預告

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萬一有一天

萬一有一天我真的消失在這個地球上
誰會記得我呢

假設而已啦 不必擔心我
我OK的

三年前 那時還在就讀高中的我
是辛苦沒錯 但日子也很美滿
每一天過得非常充足

我可以說 快樂吧
其中原因最大的 是她

她不竟然成了我 每天要到學校去的推動力
盡管學業不好 我不是很受歡迎
我不是很開朗

但有她的每一天 總是會有種幸福的感覺
說不上是哪種滋味 但卻實實在在的
體驗過 暗戀一個人的那種滋味
是甜的 卻又是酸苦的
酸甜苦 在我心中狹窄的角落里頭 混亂著的錯愕感

又有誰能懂呢

淚雨

每一滴淚雨有如針與氣球肩并肩

每一次見到你都會想說再見

你站在我身邊 卻又如此的遙遠

我已奈何不了 那種拉扯的感覺

Translation Tip #01 翻譯貼士 No. 1

中文版請在此點擊

Living in Singapore I’m exposed almost evenly to both the English and Chinese media. While majority of productions are local, a significant portion of those are modified from foreign productions (i.e. 讓我唱下去 Singaporean rendition of ‘Don’t Forget The Lyrics’), and while others are directed ported over without any changes such as the popular Taiwanese variety (我猜我猜我猜猜猜 Guess) hosted by Jacky Wu (吳中憲) .

Yet, there has been a necessary evil when languages are ported. They get distorted, or ‘lost in translation’. This is because languages are not that easily translated into another just so literally. Which is why certain programmes lose their initial appeal when ported over, because the language in which these programmes are presented in have been altered.

With this, I hope to offer some advice to those who have trouble translating English into Chinese and vice versa.

Tip #01: Never translate word for word.

Translating word for word will make you no different from the online Google translator.

原文(Original Text): 那張白紙圓滿了我這一生最大的心愿。

English ‘translation’ off Google Translate: White goes on a successful my biggest wish in this life.

As you can see, there’re isn’t much sense in that translation. It’s neither grammatically correct nor factually accurate. What could have been for a better translation would be below:

Correct English Translation: My greatest wish was fulfilled when I saw that white sheet of paper.

Now, even if you don’t know the context of the sentence (which is no doubt immensely important), you can still achieve at least a grammatically correct sentence that can be easily understood.

This is even more essential for lyrical translation. Taking Rainie Yang (楊丞琳)’s latest song Rain-Love (雨愛):

窗外的雨滴 一滴滴累積

屋內的濕氣像儲存愛你的記憶

真希望雨能下不停

雨愛的秘密能一直延續

我相信我將會看到

彩虹的美麗

In Chinese song lyrics especially, ideas are conveyed in a non-prose, non-literal format, and thus when considering a translation you must be able to grasp the entire picture in your mind before moving down to the individual lines. This will certainly help you achieve a translation that will not only be accurate, but also do a service to the original lyric from which it was taken from. Let’s try!

This chorus of Rainie’s song brings to mind a scene of someone in a room/house looking out through the windows, clearly affected by the outpour and hence the emotive words. It then ends of with a hope to see the beauty of an imminent rainbow, which represents a happy ending, in this case.

So, line by line, it should go something like this:-

窗外的雨滴 一滴滴累積

Little by Little the rain outside accumulate

屋內的濕氣像儲存愛你的記憶

The wetness of the air inside seem to contain my memories of love for you

真希望雨能下不停

Hoping the the rain would not end

雨愛的秘密能一直延續

Then this secret would continue

我相信我將會看到

I believe I’d soon see

彩虹的美麗

The beauty of the rainbow

As mentioned, it’s impossible to offer a 100% clone of the original Chinese lyrics, but as good translators, we try our best to achieve it. This has been the first of five tips I’d be offering to anyone who’s interested in translation work or just to be better bi-linguals. Take care all!n>