Archives For translation

This is my first (proper) Aishwarya Rai movie, and though I wasn’t blown away or bothered by her acting (maybe yet); Sanjay Leela Bhansali more than over-compensates for his direction. While watching Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, I just kept thinking “this has got to be the most artistic movie to ever have a fart joke in.” It’s a pretty gorgeous movie to watch.

While watching the performance for Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje [lyrics + translation], my brain just went “OMG, this is a beautiful sequence.” Then again, so was my reaction while watching Black. And so it was with Khamoshi: The Musical. Can you tell I’ve been taken by his directing?

And the music in this was awesome. Is it really true that they spent two years working on it? Coz with IMDb, you never really know these things for sure.

Think this already deserves an India tag.

I just checked Amazon (and other online sources), and there doesn’t seem to be HD releases of his movies, though. It pains me so much.

All this much touching should be forbidden! They don’t eve kiss, yet-yet is just so over-the-top-Pyramid-dancing-and-musical-non-graphic-love-making. I’m obsessed with the song, and specially the clip of the video, which I actually had caught on a Top SRK-Kajol songs video, that I immediately added to my list to watch because THOSE VISUALS.

That’s some sexy stuff without ever taking any piece of clothing or over-touching. Considering the lack of touchy-touch that I’ve seen in mainstream Bollywood, this feels like it almost should be censored for some audiences. Yet, deprive the audience of such a song feels like a sin.

I also love the lyrics to the song…

The sun dims into twilight, the moon beams simmer brightly,
and the sky seems to be melting.
I stand still as the earth spins around me,
my heart beats faster, as my breath goes deeper.
Is it the sigh of first love?
My love, is it the sign of first love?

Savour these beauteous moments, when everything changes-
Our dream blends into the realms of reality,
I wonder if our love travels through centuries,
and has bound us in its silken threads.

Let this season of love remain eternal,
Let us meet through birth after birth, like today.

The colors of our souls have melted into one,
I’m losing myself to your love.
Beloved, it’s the waves of your love that drown me,
before transporting me to the shore.

It’s the thirst of the ocean, it’s the dream of the night,
the hearts of the flames have been set afire

via IndianMusicLyrics.com

When I translate things, I usually go from Spanish into English, so when I listened to (and obsessed a little) over Neil Patrick Harris at the Tonys, I thought that it’d be good practice for a quick English to Spanish translation exercise.

Lyrics in English taken from Playbill.com

Continue Reading…

I just began listening (truly listen) to Mayday’s discography pre the Born to Love days, finishing off titles/pinyin/title translations, when I ran into this song titled Masquerade (Male, Female, One Body) from their 2003 album, Time Machine (時光機). The thing is, the title of the song is Ci Xiong Tong Ti (雌雄同體), which is the term used to refer to “hermaphrodites” (which, by the way, isn’t longer a term accepted for people, who are now referred to as “intersex”). Perplexed, thinking that Google Translate was giving me a wonky translation, I checked the dictionary to double check.

On a quick google search, I found a pretty terrific (singable) translation of the song.

Rather than you understand me—I’d rather be a mystery
A puzzle you just cannot solve, of what’s false and real, it’ll play at your heartstrings
I’ll play you, or play your opposite form; partake in this game of love that you’ve borne.

via NoStarWords @ LJ + starriheavens

My mind was melted. I mean, it’s not VERY often you get playful duality in music, playing on gender-role conventions and completely avoiding the titillation that seethes from… well, everywhere now.

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The Tokyo Shimbun (東京新聞) has developed an application for children to help them read their newspaper — difficult kanjis and all — by translating kanji into easy to read hiragana and other augmented reality features enhanced with animation and stuff.

I don’t think the Tokyo Shimbun realized that they’ve developed a tool for foreigners to read their newspaper. xD