Translation - General Progress

At the suggestion of the good ol' Luu Sky Sapphire, I decided to make a thread about the various translations I'm doing and my progress on them all as I go along. I'm translating stuff from other fandoms (namely, Ga-Rei -Zero- and Haruhi Suzumiya franchise), so updates won't be too frequent (especially during conference season for work and exam season for university), but I'm going to try my best to update this as I make progress. Hopefully, this will keep me focused...

This post will be a master post with links to the individual translations and sharing rough percentages on how far I'm along with each thing. My biases will be pretty obvious in the "character song" section, and, well. I don't have very good listening comprehension for various reasons, so drama CDs will take way longer.

So, without further ado, here's my progress so far. 〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

Mai-HiME

Character Songs
Tokiha Mai - Happiness [0%]
Sugiura Midori - Susume! Gakuten-Ou [0%]
Yuuki Nao - Innocent
Minagi Mikoto - Pokapoka Pekopeko [0%]
Higurashi Akane - Soyokaze no Diary [0%]
Munakata Shiho - Love Rocket Pilot [0%]
Kuga Natsuki - Kirei na Yume no Sono Hate ni

Suzushiro Haruka & Kikukawa Yukino - Bokutachi no Yuuki [0%]
Miyu Greer - Angel's Dew [0%]
Harada Chie & Senou Aoi - Houkago Hide & Seek [0%]
Okuzaki Akira - Kurenai no Ninpuu Rekkaden [0%]
Sanada Yukariko - Ashita no Anata [20%] (Finished writing up Japanese.)
Fujino Shizuru - Katakoi Enka
Fumi Himeno & Kazahana Mashiro - Rasen Teien [20%] (Finished writing up Japanese.)

Drama CDs
tba

Art Book
Episode Summary [30%]

Mai-Otome

Character Songs
Nina Wang - storm

tba

Mai-HiME★Destiny

Ryuu no Miko - Prison Cast [15%]
Character Biographies [15%] (Read through - made notes.)
Chapter 01 [65%] (Refining in progress.)
Chapter 02 [20%] (Read through - need to translate.)
Chapter 03 [10%] (Read through - made notes.)
Chapter 04 [10%] (Read through - made notes.)
Chapter 05 [5%] (Read through.)
Chapter 06 [0%]
Afterword [0%]

Mai-HiME: Unmei no Keitouju

tba

Mai-HiME

Yuuki Nao - Innocent
Kuga Natsuki - Kirei na Yume no Sono Hate ni
Fujino Shizuru - Katakoi Enka

Mai-Otome

Nina Wang - storm

Nice, nice, NICE!

Been pulling many all-nighters by any chance?

Break String SpinElf wrote:Nice, nice, NICE!

Been pulling many all-nighters by any chance?

You got that right! (＋﹏＋。);;;  So many shifts, so little time... But, working on these translations is a huge amount of fun, when I can get to making progress on it. Reading light novels is a great way to realise how little kanji you know, hehe... (#ˇ⊆ˇ#)>

Also, I'm unsure of how to format these posts. Links to external sites, maybe? The word counts might get too long, otherwise.

Akamanto wrote:You got that right! (＋﹏＋。);;;  So many shifts, so little time... But, working on these translations is a huge amount of fun, when I can get to making progress on it. Reading light novels is a great way to realise how little kanji you know, hehe... (#ˇ⊆ˇ#)>

Well, I must say it's very much appreciated.

Plus, I'll bet it's a good exercise to increase your fluency in Japanese (for which I hold you in awe).

Akamanto wrote:Also, I'm unsure of how to format these posts. Links to external sites, maybe? The word counts might get too long, otherwise.

If Luu's okay with it and you have a site where you post them, I'm sure that'd work, especially with regards to the longer pieces (I notice you're translating chapters of Destiny, so that's plenty of text...).

Break String SpinElf wrote:Well, I must say it's very much appreciated.

Plus, I'll bet it's a good exercise to increase your fluency in Japanese (for which I hold you in awe).

You should see how often I have to consult my dictionary for some of this before you say you're in awe, haha! （⌒▽⌒)ゞ I remember when I first started reading, I'd never heard the word エゾヤマザクラ before, and it turns out it's a specific species of cherry blossom.

Break String SpinElf wrote:If Luu's okay with it and you have a site where you post them, I'm sure that'd work, especially with regards to the longer pieces (I notice you're translating chapters of Destiny, so that's plenty of text...).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. ʅฺ(⊡⊆⊡)ʃฺ The Destiny chapters are quite long, so if I want to include the Japanese, it's going to have to be an external link, either to a website or a download of a word file or something. Even the song lyrics might get a bit long...

Well, I'll see what Luu says! I'm not used to sharing this stuff with people other than friends.

Akamanto wrote:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. ʅฺ(⊡⊆⊡)ʃฺ The Destiny chapters are quite long, so if I want to include the Japanese, it's going to have to be an external link, either to a website or a download of a word file or something. Even the song lyrics might get a bit long...

Well, I'll see what Luu says! I'm not used to sharing this stuff with people other than friends.

This is a great set up for your on-going progress, Akamanto! You're 100% allowed to post external links, and anything else you'll need. I only have one question, which is completely up to you. Would you like to work on this project privately? If so, this thread will be moved to the Rorschach Bar section. This is assuming you want to only share progress with us, until you're ready to share publicly. Or would you like to keep this thread as is? Members and guests will have access to your progress on Mai-HiME Destiny.

Whatever you feel more comfortable with is the best decision.

Luu Sky Sapphire wrote:This is a great set up for your on-going progress, Akamanto! You're 100% allowed to post external links, and anything else you'll need.

In that case, I'll see if I can upload them to my MEGA account in .pdf form, since that might be easier to read, and less word count-intensive. Will do that tonight, as well as do some rewording of the first "section" of Destiny's first chapter. ε=ε=(ง ˃ᗨ˂)۶

Luu Sky Sapphire wrote:Or would you like to keep this thread as is? Members and guests will have access to your progress on Mai-HiME Destiny.

Oh, I don't mind it being here! It was more of an explanation about why I'm not sure on procedure. I know some sites prefer all content to be hosted on their site, so I wanted to make sure before posting external links. (☆ω☆) Now that I know it's okay, I'll edit my posts.

Small preview of Destiny:

Translating prose is a little new to me, so I'm agonising over it a little, but, hey, a challenge can be fun! (｡◕‿◕｡)

Posted Natsuki's character song here!

This one had a really tricky two lines in it (namely, 「戸惑うほどにあなたの背中・少年の切なさ」), so I'll explain my thought process a little. The first line is pretty straight-forward, meaning roughly "how much confusion can you carry on your back", but the second line is literally translated as "the heartbreak of a little boy".

I don't know if it's some kind of idiomatic expression I'm just not aware of, but I took a guess based on the rest of the verse (and the song in general) being about Shizuru trying to carry all her burdens herself and Natsuki wanting her to share them with her, and eventually decided to translate it the way I have.

My logic was that Natsuki was comparing Shizuru to a young boy trying to bear the weight of the world on his back and collapsing under its weight. I'm not sure if this is accurate or not. All I can do is hope (until someone corrects me!).

Boy, am I looking forward to Christmas... I want to do some more of this. Where's my free time gone? (๑-﹏-๑)

Edit: A lot of the lines seem to be hinting towards Natsuki singing this from just before she goes off to fight Shizuru. The song mentions using the power of her star and the moon behind it, and the final line, literally translated, means: "For the sake of meeting in a new life". I wasn't sure how to square that with the present/future tense used in the rest of the song, so I translated it as I did, but I wanted to add a little bit of clarification about the intent of that last paragraph.

Posted Shizuru's character song here!

While I'm still slowly cleaning up the first Destiny chapter, I absolutely had to get Shizuru's song out of the way. There's a lot of Kyouto-ben in here, which was a pain, but the biggest challenge was to capture the poetic language in the original, as well as to navigate the awkward lack of obvious subjects/objects.

Two lines which I found particuarly difficult were: 「こんどこそ逃がさない・この身が消えても逃がさない」. In the interest of transparency, the literal translation follows:
こんど = this time
こそ = emphatic
逃がさない = will not escape

この身 = this body
消えて = to vanish
逃がさない = will not escape

There's no definite subject/object here, and so it's perfectly plausible for this to refer to Natsuki and Shizuru not letting her escape. However, the lack of subject/object and the theme of the song overall leads me to believe that the subject should be clearly inferred, and the previous line refers to "irrepressible thoughts"「想いはとまらない」 which are burning out of Shizuru's control, and this leads me to also believe these same irrepressible thoughts are what she can no longer escape.

It also needs mentioning that these lines seem clear in intent to contrast:
「胸を焦がして追いかけた・あやかしみたいに追いかけた」"I chase you as if my heart were scorched/I chase you as if I were a demon"
「こんどこそ逃がさない・この身が消えても逃がさない」"This time, I can no longer escape/Even should this body vanish, still, I cannot escape"

I'm not sure what the intended contrast is. Could be that I'm supposed to read this as being about Natsuki in the same way the first lines appear to be, or that the first lines aren't about Natsuki at all, or to highlight that Shizuru also feels trapped by something in the same way she feels she's trapping Natsuki. Alternatively, that the strength of her feelings may be consuming her, and this is why her heart is scorched.

There's also this line, at the start: 「涙ぐんだらあかん？」. She's asking if it's truly awful to be "moved to tears", and there were two alternative ways to take this:
a) Shizuru is asking if it's alright to feel so happy that she's close to Natsuki, moved to tears in a positive way by her love, and is expressing doubt that said love is pure enough to be so moved OR that she shouldn't be taking pleasure in the fact that she's close to Natsuki when the situation which prompted it is Natsuki's suffering.
b) Shizuru is asking if it's alright to dwell on the unrequited nature of her love, and she's wondering if it would be predatory of her to feel upset that she could never hope for more out of their friendship (if only she knew!).
When I checked citations for situations in which 「涙ぐむ」 is usually used, I found that it was mostly negative, although there were situations in which people were "moved to tears" by an achievement or by praise, and therefore I thought it warranted a note.

Additionally, the Kokinshuu she refers to in the song is a collection of poetry from the 10th century (with the poem in question being no.544), and, as it doesn't seem to be as popular as the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, I couldn't find a translation for it that wasn't in a book that cost ~£40 or more. I did take a crack at translating it myself (with the help of these sites), but if anyone has a source for an alternate translation, I'd love to see it.

Back to Destiny!

(Also, let me know if the translation notes are unnecessary... I kinda feel like I need to share my thought process on awkward lines so that people can make up their own minds.)

Edit: Also, the reading for the title is given as "Katakoi Enka", or "Traditional Ballad of Unrequited Love", but the kanji it's written with mean "blooming flowers". Unsure how to translate that into the English title.

Posted the director and writer commentary for episode 22 here! Given the rewatch soon, I'm gonna try and get some random commentaries from the art book done first, before I move onto anything else (although, God knows if I'll manage it, hehe).

Trying out a new format. I wanted a way for people to comment on my non-HiME translations, so I decided to use Dreamwidth so they could shout at me for being wrong about a Kalafina song or something. I also wanted to add footnotes to the translations themselves, so people don't have to open up multiple windows/tabs in order to read them or to understand what I'm referring to.

Kinda want to make my translations more professional and user-friendly, so people can engage with them and get a better grip with the essence of the source material, y'know? If anybody has a strong preference either way, let me know. I'm mostly sharing these for y'alls benefit, after all. ( ◜◒◝ )♡

After a very busy end of year (and a diversion of hyperfixation into Final Fantasy XIV...), I've gone through my Mai-HiME translations to update them in preparation for starting some of the other songs in 2019, and hopefully making even more progress towards Destiny. I'm seriously not giving up, even if it takes me ages. Some of the changes:

- Rephrased Natsuki's song to add emphasis to certain lines/clarify them.
- Added clearer footnotes to Shizuru's song, including picking up on a reference to a poetic anthology that I originally missed. Seems Shizuru is a fan of a specific author - a princess Shikishi.
- Updated some wording on Nina's song, and a footnote to clarify grammatical moods where they're not obvious in English.

Unsure of what my next song should be to translate. I'm thinking either Fumi and Mashiro's or Yukariko's, or maybe some of the other episode commentaries. Anyone have any preferences?