たいようのうた

[Noob]

I have seen this drama before. My problem is this:


Literally, this is The Sun's song. I have seen it as "Midnight sun".. and or "Song of the sun".

NHK lists it a "A song to the sun.".

I know context is everything in japanese, but how can it be so different?
Which one is right? Are they all right?

[Kisshu]

It's definately not "Midnight Sun"

Both "A song to the sun." and "Song of the sun" would be correct. With Japanese, you can't really translate thing's literally... these are what we like to call "natural translations."

[Noob]

So, logic is what is killing me here? So, "to the" and "of the" can be the same words?

I know, context, but this is an example, where both can and are true.

And "they" say english is hard.

[Yudan Taiteki]

XのY means that Y is described in some way by X. There are many relationships possible between Y and X depending on the context and just general common sense (i.e. たいようのうた could theoretically also mean "A song made by the sun" or "A song sung by the sun" but it's fairly clear those are not intended.)

There are ways to be more specific, and often in normal speech you would be more specific if it might be confusing. But for a title meant to sound poetic, the vagueness may be intentional -- although I think from the movie itself, "A song to the sun" seems to be the right interpretation.

(The English phrase "A song of the sun" is rather vague as well, and several interpretations are possible in theory. One thing that often escapes people's notice is that we are constantly hearing and using theoretically vague phrases in our native languages, but because we have years of experience in filtering out the "wrong" interpretations, we don't even notice they exist.)

EDIT: Incidentally, the specificness of prepositions is something that native speakers of many other languages find incredibly difficult about English -- the way that changing only the preposition can result in completely different meanings even with the same verb (i.e. "run on", "run to", "run for", "run in", "run into", "run around", etc.)

[Kisshu]

Haha. Yudan, you just typed something that I would be waayy to lazy to type. ever.

[Noob]

He types alot, but i respect it all.

ありがとうごさいました。

EDIT:　せんぱい。

[Kisshu]

Noob wrote:And "they" say english is hard.

Actually, it's the English that's making this so hard XP

[Noob]

That is soooo true.

[katafei]

Actually, I noticed the same with :
Alice in Wonderland, which in Japanese became:
不思議の国のアリス
as in 'Alice of Wonderland.'

But I figured this is one of the few ways of keeping the title short and catchy.

[赤空]

~Started singing.....~
♪Oh Good-bye Days....♪
♪La..la..la..la..la with you.....♪

[AJBryant]

One thing that often escapes people's notice is that we are constantly hearing and using theoretically vague phrases in our native languages, but because we have years of experience in filtering out the "wrong" interpretations, we don't even notice they exist.

QFT.

A very, very good point.

~Started singing.....~
♪Oh Good-bye Days....♪
♪La..la..la..la..la with you.....♪

Ummm... what?

I think you just won the prize for non sequitur post of the day.


Tony