway, I’ve made changes to the punctuation in the translation as fits the tone of the exchange.

Finally, there is an idiom that appears twice in the song lyrics (”天长地久”) which I have translated as “eternity”; the idiom is made of the words for “sky/heaven,” “long,” “ground/Earth,” and “long time.” This dictionary provides the interpretation of “enduring as long as the world does,” which I think is quite accurate, but it doesn’t really fit into the context of the sentence terribly well in that form.

这是我第一次对她说
我喜欢你
我喜欢你
哈哈哈
我当做没听到啊
你赶快忘记吧
拜拜！
我就是能当她哥儿们吧
哇   剉塞

当你看着我
我没有开口   已被你猜透
爱是没把握
还是没有符合你的要求
我失   业了
要不要喝一点什么
是我自己想得太多
还是你也在闪躲
如果真的选择是我
我鼓起勇气去接受
不知不觉让实现开始闪烁

喔   第一次我   说爱你的时候
这是我的一次跟她牵手
呼吸难过   心不停的颤抖
喔   第一次我   牵起你的双手
失去方向   不知该往哪走
那是一起相爱的理由
那是一起厮守
喔   第一次吻   你深深的酒窝
想要清醒却冲昏了头
喔   第一次你   躺在我的胸口
二十四小时没有分开过
这是我第一次跟她接吻
那是第一次知道天长地久

干吗穿这样
喔喔…有剉塞
找工作啊
是我自己想得太多
还是你也在闪躲
穿這樣子心情比較好啊
如果真的选择是我
我鼓起勇气去接受
不知不觉让视线开始闪烁

喔   第一次我   说爱你的时候
呼吸难过   心不停的颤抖
喔   第一次我   牵起你的双手
这是我的一次和她拥抱
哼    嘜假
失去方向 不知该往哪走
那是一起相爱的理由   对我

天哪   怎么这么重
感觉你属于我
肉腳
感觉你的眼眸
第一次就决定 绝不会错

喔   第一次我   说爱你的时候
呼吸难过 心不停的颤抖
喔   第一次我   牵起你的双手
失去方向   不知该往哪走
那是一起相爱的理由
好不好吃
那是一起厮守
干吗
没什么
喔    第一次吻   你深深的酒窝
想要清醒却冲昏了头
你上次在这里跟我说什么
喔   第一次你    躺在我的胸口
我忘记了
二十四小时没有分开过
那是第一次知道天长地久

好甜喔！
拜拜！
真的是笨猪一条！
你上次在这里说什么
我喜欢你
我好喜欢你喔
喜欢谁
萧淑慎
谁喜欢萧淑慎
王光良
这是我的第一次
哼   也是我的   嘿嘿

This is my first time saying to her
I like you
I like you
Ha ha ha
I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that
You should quickly forget it
Bye bye
I can just be her friend/brother
Wah   剉塞

When you watched me
I didn’t open my mouth and already you guessed my everything
Love is without certainty
Or does it not meet your demands
I lost   my job
Do you want to drink a little something?
Is it that I think too much
Or are you also being evasive?
If [your] real choice/pick is me
I will summon the courage to receive it
Subconsciously letting the realization begin to flicker

Oh the first time I said I love you
This is my first time holding hands with her
Breathing was difficult and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding
Oh the first time I took your two hands
[I] lost [my sense of] direction and didn’t know which direction to go
That is the justification/reason for mutual love
That is staying together
Oh the first time [I] kissed your deep dimple(s)
[I] want to be clear-headed but instead [my] head becomes completely muddled
Oh the first time you laid on my chest
[We] didn’t part for twenty-four hours
This is my first time kissing her
That is the first time knowing eternity*

Why are you dressed like that?
Oh oh … again 剉塞
Looking for a job
Is it that I think too much
Or are you also being evasive?
Having this kind of attitude is better
If [your] real choice/pick is me
I will summon the courage to receive it
Subconsciously letting the realization begin to flicker

Oh the first time I said I love you
Breathing was difficult and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding
Oh the first time I took your two hands
This is my first time hugging her
Hnn  嘜假
[I] lost [my sense of] direction and didn’t know which direction to go
That is the justification/reason for mutual love to me

Heavens   so heavy
Feeling that you’re part of me
肉腳
Feeling the pupil of your eye(s)
The first time [I] just decided it absolutely wouldn’t be wrong

Oh the first time I said I love you
Breathing was difficult and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding
Oh the first time I took your two hands
[I] lost [my sense of] direction and didn’t know which direction to go
That is the justification/reason for mutual love
Is it tasty?
That is staying together
What?
Nothing
Oh the first time [I] kissed your deep dimple(s)
[I] want to be clear-headed but instead [my] head becomes completely muddled
Last time, what did you say to me here?
Oh the first time you laid on my chest
I’ve forgotten
[We] didn’t part for twenty-four hours
That is the first time knowing eternity*

So sweet!
Bye bye
[I] really am a stupid pig!
Last time what did you say to me here?
I like you
I really like you!
Like who?
Xiao ShuShen
Who likes Xiao ShuShen?
Wang GuangLiang
This is my first time
Hnn   mine too  hehe

“老鼠爱大米” (Mice Love Rice) Translation

我听见你的声音
有种特别的感觉
让我不断想
不敢再忘记你

我记的有一个人
永远留在我心中
那怕只能够这样的想你

如果真的有一天
爱情理想会实现
我会加倍努力好好对你永远不改变

不管路有多么远
一定会让它实现
我会轻轻在你耳边
对你说… 对你说…

我爱你
爱着你
就象老鼠爱大米
不管有多少风雨
我都会依然陪着你
我想你
想着你
不管有多么的苦
只要能让你开心, 我什么都愿意
这样爱你

I hear your sound
It has a special feeling
It lets me think nonstop
I wouldn’t ever dare to forget you

I remember that there is a person
[Who will] forever stay in (the middle of) my heart
Even if that’s the only way I can think of you enough

If there there really comes a day
The dream of love comes true
I will double my diligence to (properly) never change [my feelings] towards you

No matter how far/long the road is
[I] Will definitely let it come true
I will softly, by your ear,
Say to you… say to you…

I love you
Loving you
Just like mice love rice
No matter how much wind and rain there is
I will still accompany you just the same
I think of you
Thinking of you
No matter how much pain/bitterness there is
As long as you can be happy, I am willing to do anything
[I] love you this way

F.I.R. – “眷恋” (Attachment) Translation

把爱深埋在记忆中
说不出口一种难过
给祝福太多
不能覆盖我的痛
你要转身你要走
不在多作停留

分开是谁说没什么
最难的决定是放手
眼中的落寞
说的都是我的错
当你笑着挥挥手
你的沉默我懂

请别说爱我
推我想晴天
最温暖的天空
却换了季节
在绝望的面前
洒落一地心碎
就算是伤悲
我不想太狼狈

请别说爱我
别许下心愿
下一秒就出现
你给的纪念
风吹过的思念
曾有过的眷恋
哭红了双眼
再让我心痛一天

Bury love deeply in memory
There’s an inexpressable kind of discomfort
Giving too many blessings
Cannot cover up my pain
you want to turn away, you want to leave
Not staying much longer

Who says there’s nothing to separating?
The hardest decision is letting go
The hidden meaning in your eyes
Says that it’s all my fault
When you smile and wave
I understand your downfall/failure

Please don’t say you love me
Push me towards sunny days
The warmest times
Have, alas, changed seasons
In the face of my dreams/wishes
I scatter pieces of my heart, covering the ground
Even if it is my pain
I don’t want to be too much of a burden

Please don’t say you love me
Don’t make heartfelt wishes
In the next second, it will appear
The memories you gave
Longing that has been blown by the wind
The attachment that was
Having cried until my eyes became red
Let my heart hurt again for one more day

Private Lessons and Other Classes

So recently I’ve been in talks with another, intermediate-level, Chinese learners group, investigating whether we might merge our groups. On Thursday, we met with a potential teacher for their continuing studies in the fall, and I began to more seriously consider the thought that had occurred to me on Monday, about teaching $language (or $instrument) to small groups of students, more formally (similarly to a piano teacher, getting paid), because the people in our conversation group seem to be primarily those who grew up with Chinese spoken in their households, and then some people with a moderate amount of experience and some with almost none, and the people with almost no experience might benefit from some introductory material, after which they could join the more intermediate group’s lessons.

I’m wondering how much interest there might be in such language/instrument teachers. Certainly there would probably be interest in piano/violin teachers, but I don’t really know how much people might expect to get out of private language instruction, nor how well that would work. Should I join a preexisting educational/tutoring organization and teach classes through an infrastructure that is already set up? Should I consider organizing a group of people experienced in something, and mostly act to pair up interested learners with experienced teachers (while being in the pool of experienced teachers myself)? Should I try to do this as a private instructor, as piano/violin/voice/etc teachers do?

I guess I haven’t really figured out why I want to do this. If it’s purely an interest thing, it might be somewhat fleeting, as with “Learn Asian!” Sure, I taught it for two years, but towards the end of the second instance of the class, I began to realize that I had lost some interest in it. Perhaps I lost interest because people expected things from the class that I wasn’t ready to offer. Perhaps I lost interest because I kept wanting to tie it into cultural observations of the languages, but I didn’t feel like it was really my place to inject my opinions (nor did I really want to express my opinions to a bunch of random people); this last possibility really only occurred to me last night. I’m not sure where I want to take “Learn Asian!” from here. I don’t know if I want to teach it again in an altered form next IAP, or stop teaching it altogether. I’m not sure whether I want to continue teaching or expand my “Introduction To Japanese” class for next IAP, either.

So many questions. Fortunately, there is totally time to figure things out. I would also be interested in hearing from people who might be interested in the IAP class or private lessons what your thoughts might be.

Thoughts on Language Learning (Part 2 of ?)

I was writing an email today, to an alum who is part of a group of Chinese-learners, and it occurred to me that practicing a language conversationally not only helps one keep the phonemes/grammar/vocabulary in shape and readily accessible, it also helps to focus the direction of further acquisition in the language. Back in the day, MIT Medical organized a “cultural language exchange” program: you filled out a form indicating which language(s) you were proficient in and which language(s) you wanted to practice, and they paired you up with someone who was reasonably proficient in the language(s) you wanted to practice. My first pairing was with a native French speaker. As we talked, I realized what sorts of things I liked to talk about, what sorts of things I wanted to say about myself in casual conversation with a new acquaintance, and so on. As I realized what these topics were, I found myself wanting to learn richer vocabulary to talk about them, and thus, where I had been confused and overwhelmed by the vast body of French there was left to learn, I began to develop an idea of the direction for further studies in French (whenever I chose to continue them).

Kyo – “La Vérité Nous Ment” (The Truth Lies To Us) Translation

I was in a terrible state of mind on Thursday, and then I ran across this song, which was amazingly calming and soothing. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what the song was about, so I decided to do a translation. Here goes!

Tu sais le monde a peut-être raison
De ne pas se poser trop de questions
De continuer à vivre
De continuer à croire
Que ce n’était pas à toi de dire la fin de l’histoire

{Refrain:}
Faut pas que tu t’accroches
A ta solitude
Je connais cet endroit, cette habitude
Faut pas que tu t’attendes à décrocher la lune,
La vérité nous ment,
Parfois elle se dénude

C’est vrai ça ressemble à l’amour qui s’en va
Mais derrière lui les traces ne s’effacent pas
Ce qu’il te laisse, tu finieras sûrement
Par l’accepter même, en faisant semblant

{Refrain}

Tu peux mentir ça me servira à rien
Les mensonges en série on n’en voit jamais la fin
Maintenant tu peux contempler le ciel
Et t’avouer que t’as connu plus fidèle

{Refrain}

You know the world has a possible reason
For not asking too many questions
For continuing to live
For continuing to believe
That it wasn’t for you to say the end of the story

{Refrain:}
It’s necessary that you hang on
To your solitude
I know this place, this habit/custom
It’s necessary that you wait to take the moon,
The truth lies to us,
Sometimes she (truth) bares herself

It’s true, it resembles love that leaves
But after her, the traces aren’t erased
That which it leaves for you, you will surely finish
By accepting it all the same, by pretending

{Refrain}

You can lie, that won’t serve me at all
The lies in series, one can never see their end
Now you can gaze at the sky
And confess to yourself that you’ve known, more faithfully

{Refrain}

BoA – “be with you.” Detailed Translation, Part 3

As before, I’ve copied the text of the stanza for this week, both kanji and romanization (ローマ字, rōmaji), from the original post.

09 いつか　ねぇ、交わした約束をちゃんと
10 憶えていますか?
11 いつか　きっと　叶えられる
12 そう信じてもいいよね…
13 あなたとだから　今
14 わたしはここにいる

09 itsuka   nee, kawashita yakusoku wo chanto
10 oboete imasu ka?
11 itsuka   kitto   kanaerareru
12 sou shinjite mo ii yo ne…
13 anata to dakara   ima
14 watashi wa koko ni iru

Line 9: itsuka basically means “someday,” nee is the particle that asks for agreement while suggesting that disagreement would be very unexpected; it also can be used as an interjection of “hey” or “come on,” as it is used here. kawashita is the direct, perfect tense conjugation of the verb kawasu, which means “exchange (messages, greetings, etc),” and as always, the direct-style allows it to modify the noun phrase that follows it, which is yakusoku, or “promise,” here (note that the count of nouns in Japanese is not specified). wo is the indirect object marker, and chanto means something along the lines of perfectly/exactly.

Line 10: oboete imasu is the te-form of oboeru, meaning “remember,” and the distal-style, imperfect aspect form of iru (see footnote #3 of the first post in this series). ka is, of course, the question particle. Over these two lines, then, we have “Someday, hey, will [you] remember, clearly, the promise(s) we exchanged?”

Line 11: We saw itsuka at the beginning of this verse, kitto means “surely,” and kanaerareru is the potential/passive (the two happen to look the same) form of kanaeru, which means “grant (a request, wish, etc).” (The “potential” form is “be able to,” and the “passive” form is, well, passive. For example, the potential form of the verb “protect” would mean “be able to protect,” and the passive form of the verb would mean “protected.”)

Line 12: sou refers to a previously mentioned concept or manner¹. shinjite mo ii is a construction that takes the form of te-form + mo (a particle that roughly means “also”) + ii (”good”), and it asks for permission to do the verb, which is shinjiru (”believe”), here. yo is the sentence-final particle that indicates that an assertion or an introduction of new information into the conversation is being made, and ne is the sentence-final particle that asks for agreement; here ne serves to soften the bluntness of the yo. “Is it okay to feel that way, do you think, probably?”

Line 13: anata is a form of singular, second person address, most commonly used as a term of endearment. to is a connective particle, roughly translatable as “and,” dakara is a combination of the direct-style, imperfect form of the copula and kara, which means “because,” here². ima (we have seen this kanji earlier) means “now.”

Line 14: watashi is the first-person, singular pronoun, wa is either the topic particle or a contrastive particle (emphasizing that it is the noun being referred to, and not some other possible noun). koko is a demonstrative that means “here,” ni is a location particle (see footnote #4 of the second post), and iru is “exist,” for animate nouns only. Thus we have “Because [it's] with you, now, I am here.”

All together, then!

Someday…hey, will you remember, clearly, the promise(s) we exchanged? Someday, I’m sure, [a/my/our] wish will be granted; is it okay to feel that way, do you think, probably? Because [it's] with you, now, I am here.

¹ This is actually rather difficult to explain; if my explanation here made it clear for you, please let me know. My only recommendation, otherwise, is to try to find more uses of it and infer the meaning for yourself.

² kara has a number of usages.

“From” [use after a location]

ボストンから来る。

bosuton kara kuru.

[I] come from Boston.

Ordering (”Then”) [use after the te-form of a verb]

食べてから、図書館に行く。

tabete kara, toshokan ni iku.

After eating, I (will) go to the library.

“Because”

食べたから、食べたくない。

tabeta kara, tabetakunai.

Because [I] ate, [I] don’t want to eat.

Japanese-Learners Homework

It’s been a rough and busy week, and I don’t really have the right mindset nor time to write the next in the “be with you.” translation series. As it is, I am strongly leaning towards writing the translation part of the post for one week and splitting off the footnotes for that post to the following week.

Anyway, what I shall write about instead is the homework for our japanese-learners group. Last week I decided that the group is pretty set on enough grammar and what’s mostly getting in the way of learning more is simply the lack of vocabulary (and other memorized things). The first homework assignment I sent out was to memorize commonly useful conjugations of する and 来る, and to look up the definitions of a list of vocabulary words and memorize them as well (I would’ve provided definitions to people for whom the process of looking up definitions wouldn’t help with the memorization, because I am one of those people).

I came up with this nifty idea yesterday: one of the hardest parts of Japanese is the lack of spaces, so I thought I’d give everyone a block of text in kanji/kana and the corresponding romanization, also in a giant block of text (i.e. no spaces). The task would have two parts: figure out where the morphemic breaks are in the romanization, and figure out how to pronounce the kanji (i.e. match the romanization to the kanji, similarly to how a web publishing/design class was once told to figure out tags for bold and italics by finding the corresponding text in the source markup and looking at what tags enclosed that text). Since not everyone has yet memorized the kana (which y’all should do, ASAP!), I think the first instance of such an assignment would have to be no longer than a few sentences, but I do feel like it would be a useful exercise.

Anyone have comments on this idea, or more ideas for homework assignments besides just memorizing vocabulary lists? I would probably combine the above exercise with the task of looking up the 生字 (shēng​zì​, literally something like “fresh words,” i.e. words you’re seeing for the first time) in the text, which would be one way of making vocabulary-learning more interesting, but more innovative ideas are always good to have!

BoA – “be with you.” Detailed Translation, Part 2

And this week, we’re on to the second stanza! For quick reference, I’ve copied the second stanza, both kanji and romanization (ローマ字, rōmaji), from the original post.

05 一歩ずつ　重ねては
06 今日と云う日が　明日に変わる
07 ふたりでいる時間が
08 わたしには　あたりまえなの

05 ippozutsu   kasanete wa
06 kyou to yuu hi ga   ashita ni kawaru
07 futari de iru jikan ga
08 watashi ni wa   atarimae na no

Line 5: ippo is composed of the kanji meaning “one” and “step,” respectively, and zutsu roughly translates to “each,” so we have here “each step,” more or less. kasanete is the te-form of the verb kasaneru, which means “pile up” or “repeat” — one of the meanings of the original Chinese characters is “repeat” (the other is “heavy”/”serious”) — so I might translate this line as “the repeating of each step” plus a topic marker¹.

Line 6: kyou is composed of the kanji meaning “now”/”this” and “day”/”sun,” so kyou means, of course, “today.” The next word, to, is a particle that functions as a verbal quotation mark (with which って — tte — can be used interchangeably), so in conjunction with the following verb yuu, which means “say” (and can also be written using the characters 言う and/or pronounced iu), to yuu refers to kyou as what is being quoted/called. (Yes, I know that didn’t quite make sense. Bear with me and keep reading.) Because yuu is the direct (a.k.a. dictionary) form of the verb (which implies that it is direct-style² and imperfect/unfinished³), it can modify the noun phrase that follows, which it does here. The noun phrase that follows kyou to yuu is hi, which is the same kanji as the second one in kyou and which I already stated means “day”/”sun.” Thus, the noun phrase kyou to yuu hi means “the day called ‘today.’”

Line 6 (continued): The ga that follows that noun phrase is a subject marker, which means that it is the subject that is carrying out the action of the verb that follows. Ashita, which is made from the kanji meaning “next” or “bright” — here it means “next” — and the kanji for “day”/”sun,” means “tomorrow.” Ni is a direction/destination particle here⁴, so, armed with the knowledge that the verb kawaru means “change” gives us the meaning of this line: “The day called ‘today’ changes into tomorrow.”

Line 7: Futari is normally written using the kanji “二人,” which mean “two” and “person,” respectively. Here, de is the te-form of the copula⁵, iru is the dictionary form of “to be” for animate objects (as opposed to aru, which is “to be” or “to have” for inanimate objects), and again, because it is the direct form, it modifies the noun phrase that follows, which, here, is jikan, meaning “time” as a period of time. This gets us “the time during which we were two people” or “the time during which we were a pair, together.” Finally, the line ends with the subject marker ga.

Line 8: Watashi is the first-person singular pronoun, ni is an indirect object particle here⁴, and wa is a contrastive particle that expresses that “to me” (the preceding phrase) might contrast with “to you,” for example. Atarimae is best translated as “natural” or “ordinary,” na is a pre-nominal form⁶ of the direct, imperfect form of the copula (da), and no is a nominalizer, i.e. a word that might be translated as “one” (e.g. “the black one,” “a pointy one,” “a heavy one,” etc). Thus, I might translate this line as “to me, at least, it was a natural one (period of time).”

So, to sum up this stanza:

Even as these footsteps repeat one by one, the day called “today” changes into tomorrow. The time when we were together was, to me, at least, a natural one.”

¹ Topic markers! Topic markers are a wonderful thing, if you know how to use them correctly. Japanese is what linguists call a pro-drop language, which mostly means, to the general public, that there is not always an explicit subject in each and every sentence. It is perfectly acceptable to say “ate already” in the middle of an ongoing conversation, and it could mean “he ate already,” “I ate already,” etc. The reason for this is because each conversation has an accepted topic, which is generally marked by the topic particle, and the sentences/verbs in that conversation refer to that topic, which can range from “that new restaurant that opened down the street” to “my parents” to “the terrible-looking new hairdo the weird girl in our linguistics class has,” etc.

² Japanese has two different styles called direct/blunt and indirect/distal. Basically, distal verbs used at the ends of sentences are more polite because they are indirect, or less confrontational. It is important to note that not all appearances of direct verbs means that the overall style of the sentence is direct; direct expressions can be used in a variety of ways, including modifying the noun phrase that directs follows it (as we have seen in this post), and only the style of the final clause of the sentence is used to determine the sentence’s overall style.

³ Similarly to other East Asian languages, Japanese does not have a complicated system of tenses for time in the same way that, for example, romance languages do. (Romance languages usually come with a past tense, an imperfect tense, a present tense, a future tense, and then some.) What Japanese has, instead, is a tense that indicates completion (the “perfect” tense/aspect) and a tense that indicates incompleteness (the “imperfect tense/aspect”). For example, if I have finished doing something, I would use the perfect tense, but if I am currently/planning to do it, I would use the imperfect aspect.

⁴ There are a number of different uses of ni. It can be used to mark a location, a destination/direction, an indirect object, a passive agent, or a purpose.

Location

大学にいる。

daigaku ni iru.

[I] am at college/university.

Destination/direction

図書館に行く。

toshokan ni iku.

[I] (will) go to the library.

Indirect object

教授にくれた。

kyouju ni kureta.

[I] gave [something] to the professor.

Passive agent

蚊にさされた。

ka ni sasareta.

[I] was bitten by a mosquito.

Purpose

よくなりに練習する。

yoku nari ni renshuu suru.

In order to become better, [I] practice.

⁵ Copulas are helping/passive/linking verbs that connect a subject to a predicate. “To be” is an English example of a copula. A good way to distinguish between an action verb and a copula is to try replacing the verb with the appropriate form of “seems”; for example, “jump” in the sentence “John jumps into a ditch” is an action verb, while “look” in the sentence “John looks enthusiastic about this project” is used as a copula. Common forms of the copula that are useful to know follow:

• da – direct-style, imperfect aspect
• desu – distal-style, imperfect aspect
• datta – direct-style, perfect tense
• deshita – distal-style, perfect tense
• darou – direct-style, volitional mood (roughly translated as “it’s probably … “)
• deshou – distal-style, volitional mood
• de – te-form
• (see footnote #6 about pre-nominal forms)

⁶ There are two pre-nominal forms of the copula in Japanese: na and no. Which of the two forms is used is determined by the noun phrase that precedes it: a subset of nominals (a term I use to refer to a grammatical class of words that are conjugated in a particular way, as opposed to verbals and adjectivals) that usually correlate with words that English-speakers use as adjectives are known as na-nominals. These pre-nominal forms are used to connect two noun phrases, such as “I” and “book” in watashi no hon, which means “my book,” or “beautiful” and “flower” in kirei na hana, which means “[a/the] beautiful flower.” (More on the other usages of no to come….)

BoA – “be with you.” Detailed Translation, Part 1

So I kind of feel like me just doing translations is kind of boring, both for me and for you. Sure, I spend a good amount of time per translation, but it’s hard to let the reader into the process without dumping vast amounts of time into it. Thus, I have decided to focus on a smaller portion of a song and explain the translation process as thoroughly as I can for each installment of this “detailed translation.” Hopefully it will aid people somewhat more in their Japanese-learning process than plain ol’ translations do. Here begins part one.

First off, I found the lyrics for this song online, and then transcribed a romanized version using the Hepburn romanization system. I preserved the spacing, and capitalized the romanization where katakana is used in the lyrics. The spaces between “words”¹ are my own, to increase readability, and I have romanized the topic particle (は), the subject particle (が), and the direct object particle (を) as wa, ga, and wo, respectively. I also added line numbers to make future references to various lines easier. Inline romanizations of Japanese words are italicized.

01 さくら舞う　この道を
02 あなたと並び　歩いている
03 風はまだ肌寒い
04 けどなんかシ・ア・ワ・セ

05 一歩ずつ　重ねては
06 今日と云う日が　明日に変わる
07 ふたりでいる時間が
08 わたしには　あたりまえなの

09 いつか　ねぇ、交わした約束をちゃんと
10 憶えていますか?
11 いつか　きっと　叶えられる
12 そう信じてもいいよね…
13 あなたとだから　今
14 わたしはここにいる

15 足を止め　立ち止まり
16 あなたは空を　あおいでいる
17 風に包まれながら
18 穏やかな表情で…

19 一秒って　ほんとうは
20 とっても長い　時間なんだと
21 そばにいてくれるから
22 そう感じられるの　きっと

23 いつか　ねぇ、交わした約束をちゃんと
24 憶えていますか?
25 いまは　まだ　叶えられて
26 いない約束さえ
27 大切なの　だから
28 あなたと共にいる

29 この時代　思いどおりの
30 希望なんて持てない
31 そのたびに　不安になるけど
32 あなたがいてくれるから…

33 いつか　ねぇ、交わした約束をちゃんと
34 憶えていますか?
35 いつか　きっと　果たせたとき
36 もっと深い絆
37 手に出来るの　だから
38 ふたりはここにいる

01 sakura mau   kono michi wo
02 anata to narabi   aruite iru
03 kaze wa mada hadasamui
04 kedo nanka SHIAWASE

05 ippozutsu   kasanete wa
06 kyou to yuu hi ga   ashita ni kawaru
07 futari de iru jikan ga
08 watashi ni wa   atarimae na no

09 itsuka   nee, kawashita yakusoku wo chanto
10 oboete imasu ka?
11 itsuka   kitto   kanaerareru
12 sou shinjite mo ii yo ne…
13 anata to dakara   ima
14 watashi wa koko ni iru

15 ashi wo tome   tachidomari
16 anata wa sora wo   aoi de iru
17 kaze ni tsutsumare nagara
18 odayakana hyoujyou de…

19 ichibyou tte   hontou wa
20 tottemo nagai   jikan nan da to
21 soba ni ite kureru kara
22 sou kanjirareru no   kitto

23 itsuka   nee, kawashita yakusoku wo chanto
24 oboete imasu ka?
25 ima wa   mada   kanaerarete
26 inai yakusoku sae
27 taisetsu na no    dakara
28 anata to tomo ni iru

29 kono jidai   omoi doori no
30 kibou nante motte nai
31 sono tabi ni   fuan ni naru kedo
32 anata ga ite kureru kara…

33 itsuka   nee, kawashita yakusoku wo chanto
34 oboete imasu ka?
35 itsuka   kitto   hataseta toki
36 motto fukai kizuna
37 te ni dekiru no   dakara
38 futari wa koko ni iru

And with that, we’re on to the actual translation!

Line 1: sakura can mean a number of things, but here it likely refers to cherry blossoms. Mau is a verb that perhaps desires to be translated as “dance” or “flutter” in this context, so sakura mau is a sentence saying that the sakura blossoms are fluttering/dancing (in the air). Kono is a demonstrative that refers to “this $noun” (which is necessarily closer to the speaker than the addressee, as opposed to “that” that is closer to the addressed party than the speaker — sono — or “that over there” that is not particularly close to either party involved in the exchange — ano), and the $noun is not implied here; kono (as well as sono and ano) must be followed by $noun. The noun that follows kono here is michi,² which refers to a path, a street, etc. Finally, wo is the direct object marker, so here it indicates that “this street/road/path” is the direct object of whatever verb follows.

Line 2: anata is a term of address for the second person, although most Japanese speakers and dictionaries will also add the information that it is most commonly used as an affectionate term of address between spouses, especially from the wife addressing the husband. to is perhaps best translated as “and”, and narabi is a noun that means “line” or “row.” aruite is the te-form³ of aruku (歩く), meaning “walk,” and combined with the imperfect (uncompleted) form of the verb iru, meaning “be,” aruite iru means that the subject of the verb is currently walking (or plans to be in a state of “walking” in the future³). Thus, kono michi wo anata to narabi aruite iru is best translated as “[I] walk in line with you on this path” (the “I” is implied).

Line 3: kaze means “wind,” wa is the particle that marks the topic of the sentence, mada means “still,” and hadasamui is an adjective that can be translated as “chilly” or “unpleasantly cold.” Basically, “the wind is still unpleasantly cold/chilly.”

Line 4: kedo is best translated as “but” or “however,” nanka is an expression that might be translated as “something like,” and shiawase means “happiness.” I should note that here, shiawase is written in katakana, which gives the word some special emphasis, since it would normally be written using a combination of kanji (漢字, literally “Chinese character”) and hiragana (平仮名, one of the Japanese syllabaries). Hence, interpreting this with the previous line, we get something like “the wind is cold, but somehow [we have] happiness.”

Thus, we have our translation of the first stanza:

The sakura blossoms flutter; I walk in line with you on this path. The wind is still cold, but somehow we have happiness.

¹ Japanese, like Korean, is an agglutinative language, which means that most words are formed by joining morphemes together, and thus it is not always clear where words begin and end; by some metrics, most sentences are composed of only a few words, but these sentences can also be said to contain a multitude of morphemes that can be broken apart, analyzed separately, and combined in other ways to create other meanings. Thus, in some places I have broken the morphemes apart as much as I can in order to explain them separately in the future, while in other places I have left the words alone and will explain the entire word in a giant chunk because it’s not necessarily useful to understand the parts of the word out of context.

² Michi (道) is not to be confused with machi (町/街). The kanji for michi refers to a path, a way (think “The Dao”, as in Daoism — or “The Tao”, as in Taoism, depending on your romanization system), while the first possible (and preferred) kanji for machi refers to a raised path between fields and the second possible kanji for machi refers to a street. In Japanese usage, however, while machi can also be used to refer to a street, it is more commonly used to indicate a town.

³ The te-form of a verb is sometimes called the gerund form, even though this is not entirely accurate. For now, let’s just say that one usage is to follow the te-form with another verb to indicate that the second verb follows the first (kind of — tabete kuru, the te-form of taberu (”eat”) combined with kuru (imperfect form of “come”), is roughly translated as “I will eat and come,” where the act of “eating” occurs before or during the act of “coming” but is definitely finished before one’s arrival at the intended destination). When the te-form is followed by iru, the imperfect form of “be”/”exist” (for animate objects only), it is intended that the subject is currently performing the first verb (e.g. tabete iru can be thought of as “currently in the act of eating”); it is also possible for the intended meaning to be that the subject is planning to be in the state of performing the first verb in the future — the imperfect tense is not always terribly specific, and context is often helpful in determining meaning.