Crashed Trial (line 5-10)

[Sachi]

Let's hope I'm right, here! Don't think so, though ^^;

[spoiler]For whatever reason this was said, I hesitantly replied “I’m so-so.”[/spoiler]

[lucky419]

Thanks Justin for pointing out that missed part. The problem I'm having with this translation is that I can't find the definition of that first part of the sentence on any of the online translators. Hopefully someone from the next groups, or anyone for that matter can post a literal translation and or the meaning of such words as いいか and わからなかった.

[Shibakoen]

lucky419 wrote:
Thanks Justin for pointing out that missed part. The problem I'm having with this translation is that I can't find the definition of that first part of the sentence on any of the online translators. Hopefully someone from the next groups, or anyone for that matter can post a literal translation and or the meaning of such words as いいか and わからなかった.

I figured that would be tricky without kanji, but that's where the challenge is. My word of advice is not to rely on online translators, those usually don't do well at all, especially with conjugated verbs. For hints on how to make sense of these, you may want to start with the endings because they'll give hints on tense, etc. Anyway, I don't want to give away too much, but coco's update including some of the kanji will be of help for that last part.

[coco]

24hours passed. group B，please post yours.
(group C are able to keep contributing too. )

Thanks in advance.

[kukkii]

Can I join? PLEASE! (call me Kukkii / Kukkichan! YAY!)
OOOOH!! I'M IN GROUP C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because I just started studying japanese in the beginning of february!
OOOH!! Group C didn't translate it yet right? YAAAAAY!! WOOHOO!! *dances*

[*eats the whole birthday cake while every one isn't looking*]

[richvh]

My usual over-literal translation:

Because I didn't know why it was good, I hesitantly answered, "I'm so-so."

My favored translation:
[spoiler]Since I was not sure what was going on, I cautiously answered, "I'm fair to middling."[/spoiler]

[Shibakoen]

My translation...

[spoiler]I didn't know what to say, so I awkwardly responded, "um...I'm ok."[/spoiler]

My explanation:

[spoiler]I think there has been some misunderstanding with the いいか. Sorry I didn't specify which kanji was the tricky one, but I didn't want to spoil it for anyone. I'm kind of in the air as to whether it is 言いか or 良いか. Since "say" makes more sense to me than "good" I went with 言いか分らなかった, thus my translation of "I didn't know what to say" instead of "I didn't know what was good". I think the latter makes some sense, but the first option really fits better in my mind.[/spoiler]

[Kates]

I'm still a little fuzzy on the どうしていいか part, but I'm thinking it's a 'set phrase', yes? Working with that, I got:
[spoiler] I wasn't sure what to do, so I nervously replied, "Not much."[/spoiler]
Ohh, rich! "Awkward!" That's a good one, too! I didn't like using 'hesitantly' because the feel of that word doesn't seem to fit right with the feel of the story/narrator. "Awkward" is probably more fitting than my choice: "nervously."

Shiba-san: I think it's supposed to be the "good" kind of 'ii'... not the "say" kind. >_>

In writing a translation for "ma ma da yo," I think people should keep in mind the original question asked ("Ya, genki?") and it's translation, and what would be a suitable response in English. As you're learning, I'm sure, it's most important to translate the meanings and feelings behind the words, and not always the literal meanings you'll find in your dictionaries.

[Shibakoen]

confused, as usual...

[spoiler]

Shiba-san: I think it's supposed to be the "good" kind of 'ii'... not the "say" kind. >_>

なんで? I'm kinda 70/30 on this point so I need a bit more explanation why it's "good" in this case instead of "say". I was thinking that maybe it would be 言うか instead of 言いか if this were the case, but I really think it fits better than "good".
[/spoiler]

[Justin]

Bit more of a hint here...

[spoiler]どうしていいかわからない[/spoiler]

[coco]

Ａの方を忙しくさせてしまって垂ｵ訳ありませんが、
18:00以降はＡの方もご参加ください。m(_)m
(この場合の「が」は反意的な「が」です)

どなたか「〜がち」という言葉を説明していただけますか？

下記の文章を参考までに引用します。
（全部訳す必要はありません。〜がちの説明に重点を置いてください）

一般の人々は、ワープロを使うと文章が変わってしまいがちだと思う。　（中略）
ワープロだと、変換キーを押すだけで、仮名が漢字になる。だからついつい全部漢字にしてしまいがちなのだ。　（中略）
漢字が苦もなく出てくるせいで、ついつい漢語を使いがちになる、というのもワープロ文の特徴だ。
たとえば、
「ためらいが生じます。」
という文章を書こうとして、手書きならそう書いただろうに、ワープロなので
「躊躇してしまいます。」
にしてしまうようなことがある。
躊躇なんてのは、辞書で引いてルーペで拡大してようやく書き写すような字で手書きだったら、書きたくないや、と考えそうなものだ。

『大人のための文章教室』　清水義範（講談社現代新書　15-16pより抜粋）

*ためらう=躊躇う ちゅうちょ=躊躇

[cybermat]

I didn't even know there was new thread for line 5. ごめんね。Thanks to Shirley Sia for the reminder.

To exchange words with him, with hesitation, I answered "So So"

[Harisenbon]

垂ｵ訳ありませんが、今日から海外旅行に行きますので、来週金曜日まで参加する事が出来ません。とりあえず、私の５欄目の翻訳は下記です。

[spoiler]Because I didn't know what to do, I answered hesitantly, "I'm so-so..."[/spoiler]

ところで日本に住み過ぎましたので、解らなくなりましたが、普通の英語で「SoSo」というでしょう？ちょっと変に聞こえますが、それは気のせいなのかどうか解りません。:D

[natemb]

My version:[spoiler]I wasn't sure how to react, but I hesitantly responded, "alright."

Note: how you translate this response depends on how you translated the question in the first place. I translated it as "how's it going?" which is why I put "alright". "What's up" would be "nothing much", etc[/spoiler]
Comment: For these hard idioms (both どうしていいか分からない and ためらいがちに), ALC space is very useful! If you don't understand something, try typing it in there, it even recognizes many longer phrases and idioms.

[Justin]

Sorry for keeping everyone waiting, things just kind of slipped my mind I guess. As for my translation, it goes something like this...

[spoiler]I was a bit unsure of what to do, so I hesitantly answered back "I'm doing okay."[/spoiler]

A little bit later here today I'll see what I can do about summing up the がち part of ためらいがち, but for the time being I'll post a link to Tae Kim's explanation for people to take a gander at (which is probably going to be better than anything I can do anyway )...

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/tendency.html