Comments | akitochiaki: Because I'm an idiot

akitochiaki

Because I'm an idiot

Feb 26, 2010 15:54

... I don't know Japanese, apart from the most basic of things.
So why the hell am I trying to translate a Japanese song in English? XD

My instruments are improvisation, Google Translator (although it's not been very useful >_>), and the lovely www.nihongoresources.com.

This is the song.

Click to view

... And this is the first stanza(?). No, it doesn't make ( Read more... )

wtf, i is for idiot

Comments 3

quickjam February 28 2010, 17:43:48 UTC

Good translation! =D Particularly for a person who "doesn't know Japanese". I couldn't do much better myself, then again.. I am also a beginner. So~ Anyways, here's what I thought (after I pulled the lyrics from some website):

"On moonless night like this, I go crazy before it's late at night,
I needlessly stir up this time that will never come again".

月の無いこんな夜は (Tsuki no nai konna yoru wa)
騒ぎ出す、夜更け前 (sawagidasu, yofuke mae)
またとないこのときを (matatonai kono toki wo)
いたずらにかき回す (itazura ni kakimawasu)

Sawagidasu = start to make noise/a racket or (runing around and) going berserk.

I had actually never heard of "kakimawasu" outside of the context of stirring tea or.. rummaging through clothes or something like that, ha ha. Oh and for 'toki' I perhaps think saying "moment" instead of "time" for the translation would've been better, or even "moment in time". These things don't have to be direct so long as they protray the same meaning, right? =)

akitochiaki February 28 2010, 19:45:10 UTC

Yes. This was just the first draft of the translation, I would have thought up better expressions at the end... Thank you for the suggestions!

I... Well, I study languages so I'm used to trying to understand foreign grammar but I don't think that's it. Just, I love Japan and tried to learn what I could on my own... But it's very little... It took me the whole afternoon just to translate those four lines XD

I managed to do the next part, but... I'm not too sure it means something XD

I cross the fence, as moving first leads to victory*
I'm a laughing idiot on a rooftop
I leave a shadow in the graffiti
I escaped the consequences(???), alright!

*"moving first leads to victory" is apparently a proverb, in Nihongo Resources' opinion, so I left it like that.
The last verse I couldn't understand at all, so I improvised from the meanings of the kanji XDDD

(柵を超え、先手必勝
屋上でバカ笑い
ラクガキに残す影
逃げ切れば結果オーライ <- the original)

BTW... I have an horrible memory. How did you get to this journal? Do I maybe know you...?

quickjam February 28 2010, 20:19:19 UTC

No problem! I am so bad at studying languages, but I think it's admirable of you and others. -_- I used to stay behind after French lessons I had in school and ask the teachers many things about the language, they'd teach me quite a bit but, alas! I did not pass all of my French exams and thus failed. Ha ha ( ... )