icecheetah | Entries tagged with sunshine challenge 2021

From Sunshine Challenge Prompt Seven:
"The child of Dawn (Eos) and the Titan Astraeus, Zephyrus represents the West wind. Zephyrus was considered to be the gentlest of the Anemoi (wind gods representing the cardinal points of the compass), and the beneficial bringer of Spring. The gentle springtime winds of the West indicated an end to Winter and the new growth of plants and flowers."

Now, I didn't know of any songs offhand that related to the theme of Spring, so I tried searching "봄의 노래" (bome norae, "Spring's Song") on youtube, just to see if it would hit something, and one of the suggestions was "봄의 나라 이야기", (bome nara iyagi, "Story of the Country of Spring"), and it got me a kpop song with official english subtitles, and an official english name: April Story.

I thought it would be interesting to make a translation of something that already actually HAS a translation, so I grabbed the korean lyrics from elsewhere and got to it.
And comparing my translation to the official one, well I can see exactly WHY the differences that are there are there. Korean is a language where the subject is optional, and working out exactly who a line is referring to has been a repeated problem of mine, there are metaphors I translated literally, and I suspect the lyrics I copied had linebreaks in odd places. Still, I'm quite proud of how well I did for how little experience I have.

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From Sunshine Challenge Prompt 6:
"Amphitrite is the goddess of the sea, wife of Poseidon, and eldest of the fifty Nereides. She is the female personification of the ocean: the mother of fish, seals and dolphins. Poseidon chose Amphitrite from among her sisters as the Nereids performed a dance on the isle of Naxos. Refusing his offer of marriage, she fled to Atlas. The dolphin-god Delphin eventually tracked her down and persuaded her to return to wed the sea-king. She also bred sea monsters, and her great waves crashed against the rocks, putting sailors at risk."

For this one, I chose the song I chose because the music video (warning: flashing lights, implied suicide) uses a LOT of sea related motifs. I haven't translated any of the talking bits.
If you don't want to watch that one, here's A Video of a Live Performance (note, there are some additional lyrics near the end I also didn't translate. On translating the song itself, there were a lot of words I already knew in it, but it still managed to be difficult to do.

I used to love this song, I won the album it's on in a pop quiz. I remember one of the peopple I was competing with was trying REALLY hard to win, because she wanted one of the other prizes, and must've been very surprised when I chose this album over the popular k-pop band album she wanted. But I had no real interest in that band and had heard of Lee Sooyoung because she did the korean version of Suteki Da Ne from Final Fantasy X.

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From Sunshine Challenge Prompt 5
"Part man and part goat, Pan is a nature god well known in many mythologies. Born in Arcadia to Hermes and a dryad, Pan was a precocious child whose goat’s feet and horned head delighted the gods, but startled the mortals he lived nearer to; Pan did not live on Mount Olympus, but rather in the forests and wilds of Arcadia. Pan famously invented a musical instrument: the syrinx, or pan pipes as they are more commonly known. He is known for his haunting melodies, and music was often a central part to his worship."

Well, this one was basically a free space for me, with music being part of the prompt, so I chose to do a song I really wanted an excuse to translate ever since I first heard it.
Joe Pang's Korean Cover of "Welcome to the Black Parade".

Because when I first heard this song I noticed the "We'll Carry On" parts were translated as "함께가자", which translatest to "Let's Go Together".

Making this the first song I've translated that WASN'T originally japanese or made as a replacement for an anime song.

This was a difficult one, there's a couple bits where I had to actually use google translate's services to get a reasonable sounding translation, and I have no idea why this translation has a word that, as far as I can tell, exclusively translates to "author(s)". But I managed!

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Current Mood: optimistic

From Sunshine Challenge Prompt 4
"The Furies, also known as the Erinyes, are a trio of vengeance deities whose immortal task is to hear complaints of insolence from mortals—and to punish those crimes by hounding the culprits relentlessly. They are said to focus on punishment for lying, killing, or sinning against the gods, but any lawbreaking was indeed punishable by them.

“Alecto was the oldest, unceasing in anger. Megaera was next, retaliator of jealousy, and Tisiphone, the last, regarded as the avenger of murder.”
― Elisabeth Naughton, Stolen Fury

Maybe you are inspired by Alecto (“the implacable one”, incites war), or perhaps Megaera (“the envious one”, vengeance) speaks to you, or maybe even Tisiphone (“avenger of murder”, guards the gates to Tartarus) – however you want to interpret the prompt, we’d love to hear from you!"

The line that stuck out to me is: "They are said to focus on punishment for lying..." . That line made me think of a certain song in which the singer is asking for punishment for being a liar who does nothing BUT lie.
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From Sunshine Challenge Prompt 3:

"Otherworldly and mysterious, Hecate is best known for her association with magic, ghosts, and the night. If you hear the baying of hounds in the dark, she's likely near as they were ever at her side. She is traditionally depicted as bearing two torches to light her way or as a triple goddess of the crossroads. In mythology she is known for helping Demeter search for her daughter Persephone, a theme that ties her even more to the Underworld and spirits she is associated with. Today she is often considered a representative of those liminal places where reality bends and all manner of events may unfold..."

Considering the sort of stuff I like, I had a SURPRISINGLY hard time finding a song for this. I even discovered some potential songs, and then just as I started to translate one, I remembered Pita Ten.
Pita Ten was the first manga I had ever read, and I had heard the ending theme for the anime adaptation both in the original japanese and in korean. The japanese theme was called "Chiisana Mahou", which means "Little Magic", and I wondered if the korean version might be appropriate.

Presenting "Chageun Mabeob", which also means Little Magic!

I couldn't find a version of the original "Chiisana Mahou" with english subtitles, so I won't be posting that for comparison.

Oh, also translating "Chageun Mabeob" was really easy. Once I finished the first "verse and chorus" the translation was basically two lines away from being done because they just repeated that bit again. I guess they didn't want to record anything more than they had to for the ending of the korean dub.

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Current Mood: disappointed

From Sunshine Challenge Part 2

"The dawn goddess Eos was almost always described with rosy fingers or rosy forearms as she opened the gates of heaven for the Sun to rise. Eos had a team of divine horses to pull her chariot, providing daylight as they climbed the arc of heaven scattering sparks of fire across the sky (she was also sometimes depicted aloft by the power of her own wings). Eos is known for having had many lovers, which has led to Eos being known by some as a goddess of joy and pleasure in addition to being the goddess of the dawn."

This one highlighted "Joy" and "Pleasure" in its description, and after some thinking, I thought "What better than a song that brings me joy whenever I hear it?"

Presenting the ending to the korean dub of Digimon Adventure: Annyeong! Digimon

It was a LOT easier to translate than "Hated by Life Itself". Well, that makes sense as it's the ending for a Kid's show. Still, there are bits where I was uncertain.

I had no guarantees that the song itself would be joyful because I had never seen a translation of the song itself before (and it's different from the equivalent ending in the original Japanese dub) and indeed it doesn't really start it, but I still think this song carries joy in it in it, especially to the end.

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As I mentioned in my recent posts on my "School Timetable Experiment", I intend to take part in the Sunshine Challenge again this year.
Now, the first thing I thought was that I'd draw, but... the first image for the challange is taking longer than I wanted, and then I had an idea. One that will help me get more immersion in korean.

So I'm basically doing the challange twice.
One will be a fitting translation of a korean version of a song I like, even if the korean version isn't the original/my favourite. My translations are NOT going to be the highest quality, I'm going to be using dictionaries a LOT during this and missing subtleties, grammar things and idioms left and right.
And the second will be a fitting art.
And now for my first filling in of Hades

"Prompt 1: Hades
Hades is the god of the dead and the king of the Underworld with which his name became synonymous. Despite modern connotations of death as evil, Hades was actually more altruistically inclined in mythology; his role was often maintaining relative balance between the realms. He was often depicted as cold and stern in his judgement, and he held all of his subjects equally accountable to his laws. Above all else, Hades ensured the finality of death and that none of his subjects ever left the Underworld."

The song I have chosen is "Hated By Life Itself" by Kanzaki Iori.
Listen to my favourite version (in the original Japanese) with english subtitles here (suicide cw, also the singer of this cover has an official video but I don't like the translation of it as much). I do recommend watching this version first to see it unbutchered by me.
( And now my translation of a translation. )