Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - Translation doubt
View Single Post
  #9  
Old 21st October 2010, 07:14 AM
Calico's Avatar
Calico Calico is offline
Startin' Protector

 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 6,357
I honestly don't think they're that different. I mean, yes, they are, but to me the basically convey the same message. It's hard to translate Japanese into English because Japanese isn't as pronoun heavy as English is. Unless the grammar/vocab is as simple and straight forward as possible, no two translations are going to be overly similar. When I translated a couple Ayu songs for class recently, I used masa's as a reference but they are not the same...but I would say they convey the same meaning.

Some translators are literal. Some are more symbolic. Some are just looking for the exact message (as much as possible) to be brought across. Some are concerned with making the lyrics singable as a cover, which can cause meaning changes. as translators we pretty much have to decide which route we want to take and try to be consistent. (I personally translate "literally" without much regard for syllable matching.)
Reply With Quote