thank you!

Thanks for sharing!!! I've been really waiting for this...!!!

Thank you so much!! Keep on waiting for this :)

Thank you SO freaking much! :-)

Thanks you for sharing !! I love these photos. :3

Looks to me like there are shots in there of Timmy helping Ayu translate the "Tell All" lyrics into English specifically for the photobook... not sure where everyone is getting the idea that it went the other way lol

The pictures of possibly translating look like they're working on which japanese words to use, because the same page shows her hand on the pen/pencil writing the english lyrics and the japanese in the next pic only partially written. That's where we're getting the idea. And how many people think she can't speak, read and write english clearly still, shows how many really don't pay attention to anything that goes on in her life. Her english was already perfect years ago, not just recently. Most of her staff even speaks english according to their facebook pages.

thank you very much for this! <3

Dat butt.


I love this photobook so much.
The picture by the window where she's looking at the camera is amazing.

I don't have any doubt that she knows how to speak English enough to converse with native speakers of the English language and hold her own in conversations with fluent speakers of the English language. But to creatively and properly express herself in English and then translate that into her native language is something entirely different. She must be quite confident in her abilities and to be able to tap into her emotions like that and pen them under something other than Japanese is remarkable. Hikaru Utada grew up speaking both Japanese and English, so this method is understandable for her. It is still quite a shock that Ayu is able, and would choose, to do this.

lolwut?

They printed out the full Japanese lyrics onto white paper, made notes on that (there's English written on the white space beside it), then copied a full translation onto yellow paper. You can see the process happening. And every handwritten thing in that series of photos is recognizable as English, not Japanese. So I have no idea where you or anyone else is getting the "japanese in the next pic only partially written."

My oh-so-scientific visual aid:

http://i.imgur.com/TOq1zBQ.jpg


EDIT: *facepalms* I am so sorry HULUfan, thank you so much for these scans. I was very impatient for them and THIS was the first thing I post in the thread? saigodansu caught me in a bad mood - I apologize for not thanking you first!

OWNED.

Except that the yellow pad is done by her before they're working on the white sheet together. And I've read her accounts of writing before and this fits the way she usually writes lyrics. After they're written, she then looks for the right words to use to sound better when it is sung. I looked closely before my 1st post, the lols and owned are laughable to put it very politely.

^Where are these so called "accounts"? Hmmm??

^Magazine interviews starting from the time Love Songs was written in LA. Like the one showing pics of her recording wearing shoes at Record Plant while she in the interview was describing how she usually records barefoot.

Fun fact:
The last pages of the photobook include comments by Takako Tsuriya. She mentions that 7 years ago (missunderstood era), Ayu's English was quite imperfect, but that during the shooting of this booklet, Ayu's English was fluent and she could freely talk with the English staff without the need of a interpreter.

Also, I don't really understand what you guys are disagreeing about in this thread, but if it helps, page 45 of the photobook says "...ティミーと「Tell All」の歌詞を英訳したり... ("...[Ayumi was] translating Tell All's lyrics to English with Timmy...")
.

^ Oh hey there, person-who-knows-what-they're-talking-about-with-solid-proof!

^ Are you talking to me or saigodansu? Because the things I mention are written in the photobook itself (and I can read Japanese).

edit: never mind, I read "without-solid-proof".

He and She as well as To and From are commonly translated wrong and it is visible on 2 pages of the book that she had the title and atleast part of the lyrics written in english setting beside the sheet she worked on with Timmy. Takako Tsuriya is a she not a he. Although it is nice she states Ayu's english is now fluent, maybe people or atleast fewer people can quit acting like she's not.

I can't believe the same person has to make things dramatic yet again, lol.

For people who own this book, do you think its worth it? I tend to stay away from photobooks because I look at them once or twice then they just gather dust... :innocent