Anyone else have those moments where your family/friends are like OH OH TRANSLATE THIS while someone is talking/singing live?!?! And then when you try to explain how hard that is they’re like oh I guess you can’t understand the language then. Fake.
I finally found a way to explain to a normal person what that feels like. It’s like saying OH OH come up with a synonym for every word that guy is saying and then flip the order of the sentence and say it while listening to the thing he says after that. Yeah. You can’t do it? I guess you don’t speak the language then.
I have literally live translated entire hours of convo for my cousin because my Japanese friend refused to speak English to her (embarrassed about his accent) and she kept trying to talk to him because she thought he was cute and he liked her back. (She’s actually a ぶりっ子 so this killed me lol). And then whenever she’d be like “what’d he say what’d he say?!” I was like “let me finish” and then she’d be like whatever I don’t trust you you’re not telling me what he says you don’t understand. And I was like aqswdefrgthyjukilop.
I’m glad I finally found a way to explain it to her. I hope this helps someone with their translating struggles xD
7 comments
If i deal with someone who is like that, i just don’t bother translating for them. Takes the enjoyment out of it.
If you had kept it to yourself, it would never happen.
I don’t have that problem because most people in my country are bilingual (native language+English) and already know how hard live translation is.
I don’t have problems with my family or friends walking all over me, no.
Yea I’ve had family visit in Japan and it always feeling like babysitting language wise
Live translating Japanese to English is harder imo compared to other languages that are subject-verb-noun (I’ve also done it for Chinese before), for the sole fact that the sentence is basically backwards. For Chinese I can literally translate as the sentence goes most of the time, or at least my brain can work in a linear way, but for Japanese I’d often have to wait until the entire sentence is finished, then reverse it and retrospectively *remember* what it was they said, including small details, before saying it in English, and by then when I’m talking, the next Japanese part plays, so I can’t even properly listen to it for the next sentence translation.
Its hard enough to get lyrics right in your first language.
Hold me closer tony danser.
It’s much better to face this kind of thing with a sense of poison rationality.
Money for nothing chips for free.
Sweet dreams are made of cheese