Love the lyrics! :D

I have to agree with truehappiness, I'd personally like you to keep the lyrics as close to the original as possible. I believe that metaphors and phrases "not normally used by native english speakers" will still be pretty much undestood by the reader. ;) But whatever you choose to do, I thank you all very much for the hard work. ^^

hey, yes, i know the articles are difficult for japanese speakers, seeing as you don't have them in japanese... but at least you were right the first time, so you seem to have a good grasp of english grammar, no? omedeto :)

and yes, you're quite right with what you were saying about smacking someone in the face :laugh
so, consensus seems to prefer as pure a translation as possible, so with the shikai line, shall we do

-sometimes i think to myself
'don't ever enter my sight again'-

it's as close to the original as we can get right? but i don't really get your comment about preserving a natural sound in english...
ヤッツケ仕事なんかやったらダメなんぢゃないですか？

I deleted "the" in the second stanza.
Thank you, ren0210989

To truehappiness and Not~Yet,
Thanks for your comments!! I agree with you in this case.

To masa-san, Thanks for your hard work!!

To appears,
I think "sometimes i think to myself 'don't ever enter my sight again'" is OK. It can be one of candidates, I believe.

As for "preserving a natural sound in (of?) english", I simply can not get what you mean by it. ^_^; We are not making a translation *from* English. So, why do we think about *preserving* characteristics of English? And, as a non-native English speaker, I don't think I can do it well. haha

^ yes i know, but the language we are translating into should still flow well and not sound completely unnatural, no? anyway, japanese is your first language so you are good at conveying the original meaning as well as nuances that non-native speakers might not pick up, so your input is invaluable :thumbsup
and i am a native english speaker so i can do my best to attempt a good english translation :P
glad you are somewhat(!) happy with the shikai translation anyway ;)

I think preserving the nature of the Japanese understanding of the lyrics should take precedent over making it nice and pretty for international audiences.

masa's translations imo tend to be mostly direct translations that capture the essence of the Japanese lyrics even if they are a bit unnatural sounding. (I vaguely remember some ungrateful user would basically pop up and talk about how masa is terrible at translating. It's like... he's been helping us for years now and this is how you treat him?)

If you want to put your own spin on it, why not just start your own translating blog/site? Or start a thread here and put your own translations in them? Whatever the case is, masa's page is where he'll be hosting his translation (with feedback) so he can pretty much do whatever he pleases, haha.

Microphone Lyrics
 

* Pushed by gravity, pulled by attractive force
I met you by necessity
I can't go against you, but just admire you
I know that I'm not myself without you

Those are my favorite lyrics in Microphone so far!! Thank you, masa!!
:thanks:

point taken, though don't hold your breath, for were i to start a blog translating all of ayu's lyrics, it's not like i can crack that out in a day or whatever, because she has a LOT of songs to translate, so it will take some time, some being the operative word :laugh
i had actually seriously considered that priorto, it's just that it's not an easy project to undertake, you know? but anyways, if you are satisfied with what is being presented here, i shalln't protest as much i have been, just as someone who is fascinated by languages and linguistics, and as a bit of a purist on the side, i only wanted to deliver the best possible translation in the english language that could be conceived, that was my first and foremost agenda and nothing more.

p.s but not to be pedantic or anything, but i am pretty sure masa-san himself had previously stated -if you find something unnaturally sounding in the translation please let me know- so i think masa and myself both have the same common goal... ? whatever, i am not here to cause friction, far from it, i only want to give non-japanese speakers the opportunity to fully appreciate ayu's lyrics, but in a way that they can relate to (i.e a piece of prose that does not have the feel of being obviously translated using a dictionary or soforth but which could have almost been written by a native speaker... is that really so bad?)

I suppose, but masa's translations have never failed us in the many years that he's been helping us.

^ i am not saying they've failed you, just that english is not his native language, therefore he is not as familiar with the nuances that are able to be expressed in english without consulting a dictionary for example and therefore not fully understanding the meaning, subsequently presenting some english which could be rephrased in a more accurate way whilst still retaining as much of the original meaning as is possible...

But rephrasing it might take away from the original lyrical intentions, you know?

i am well aware of that, and i said before, i am like, a total purist, so i wanna convey as much of the original as is possible... but it's like in spanish, they literally say -the head hurts me-... we would translate this as -my head hurts-, you know? we alter the language to suit our own syntax etc, that's my only beef with this ;)

Thanks for the translation.

The lyrics are indeed strong and very true. She's talking to her microphone.

"I know that without you, I'm nothing"

Thanks microphone...XD

Ahh.. couldn't help it.

I really LOVE masa's translations :luv2 I love the way you have to imagine the whole picture for the lyrics to be "understood". I LOVE the whole poetry in those "not narutal" sentences. So I definitely agree with this: I like the translations to be as equal to their original as possible :yes I don't care if they don't sound as "clear".... because THAT, to me, makes everyhing more beautiful :luv2

I hate when people translate something and change, completely or too much, the order of words and even some words, just to make it more "fluid". If you change the real words that AYU, in special, wrote.... is like....:thud
I don't know.... I just don't like it when I see translations that look too "perfect" in english.... or even in spanish (my native language)... because I KNOW they modified it a bit -too much- xD to make it look "perfect". It bothers me a lot :shakehead xD

However... I'm really happy that there are not bad intentions in appears corrections ;) So I totally take his/her words in his/her last posts and respect them too... ^^

Mmm.. maybe there are those people who might like those "more refined" translations...so appears should try that of making his/her own page for AYU translations ^_~

ah, I see. I agree with you.

I thought it was needless to say that I care about the quality of my English as an end product of my translation.

What I repeatedly said was I'm not sure about how good my english is, and maybe I sounded too irresponsible. In that case, sorry for that. You taught me some of my words and expressions sound not natural, and I appreciate it because that's exactly what I want to know.

And I'm happy to hear that you're planning to make more translations of ayu's lyrics. In general, it's obvious that a better translation can be made by a native speaker of the language to which texts are translated. Good luck :thumbsup :thumbsup

thanks again

Arigatou for the lyrics and translation ^^

thank you so miuch~

the only new pv-song I actually wanted to repeat.

I added several English lines, according to the official lyrics.