Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - 'BLUE BIRD' romaji and translation
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Old 5th June 2006, 09:29 PM
masa masa is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Tokyo
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Basically I try to convey the original Japanese meanings and nuances to English translations as loyally as possible. I think Ayumi is the best lyricist in the field of J pop. Her lyrics in general are very poetic and beautiful in Japanese. So I think it's natural that the translations become poetic and beautiful, too, and that they should be so.

1. "murmur" or "mutter" -- I don't know the clear difference of these two words. But looking up the dictionary, I found "mutter" is often used to tell complaints. So I took "murmur".

2. "dazzling" or "bright" -- I took "dazzling" because I thought "mabushii" corresponds to "dazzling", while "akarui" corresponds to "bright". But I didn't hit upon the idea of using "----" then, and there seems to be a room for improvement.

3. "the tears welling up in my eyes" or "my teary-eyes" -- "Urunde (i)ku" is the progressive form expressing the change. So I took "welling up". I think "urunda hitomi" corresponds to "my teary-eyes". But this line might be OK without "in my eyes". (I'm not quite sure.)

So how about this?

I murmured, "The sun is dazzling"
And camouflaged the tears welling up

I'd like to hear the opinions of English-speaking people on this part.

Last edited by masa; 6th June 2006 at 10:54 AM.
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