translation. Moon Troupe 'Edward VIII'

 

After two months of translation (not counting two weeks of my business trips and holidays), I finally finished my second project of Takarazuka performances translation. Unexpectedly 'Edward' turned out to be more difficult to translate than 'Alice's lover'. Somewhere in the middle I knew that there exists an already translated version, but I didn't care. It was kinda important for me to do it myself. Still, there are a couple of phrases I couldn't understand very well. I apologise for not being able to translate them 100% correctly, but overall this translation must be rather good. I've done as much research as I could. Occasional mistakes and misspells possible.

So, please, have a look.

translation

script
upd. 29.03.17
Было бы странно, если бы я сделала перевод только на английский и не сделала на свой родной язык, да? Подумала я и стала делать перевод на русский. Как и ожидалось, он шел туго, так как мюзикл про Англию с отсылками к ее истории и заимствованиями из английского языка явно будет переводиться лучше на английский. Как не ожидалось, я в процессе нашла еще и ошибки в скрипте. А потом еще месяц протупила и так и не выложила ссылки. Теперь этой глупейшей неопределенности будет поменьше. Так что вот.

Takarazuka Moon Troupe 'Alice's Lover' script and translation

Some things you would like to know before you read it

1. This is a script, not a subtitle file.

2. The script contains a few places where I wasn't able to understand what the characters were saying. This may or may not affect the final translation, because some phrases can be understood judging by the context and some cannot. The words that were difficult to hear are marked as 「聞きにくい」 in the Japanese script and [incomprehensible] in the English one. The words I am not sure of are written in italics

3. The songs lyrics are written down by me and verified with the help of 'Alice's Lover' Twitter bot here. This does not mean that after verification all the lyrics become identical to what the bot posts.

4. You may agree or disagree with my variant of translation, I kinda don't care. But if you have a better version of translation and would like to kindly explain me why, I'd be glad to correct my mistakes. The same goes for any mistypes etc.

5. I think I can share the final result of my 2-year work. Final not because it's polished to perfection but rather because I'm fed up with it and want to start translating the next one, which would be 'Rurouni Kenshin' I think.

Link to the script

Link to the translation

To let down or to be let down: that is the question ~ why is this title so trivial and obvious

Thinking about a situation when one person wants to apologise to another for not living up to his expectations and letting him down, I suddenly realised I don't know how to express it properly in Japanese. The only thing I came up with was 期待はずれ, which wasn't exactly what I wanted.

In fact, 'to live up to (expectations)', 'to let down' and 'to disappoint' are all active verbs, which describe the actions of the person who is actually at fault. We also say it the same way in Russian. However, what I noticed when searching for the Japanese equivalents was that most part of those words and phrases I found were describing not the guilty person himself but the one he offended. The only word close to what I was searching for was 裏切る, which, beyond the usual 'to betray', can also mean 'to disappoint' or 'to let down'. There was also 艶消しにする, but I doubt it's widely used and it's a bit different from what I needed.

On the other hand, not only 'kitaihazure', but all other possible variants were all words regarding not the apologising person but the other party. Even though 期待はずれ means 'disappointment; let-down' if we look it up in the dictionary, it's essentially a noun obviously derivated from はずれる - to miss (the goal). However, instead of saying 期待をはずれる, they say it as a noun to describe the result of actions, not the action itself.

The other variants I found in weblio: 気落ちさせる, 失望させる and がっかりさせる, are all based on the passive verb させる - 'to make', because 'saseru' is essentially an 'auxiliary verb indicating the causative', like jisho.org says. In other words, all these verbs literally mean 'to make a person discouraged', 'to make a person lose his hopes', 'to make a person feel disappointed, dejected; lose heart; feel emotionally drained; feel let down' (jisho).

I wouldn't be surprised if someone wrote a big dissertation on this topic.

переводческие каверзности. часть 5 ~ не смотри, не смотри ты по сторонам, оставайся сама собой...

как всегда... ну ладно, всего лишь третий год подряд, но в декабре я вспоминаю о существовании конкурса переводчиков. и чего-то меня потянуло перечитать итоги последнего. выводы, которые я сделала после прочтения, скорее психологического характера. я-то уж думала, я научилась понимать других за свои скромные два десятка лет сусчествования в ентом мире, но нет. как много в мире людей, чья логика мне недоступна!

В других сообщениях есть критические замечания и предложения. Так, участница конкурса Елена Викторовна Соболева из Великого Новгорода пишет: «…я хотела бы поинтересоваться, почему на сайте СПР не публикуются тексты выигравших работ. Я убеждена, что всем участникам было бы интересно ознакомиться с образцами, на которые, по мнению оргкомитета, стоит равняться». Та же мысль содержится и в некоторых других сообщениях. Е.В.Соболева – действующий переводчик, и можно сожалеть, что ею сформулирован студенческий вопрос. Приходится вновь говорить о банальном: в творчестве не нужно равняться ни на кого, нужно быть самим собой. Е. В. Соболева, как и некоторые другие авторы сообщений, полагают, что конкурс – это продолжение их учебы в университете, с разбором переводческих ошибок, грамматики, стилистики и пр. и пр.

ну да. "все познается в сравнении"? бред. переводчикам не надо читать другие переводы. писателям не надо читать книги. журналистам не надо смотреть телевизор. врачам не надо ассистировать при операциях. не, ну ведь любая деятельность содержит элементы творчества? а в нем не нужно равняться ни на кого, ога.

более того, если выложить победившие работы, то люди будут знать, к чему стремиться в следующих конкурсах, и смогут примерно представить себе, каковы критерии оценки у жюри, а зачем нам повышение конкуренции? ведь со всей России (и, кажись, из стран ближнего зарубежья?) прислано аж целых 343 работы. уровень соперничества зашкаливает! ведь все просто мечтают получить эту заветную бумажку с надписью "диплом", распечатанную на струйном принтере.

есть еще такая абсолютно ненужная вещь, как "интерес". ну, или "любопытство". его нужно просто вычеркнуть из жизни. какие сейчас люди занимаются переводом? как они это делают? почему? и где? а с другой стороны, каковы требования Петербургской школы? ненене, это все неважно. а важно, как сказала вчера наша преподаватель по английскому, what we would do if we were reach.

social distance ~ rate my professors

some time ago I started reading a book called something like 'categories of politeness and communication styles' which describes politeness in terms of its verbal expression in Russian and English. language itself would explain nothing, and proper cultural background of the research is provided. one of the interesting aspects of our cultures is 'distance' which can be vertical and horizontal. and yes, vertical distance in Russia is - and will be - considerable. some things might be changing, but I think we still cannot possibly have something like this↓

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/

British English, British Columbia English...

during the lecture of professor Isitt this is what I thought and wrote down - 'He said either'. I mean, he said ['aɪðə]

among many words that have different ways of pronunciation I dislike ['iːðə] most of all. this is impossible to explain with any kind of logic, this is just my internal feeling. I completely understand [dɪ'rekt] and [daɪ'rekt] and many others, but 'either' must start with 'ai' for me... >___<

my little thoughts ~ translating from the beginning to the end... is it that hard?

yesterday I was tired and sleepy, but I had to make my English language home task which was to translate two paragraphs from a speech in English into Russian so that it would be absolutely grammatically-lexically-etc. correct. even though I was not in my best condition, I made it to the end and the result was almost twice as long as the original text. I wasn't frustrated, nevertheless. I knew I made a readable equivalent which, I hope, was as far from loan translation as it could be in the whole

when I just started watching anime with subtitles, those were of course in Russian and any would do for me, as I was still too inexperienced in translating from Japanese to judge them fully. with time I got to understand what characters say and the first object of my objections (haha, salt is salty) were the honorifics left untranslated. switching to English subtitles enabled me to choose, as the most popular things were and are usually translated by at least 2 groups. at first I thought 'what a waste', as my sense of 'justice' made me feel that translation-and-subtitles-making forces are allocated in an unfair way, because while several subtitles projects for one and the same anime are in process other worthy things are overshadowed

honorifics being the first and the main criteria of me judging which subtitles to leave and which to delete, I started paying attention to other things. in 'Dantalian' only 1 phrase made me change my mind as 'twas translated fully and comprehensively in only 1 variant out of 3 or 4 I downloaded, and then I noticed some other moments were also better in that version. I already imagined that in order to choose the best subtitles for me I need to compare several variants of translation of one moment where the original text contains at least some difficulty or interesting point which shouldn't be ignored in the translation

however, I see now this criteria is too much for the modern translators. sitting here and complaining may seem mean of me while I do no subtitles myself, but at least the process of translation is well-known to me, and I do have my own principles. one of them is, and I believe, would be good for other translators, that the translator's pride and knowledge should be directed to perfecting the translation, but never become the means of showing off

therefore, my new principle of choosing the best subtitles for me is much simpler than the previous ones. 'tis all words that have translatable meaning being translated. 'onii-san' or 'baka' written in romaji in English subtitles piss me off. proper names that obviously MUST be translated but are translated only once in a special note inside the subtitles or in a separate .txt file - piss me off. translating the word using the only meaning you know when 'tis obviously another word, simply being an homonym, or a word that sounds similarly - pisses me off. translating the sentence hearing only half of the words and imagining the others as you like, when the meaning is absolutely the opposite - pisses me off

blog posts and subtitles are different. one can entertain him-/herself as much as he/she wants in private life, like I do, using a few Japanese words I like, but subtitles are made for all people, not for those who know a dozen of widespread words in Japanese and are happy every time they recognise them, never bothering themselves with the idea to sit down and just learn the Japanese language they claim to like so much

I remember 3 years ago I wrote in my former blog - I don't understand 'Sengoku era' or 'miss Kaoru'! I want 'Sengoku Jidai' and 'Kaoru-dono'!

I was exactly at the stage that every learner of a foreign language passes, when 'the more foreign words - the better' seems to be the best thing. silly, foolish, little-girl-ish me