I love Eins. His character is just so charming yet dorky. And so I had a lot of fun translating his story. The only snag I hit was in the last chapter of his Moon route story (slight spoiler warning). When expressing his feelings for the main character, he says in Japanese:
「つまりラブっていう意味だ！」
This is both funny to me and frustrating. Eins is using the English word for love in Japanese, ラブ, rather than a Japanese word for love, like 好き or 愛. So when I translate it, it doesn't have the same zing as it would for a Japanese reader. I can't not translate ラブ as 'love', there's just no other way to do it. So I wrote it in all capitals to give it a little more force and emphasize it's strangeness.
Also, this is why the main character responds with:
「ラ、ラブ……？」
The question mark implies she doesn't quite get what he's talking about, and it's because he's using a foreign word (and because the word 'love' is so very strong and direct in Japanese). Of course he goes on to explain his feelings, but the reason for the main character's confusion isn't as clear in the English translation because of this.
I actually really like when Japanese speakers use English words. It just goes to show how much English has had an impact on the language, and I've even encountered people who don't realize a word they've been using for years is actually pronounced the same in English.
Comentários