how do you go about translating songs into english? what aspects do you prioritise when making the lyrics? i love your songs!
š±EEK! Ohmygosh! Thank you so much!! I made a video on this a long time ago (~16 min mark), I go through in a lot of detail of my thought process, and resources if that's helpful! But it is pretty old!!
Maybe some things to keep in mind when translating that really helps me!
Understanding the message: I'm very loose when it comes to translating; I really believe in adaptation over doing line by line direct translating, and I feel okay straying from the source if it will more sense in english, and stays true for the character. I'll also swap order of lines, or where information shows up in a song if it will help with flow?? It's up to your personal preference! Some people really dislike it when you go too far from the original!
Picking out key details/phrases right away: Pick out essential terms you notice right away, then working around them. Sometimes songs will just have something that you can tell right away is iconic to the song, or a image or detail that feels too important to reword (I think like "break-up rituals" in mahiru's song, or "sorry spells" in Muu's). It actually gives you a lot of structure to pick out what is non-negotiable, and what's important right away, then start building around it. It's also fun to sneak in the titles or characters references in, but only if it's not too corny I think!
Character songs - Motifs: For story driven songs, and sometimes for songs in general, I think it makes a translation really cohesive and glues things together if you have elements that pop up over and over again that relate to the character/theme. In Alien Stage for example, I found that Ivan's symbols really centered around not being seen, and 'darkness', 'shadow', so things like a black hole which absorbs all light, the color black, dark bruises, were all things I thought about when translating for black sorrow. If that makes sense!
Thinking about the language: I noticed while doing Milgram (Japanese) vs Alien stage (Korean), is that Japanese will tend to give you a lot of syllables and space to say something, so you actually end up adding some information or adjectives in english to fill it out. Whereas Korean gets a lot of information out in very few syllables, so translating becomes more so as concentrating to paring down to just the most important details.
You'll feel good flow when recording: What really helps me on flow, is thinking about how words are stressed on certain syllables, and how we speak in english is basically never with perfect grammar. Using contractions, slang/expressions are all natural sounding, and what helps me a lot is more so having a few alternate translations to pick from, or a good idea of what I want there, and then when I record, whatever comes most easily as I say it is what I refine and keep??
Hopefully those tips are helpful!! I'm sure everyone's process is very different! So honestly just diving in and finding out what works for you over time and practice is the way! I believe in you little sprout!
