Kimi no "Gizaba" ga Mitemitai. - Ch. 12 - ...With You

[MangaDex]

 

[Teasday]

The struggle with how to translate "kimi no koto" strikes again

 

[UdenEmpati]

Godsdamn this series.

Fantastic talk between Aisu & Shizuku. Affirming Aisu's desire and resolve to help Yamato just like he helped her, the very clear affirmation that Aisu doesn't like Yamato whatsoever, no sirree, all right down to Aisu's friends seeing her without her mask.

But the forwardness from Aisu at the end is compelling. This series does a great job of showcasing the understandable trepidation of its characters, but doesn't put them in a tailspin, unable to push forward. And it's a delicate balance to achieve that consistent momentum whilst allowing for moments of uncertainty, and I respect that ability on the author's part.

Plus, the art's just fantastic as ever--all the little details like Aisu's jewelry clinking or the little squeezes of her hands. Plus the characters themselves are so vibrant in their mannerisms and expressions.

Just truly great work. And the icing on the cake is the top shelf TL work bringing it all to life.

Thanks for doing what you do.

 

[razorshaleh]

wooh, finally Aisu realizes she’s starting to fall for Yamato. and Shizuku really stepping up here, pushing Aisu to face her feelings for MC. she’s seriously best friend material, BIG W for Shizuku Good chapter to see proggress romance between MC and Aisu in future chapters

thank you for translation

 

[Mangamoz]

Das one happy sharko.

 

[timcal2136]

Hell yeah, Aisu finally taking some initiative

 

[Aralian]

The struggle with how to translate "kimi no koto" strikes again

What do you mean?

 

[yoshiii]

Go get him girly.

Thank you for updating!

 

[ToruZ]

That's beautiful

 

[jackjack9]

Go get him, Aisu!!!

 

[Kaito57]

Author be like "I decided that for this series, Imma give all girls the prettiest lips possible and ya mofos can't stop me !!"

Also, that cover... JUST DATE ALREADY !!!

 

[Teasday]

What do you mean?

The phrase "[I like] [Yamato]" would be "[Yamato no koto] [suki desu]" in Japanese, something like "[About Yamato], [it pleases me]" to put it extremely literally and in a similar word order. The problem with translating that is that in English, the "like" part comes first and the object of the affection comes last, whereas it's the opposite in Japanese, and goddamn if they don't abuse that fact.

Many, many, many times you'll see people saying the equivalent of "About him/her/you, I..." which means that the "suki" part is implied and thus you can't really translate it as "I like him/her/you..." unless you're willing to bite the bullet on the implication and just add it there plainly. Not to mention, often they'll say it aloud with the other person hearing it, and then out of embarrassement switch out to some other sentence entirely than "like". It can get really awkward to translate depending on the situation.

Page 1 of this chapter, Aisu's dialogue is literally "Is that so... As for me, about Yamato..." and the title of chapter is "Kimi no koto", "About you", except obviously that makes zero sense in English despite it being clear in Japanese she's talking about her feelings for Yamato. What kind of feelings exactly? That's technically left to the imagination of the reader.

 

[Alteraucous]

Parallels

 

[Darkshade13]

She's so precious.

 

[skeletom_]

The phrase "[I like] [Yamato]" would be "[Yamato no koto] [suki desu]" in Japanese, something like "[About Yamato], [it pleases me]" to put it extremely literally and in a similar word order. The problem with translating that is that in English, the "like" part comes first and the object of the affection comes last, whereas it's the opposite in Japanese, and goddamn if they don't abuse that fact.

Many, many, many times you'll see people saying the equivalent of "About him/her/you, I..." which means that the "suki" part is implied and thus you can't really translate it as "I like him/her/you..." unless you're willing to bite the bullet on the implication and just add it there plainly. Not to mention, often they'll say it aloud with the other person hearing it, and then out of embarrassement switch out to some other sentence entirely than "like". It can get really awkward to translate depending on the situation.

Page 1 of this chapter, Aisu's dialogue is literally "Is that so... As for me, about Yamato..." and the title of chapter is "Kimi no koto", "About you", except obviously that makes zero sense in English despite it being clear in Japanese she's talking about her feelings for Yamato. What kind of feelings exactly? That's technically left to the imagination of the reader.

Thanks for writing this up, very interesting

 

[Nabusco]

This shit got me like

God so sweet

 

[UdenEmpati]

Thanks for writing this up, very interesting

It's also a great little explainer to how so many of these stories operate and why the "misunderstanding" trope is so pervasive.

Entirely comes down to how Japanese is structured as a language, allowing for the sort of linguistic ambiguity that permits/"justifies" starting a sentence, cutting halfway through, and establishing the misunderstanding.

And translating that fluidity into a language with different sentence structure rules and more rigid subject/verb/object formulation is observably difficult, whilst keeping the spirit of the original.

Really neat stuff, and super illuminating, agreed.

 

[Teasday]

Entirely comes down to how Japanese is structured as a language, allowing for the sort of linguistic ambiguity that permits/"justifies" starting a sentence, cutting halfway through, and establishing the misunderstanding.

While the word order is a fun curiosity, no, I think the pervasiveness of that trope has a whole lot more to do with social expectations and, more importantly, just typical manga romcom writing style than Japanese grammar.

 

[UdenEmpati]

While the word order is a fun curiosity, no, I think the pervasiveness of that trope has a whole lot more to do with social expectations and, more importantly, just typical manga romcom writing style than Japanese grammar.

right - the situations themselves as a plot device element arise due to story convention and reader engagement and expectations.

My argument is that they work, specifically in Japanese, because of the way that language is structured. As you said - it's something that can't really be translated into English with the same precise ambiguity (at least not easily), as the way Japanese sentence structure works, the "like" portion is often left off of the sentence to create the situation/moment in a way that you can't linguistically replicate in English (again, at least not easily).

That specific trait of the language is what allows the situation to work so well, at least from where I'm sitting. From there, it's pervasiveness comes down to the market & audience and their expectations for the stories being produced.

 

[Teasday]

My argument is that they work, specifically in Japanese, because of the way that language is structured.

And mine is that I don't think that's what actually happens. I mean I suppose it could "work" in the sense that you're describing, from what I remember seeing these I just don't think in most cases that's what they actually rely on in reality.