Studying by translating lyrics led to many questions!

[R3belD0gg]

Sorry this is so long!

I decided to try my hand at translating simple (well... simple-ish) lyrics, etc... I'm a musician and find reading the kanji lyrics along with the music is triggering something in my brain that just makes the words AND kanji kinda stick. ヤッタ！！！

This is good because I'm the kind of guy that seems to get the same flashcard wrong even if I JUST saw it. Lol. Anyway... I like dumb Jpop. Don't judge. I mean きゃりぱみゅぱみゅ, 初音ミク... all that. (Musician cred, I'm a New Orleans, La based jazz, blues and prog rock musician. But ALL music has value.)

Anyway, I'm hoping someone on here wouldn't mind answering the following questions for me about what I translated here. It's kind of a lot, so I understand if no one feels like taking it on. Also, I'm still in the beginner series on here, so I'm sure I'm way out of my depth, but even if I come out more confused than I went in I'm still keeping myself engaged so I don't fall off the Japanese horse again. Hopefully others studying can also find this useful. I plan translating more lyrics and things, and probably asking more questions lol.

I won't put the translation here, but just note in italics where I was confused about something. Lyrics were taken from a Japanese site. The song can be found on Spotify, YouTube or NikoNiko without a problem. My copy of the song seems to hiccup in a couple of spots so what's said is a bit off from the lyrics, but I'm sure these lyrics are correct.

緒につきましょう！

Hatsune Miku, Lemon Ice Bar (初音ミク、レモンのアイスバー）
--------
甘くて
黄色い
in the song, 黄色い is pronounced きりろい, I think. Is that an alternate way to say it, rather than kiiroi?
レモンの
アイスバー
口の中から
酸っぱいよ！

(repeat)

冷たくて
固いが
中身が甘いところが
君に似てるよ

夏の中
一ドル
君は売ってくれたわたし
のアイスバー
You selling gave my ice bar? So... you sold me my ice bar? Why 売ってくれた？ 売って　is "selling" and くれた　is "gave." Also, I often see words in hirigana rather than kanji. Why わたし　and not 私?

あ〜あ〜幸せだよも〜空とべそ〜
空とべそ... The sky is about to cry?

だから優しいアイスお兄さん
これからも宜しくね

毎日一ドル持ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because every day I bring a dollar, I'm bringing an ice bar? I don't get it. Is there more of a difference between these two forms of もってくる, "To bring?"　Could the mysterious "te" conjugation mean more "to have?" I haven't studied this conjugation much yet, but I understand it as kind of the English -ing form.

甘くて
黄色い
レモンの
アイスバー
口の中から
酸っぱいよ！

(repeat)

アメリカは
素晴らしい！
アイスバーのお兄さんは
トラックで来る！
Okay, America is great. No problems there . Ice bar's brother can truck? I'm missing something here. Can トラック be a verb?

友達と
並んで
待ちに待ったこの瞬間
僕のアイス
why the と? Friends and side by side? BTW, I love 待ちに待ったこの瞬間. This long awaited moment!

あ〜あ〜幸せだよも〜空とべそ〜

だから優しいアイスお兄さん
君の事忘れないよ
I won't forget... your thing? The matter of you? Why 君の事 and not just 君が?

アイスバーを子供に売る人に
悪いやつはいないよ
the person who sells ice bars to children isn't a bad guy?

だからやさしいアイスお兄さん
これからも宜しくね！
やさし instead of 優しい

大人になっても、戻ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because also after becoming an adult I went back, bringing (to have???) an ice bar. 戻ってくるから. 戻る, to go back, 来る, to come and から、because?

甘くて
黄色い
レモンの
アイスバー
口の中から
酸っぱいよ！

(repeat x2)

[mmmason8967]

甘くて
黄色い
in the song, 黄色い is pronounced きりろい, I think. Is that an alternate way to say it, rather than kiiroi?

Not as far as I know. I listened to the song and I hear it as the kanji being pronounced slightly separately, like "ki-iroi".

夏の中
一ドル
君は売ってくれたわたし
のアイスバー
You selling gave my ice bar? So... you sold me my ice bar? Why 売ってくれた？ 売って　is "selling" and くれた　is "gave."

売ってくれた is "you gave to me your selling it" or, more naturally, "you kindly sold it to me". The わたしのアイスバー tagged on the end explains what "it" is.

Also, I often see words in hirigana rather than kanji. Why わたし　and not 私?

It seems that there are some words that are always written in kanji and others that are never written in kanji even though a kanji form exists. In between the two extremes there are many words that can be written either as kanji or as kana. On the whole, the Japanese seem to use kanji less often than we expect them to (or less often that I expect them to anyway).

だから優しいアイスお兄さん
これからも宜しくね

毎日一ドル持ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because every day I bring a dollar, I'm bringing an ice bar? I don't get it. Is there more of a difference between these two forms of もってくる, "To bring?"　Could the mysterious "te" conjugation mean more "to have?" I haven't studied this conjugation much yet, but I understand it as kind of the English -ing form.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the second line is a polite command: in full it would be アイスバー持ってきて下さい (aisu baa motte kite kudasai). So it's "please bring a/the ice-bar". The first line, 一ドル持ってくるから, gives a reason why the ice-bar should be brought: "I'll bring a dollar". Altogether it's roughly "Every day, please bring an ice-bar and I'll bring a dollar".

アメリカは
素晴らしい！
アイスバーのお兄さんは
トラックで来る！
Okay, America is great. No problems there . Ice bar's brother can truck? I'm missing something here. Can トラック be a verb?

I think お兄さん is being used to mean "guy", "fella", "bloke", or something along those lines. アイスバーのお兄さん is the guy who sells ice-cream, so "ice-cream man", "ice-cream seller" or similar.

When で is used with a vehicle it means that the vehicle is/was used as the means of transport: 車で (kuruma de) = "by car" or "in a car". Putting it altogether it means something like "The Ice Ceam Man comes in a truck".

だから優しいアイスお兄さん
君の事忘れないよ
I won't forget... your thing? The matter of you? Why 君の事 and not just 君が?

This is a standard Japanese idiom. If I'm thinking about you, worrying about you, ignoring you, and so on, the "you" is "kimi no koto". No, I can't explain it...

大人になっても、戻ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because also after becoming an adult I went back, bringing (to have???) an ice bar. 戻ってくるから. 戻る, to go back, 来る, to come and から、because?

The second line is the polite command we had earlier and, again, the first line is the reason. Here も is being used to mean "even" or "although" rather than "also", and 戻ってくる is future tense: I will come back.

Hope that helps.

マイケル

[thegooseking]

R3belD0ggさん、

Lots of questions! Let's see how many I can answer...

君は売ってくれたわたし
のアイスバー
You selling gave my ice bar? So... you sold me my ice bar? Why 売ってくれた？ 売って　is "selling" and くれた　is "gave." Also, I often see words in hirigana rather than kanji. Why わたし　and not 私?

I think -te kureru is similar to -te ageru, meaning that it's done 'for' someone. The difference is that '-ageru' is something done for someone other than the speaker, while '-kureru' is something done for the speaker. (Well, it's a little more complicated than that, but I think that's the basic idea.)

There are a couple of reasons to use hiragana rather than kanji. The first is that most Japanese style manuals take the position that 'content' words should be kanji and 'function' words should be hiragana. The second is that hiragana is just 'cuter'

毎日一ドル持ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because every day I bring a dollar, I'm bringing an ice bar? I don't get it. Is there more of a difference between these two forms of もってくる, "To bring?"　Could the mysterious "te" conjugation mean more "to have?" I haven't studied this conjugation much yet, but I understand it as kind of the English -ing form.

I think the subject of "bring" is different in both cases. The -te form on its own can be short for -te kudasai, meaning it's a request. So, "Because I bring a dollar every day, please bring an ice bar". I'm not sure how much you could get away with switching the subject like this is normal speech, but because it's a song...

アメリカは
素晴らしい！
アイスバーのお兄さんは
トラックで来る！
Okay, America is great. No problems there . Ice bar's brother can truck? I'm missing something here. Can トラック be a verb?

Not "ice bar's brother" but "ice-bar-big-brother". Not a literal big brother, but a friendly way of addressing a man who is maybe only slightly older. This で来る isn't 'can'. 'Can' is either できる in hiragana or 出来る in kanji, but this mixes hiragana and kanji, so it's not one word. It's the particle で ("by means of") and the verb 来る ("comes, arrives"). "Ice-bar-big-brother comes by truck."

友達と
並んで
待ちに待ったこの瞬間
僕のアイス
why the と? Friends and side by side? BTW, I love 待ちに待ったこの瞬間. This long awaited moment!

In this case, と means 'with'. "Side by side with my friends."

だから優しいアイスお兄さん
君の事忘れないよ
I won't forget... your thing? The matter of you? Why 君の事 and not just 君が?

Pretty much, but a more natural English translation would be: "I won't forget about you."

大人になっても、戻ってくるから
アイスバー持ってきてよね
Because also after becoming an adult I went back, bringing (to have???) an ice bar. 戻ってくるから. 戻る, to go back, 来る, to come and から、because?

"-te mo" is usually translated as "even if". So "Because I'll still come back, even when I become an adult, please bring an ice bar."

小狼

[R3belD0gg]

マイケルさん、小狼さｎ　（すみません，chi-ookami? ko-ookami? Little Wolf? A search brings up Syaoran)

どうもありがとうございます

I wasn't sure if anyone would want to sit and answer all of that, but both of you were a great help. The line 毎日一ドル持ってくるから, アイスバー持ってきてよね make so much sense the way you explained it. I guess that's the danger in translating lyrics, treating them like sentences!

アイスバーのお兄さんは
トラックで来る！

I knew お兄さん wasn't the biological brother but I didn't get the の particle there, but it makes sense now. Basically, ice cream man. I literally slapped my head when I realized I was reading/hearing 出来る instead of で　来る！　I think I was a bit burned out at that point and still thinking about the whole kanji/kana switching thing.

I'm going to read up some on the te conjugation this weekend. -te mo and -te ageru/kureru sound interesting.

お世話になりました、ありがとう！

[community.japanese]

R3belD0gg-san, マイケルさん、子狼さん、
こんにちは
Wow, great explanations! Thank you very much, マイケルさん＆子狼さん

If my brain wasn't too lazy, I think there were two parts still not mentioned. So, I'd like
to give some feedback about them.

あ〜あ〜幸せだよも〜空とべそ〜
空とべそ... The sky is about to cry?

This is a colloquial language; the correct way is 空を飛べそう

アイスバーを子供に売る人に
悪いやつはいないよ
the person who sells ice bars to children isn't a bad guy?

"There's no bad person" is the key here. And then "where"? The answer is amongst those who sell the ice bars
to kids. So, if a guy sells ice bars to children, he can't be a bad person

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[R3belD0gg]

奈津子さｎ、ありがとう！

空とべそ was really confusing until now! I thought と was the particle and べそ　meant "child's crying face." So... the sky with the crying face... sky is crying... but it didn't make sense. I'm currently trying to translate another song and it has thrown a bunch of new stuff at me, including the -そう form of words, which I hadn't studied yet. 飛ぶ seems to mean "jump" or "fly." So I would say 空を飛べそう would mean "Seems like flying in the sky?" "I'm so happy, I feel like I'm flying!" That seems to fit the song (much better than crying!) and better than jumping in the sky, as well.

I see what you're saying about the other line, as well. My biggest struggle at the moment is understanding the logic behind sentence construction in Japanese. I think some things are slowly starting to make sense. I'm not sure I could construct a sentence in my head this way yet, but the more I read/hear the more it seems to make sense.
So here, if you read it almost backwards, a bad person isn't　（悪いやついないよ） TO (among) people who sell （売る人に） TO children （子供に） ice bars (action particle wo) （アイスバーを）

I'm glad you cleared that up.

[R3belD0gg]

Kicking myself! Just realized a few lessons back from where I am in the beginner series one of the vocab words was 飛び越える (とびこえる, to jump over)! And I knew this (kind of) because of looking up the album name for an interesting Japanese group I found called Project Penguins. The album name was 飛べない鳥の想像力! (とべない　とり　の　そうぞ　りょく, flightless bird's powerful imagination.) I never put とべそ　together with とべない or とびこえる!

[thegooseking]

I'd like to expand on a point I made before.

There are a couple of reasons to use hiragana rather than kanji. The first is that most Japanese style manuals take the position that 'content' words should be kanji and 'function' words should be hiragana. The second is that hiragana is just 'cuter'

While this is the general case, there are some words that are usually written in kana anyway, even though a kanji exists. "Names of animals" is the example that immediately comes to mind. If you're in doubt, I suggest looking up the word on WWWJDIC. If the entry is marked with a (uk), that code stands for 'usually kana', and (obviously) means that the kana is used more often than the kanji.

[R3belD0gg]

I'd like to expand on a point I made before.

...If the entry is marked with a (uk), that code stands for 'usually kana', and (obviously) means that the kana is used more often than the kanji.</span>

Laughing at myself... I've notice UK before and I thought it had something to do with British English translations or something Never really gave it much consideration, though.

Yeah, the kana/kanji thing is throwing me now and then, the latest song I'm working with uses キミ. I figure, from context, that it's 君, though for a bit I thought it may be 気味 (feeling) as it kinda fit (but once I translated more, I think I ruled that out.) At least I was sure it wasn't 黄身 (egg yolk!) Lots of these song translation seem to use kana for words that I think usually use kanji. This song here uses わたし　in place of 私 and at one point uses 優し and another, やさし! I guess I just never know if there is a rhyme or reason to it. I had that on my brain when I mistook トラックで来る for トラック出来る.

I understand your point, though. I've seen the "usually written in kana alone" tag before. I usually use the kanji in my flash cards and make a note on the back, figuring I should learn the kanji just in case, like with 成る (なる) and words like that. I assume the reasoning in these lyrics for the kana (both kata and hiri) is because it's "cuter."

[community.japanese]

R3belD0gg-san, 子狼さん、
well, glad I could clear the meanings

It's actually nice to know that all those R3belD0gg homophenes make you all feel that
kanji is usuful (.....right?)

On a (kinda) separate note, like 優し which is a "not-proper" form, PC can anyway convert words
to at random kanji I often enjoy those "typos": they are everywhere
Another reason to study kanji: you can laugh at typos

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[R3belD0gg]

R3belD0gg-san, 子狼さん、
On a (kinda) separate note, like 優し which is a "not-proper" form, PC can anyway convert words
to at random kanji I often enjoy those "typos": they are everywhere
Another reason to study kanji: you can laugh at typos

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

I had to look it up on http://jisho.org/words/ I never noticed the missing い. That happens a lot with the double vowels on the ends of words. It can be dangerous... You don't want to tell a girl she looks 怖い instead of 可愛い!

I've rotated that particular flashcard out but I should make sure to update it... I use Course Hero on my phone. So useful, too bad it's kinda buggy. Still need to try Anki...

[community.japanese]

R3belD0gg-san,

You don't want to tell a girl she looks 怖い instead of 可愛い!

That's right

It seems there are many people using "anki". It could be a good solution

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com