F.I.R. – “我们的爱” (Our Love) & “把爱放开” (Let Go Of Love) Translations

This first song is one of the most painful I’ve ever come across, and I was surprised that it hadn’t made it onto this blog yet. But I’ve just remembered that I had done the translations for both of these songs on my old website (which doesn’t exist on the web anymore), so while Iron-Blogger was going on, it felt like cheating. But it really should be on the interwebs, and Iron-Blogger has concluded its run, so here you are.

The first song is “我们的爱” by F.I.R.; the title is translated as “Our Love.” The italicized parts in the lyrics/translation below either appear on the screen or are spoken by either the male or female lead, if indicated, in the music video (which you can find on youtube, though they don’t appear to have an official channel, so I’ll not link to a particular upload instance).

末日将至
我们天真的以为
只要在一起 什么都不怕

回忆里想起模糊的小时候
云朵漂浮在蓝蓝的天空
那时的你说要和我手牵手
一起走到时间的尽头

从此以后我都不敢抬头看
仿佛我的天空失去了颜色
从那一天起我忘记了呼吸
男：你不怕吗？
女：跟你在一起我什么都不怕
眼泪呵永远不再
不再哭泣

我们的爱过了就不再回来
直到现在我还默默地等待
我们的爱 我明白 已变成你的负担
只是永远我都放不开最后的温暖
男：不怕
走啊
快！快！
你给的温暖

女：是谁
能让你付出生命的全部
不管明天
终点在哪里
我们不知道
只要飞向时间的尽头
天空就蓝的好像不会变黑

从此以后我都不敢抬头看
仿佛我的天空失去了颜色
从那一天起我忘记了呼吸
眼泪呵永远不再
男：生日快乐
不再哭泣

我们的爱过了就不再回来
直到现在我还默默地等待
我们的爱 我明白 已变成你的负担
只是永远我都放不开最后的温暖
你给的温暖

不要再问你是否爱我
现在我想要自由天空
远离开这被捆绑的世界
不再寂寞 喔

我们的爱过了就不再回来
直到现在我还默默地等待
我们的爱 我明白 已变成你的负担
只是永远我都放不开最后的温暖
你给的温暖

还是要在一起
即使全世界与我们为敌

We’ve arrived at the last day
We naively believed
As long as we’re together there’s nothing to fear

In blurry memories of my childhood
Clouds drift in the blue sky
The you of that time said that you wanted to, hand in hand,
Walk together to the end of time

After that time I had not the courage to raise my head
As if my sky had lost its color
From that day forth, I forgot to breathe
Male: You’re not afraid?
Female: With you, I’m not afraid of anything
My tears, oh, will never again
Will never again fall

Our love, having gone, will never return
All the way until now, I’ve still been waiting silently
Our love, I understand, has become your burden
It’s just that I will never be able to let go of the last bit of warmth
Male: Don’t be afraid
Go!
Quickly! Quickly!
The warmth you gave

Female: Who is it
That can make me give all of my life
Without caring about tomorrow
Where our destination is
We don’t know
As long as we fly towards the end of time
The sky is blue, just as if it will never turn black

After that time I had not the courage to raise my head
As if my sky had lost its color
From that day forth, I forgot to breathe
My tears, oh, will never again
Male: Happy birthday
Will never again fall

Our love, having gone, will never return
All the way until now, I’ve still been waiting silently
Our love, I understand, has become your burden
It’s just that I will never be able to let go of the last bit of warmth
The warmth you gave

I don’t want to ask you again whether or not you love me
Now I just want a sky of freedom
Leaving far behind this bound world
To never be lonely again, oh

Our love, having gone, will never return
All the way until now, I’ve still been waiting silently
Our love, I understand, has become your burden
It’s just that I will never be able to let go of the last bit of warmth
The warmth you gave

We still have to be together
Even if the world opposes us

The next song is a sort of sequel, as it appeared on F.I.R.’s subsequent album and sampled the original song. It’s called “把爱放开,” which means “Let Go Of Love.”

男：看到她的崩溃无助
惊觉这是一场错误
还是试炼
我们终究没有回头
我第一次感到害怕
关于毁灭一个人

如果还能双手紧握
我只给自己一次后悔的机会
而我们 谁也没有回头

当你开始追寻你要的自由
放开我们紧握的手
带走我的爱和天空
我不知所措
我以为我会董
我们的爱 我们的爱

当我独自走到时间的尽头
回忆和我擦身而过
带走你的爱和笑容
我无力承受
最后的一点心痛
我们的爱 我们的爱

把爱放开 把手放开
如果你的心已不在
把爱放开 不再等待
你的温柔是一片空白

把爱放开 把心打开
这次我决定走出回忆重来
就让我彻底的伤再彻底的醒过来
就让我彻底的伤再彻底的醒过来

女：这是我们第一次知道
什么叫通彻心扉
我的世界没有罪恶
他的世界没有誓言
我在他的眼神中
看到另一个世界

当我独自走到时间的尽头
回忆和我擦身而过
带走你的爱和笑容
我无力承受
最后的一点心痛
我们的爱 我们的爱

把爱放开 把手放开
如果你的心已不在
把爱放开 不再等待
你的温柔是一片空白

把爱放开 把心打开
这次我决定走出回忆重来
就让我彻底的伤再彻底的醒过来

终于明白爱已不再
从今以后再也没有什么能去依赖
我还有什么期待

把爱放开 把手放开
如果你的心已不在
把爱放开 不再等待
你的温柔是一片空白

把爱放开 把心打开
这次我决定走出所有回忆重来
就让我彻底的伤再彻底的醒过来
就让我彻底的伤再彻底的醒过来

Male: Helplessly seeing her falling apart
I fear this is a mistake
Or is it a failed try?
We eventually won’t have times-to-come
For the first time, I feel fearful
About destroying a person

If we can still hold our two hands tightly
I will only give myself one opportunity to regret
And we…no one looked back

When you started to pursue the freedom you wanted
Letting go of our tightly held hands
Taking away my love and sky
I didn’t know where the wrong was
I thought I would understand
Our love, our love

When I walked to the end of time alone
Memories brushed against me and passed me
Taking away your love and smile
I don’t have the strength to bear
The last bit of heartache
Our love, our love

Let go of love, release it from your hands
If your heart is already gone
Let go of love, don’t wait any longer
Your gentleness is so emotionless

Let go of love, open your heart
This time I’ve decided to walk out of my memories once again
Just let my complete pain wake completely again
Just let my complete pain wake completely again

Female: This is the first time we understood
What it means to completely understand one’s soul
My world didn’t have crime
His world didn’t have promises
In his eyes, I
Saw another world

When I walked to the end of time alone
Memories brushed against me and passed me
Taking away your love and smile
I don’t have the strength to bear
The last bit of heartache
Our love, our love

Let go of love, release it from your hands
If your heart is already gone
Let go of love, don’t wait any longer
Your gentleness is so emotionless

Let go of love, open your heart
This time I’ve decided to walk out of my memories once again
Just let my complete pain wake completely again

I finally realized love will never be again
From now on, there will never again be anything dependable
What more do I have to look forward to

Let go of love, release it from your hands
If your heart is already gone
Let go of love, don’t wait any longer
Your gentleness is so emotionless

Let go of love, open your heart
This time I’ve decided to walk out of all my memories once again
Just let my complete pain wake completely again
Just let my complete pain wake completely again

“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.

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…