Thursday, April 30, 2009

How could I translate my song lyrics into German or and/or Japanese?

I would like to know because I've been interested in writing my own song lyrics in different languages especially German (which I'm learning in school) and Japanese. If anyone knows a website or could give me a suggestion then that would be much appreciated!

How could I translate my song lyrics into German or and/or Japanese?
stay away from online translation bots, they mess up every language, if you want your lyrics to be useful learn the language yourself or have it translated by a real human being.
Reply:Go to google, or whatever you favorite online search engine is, then type in something like "free online translators" normally the website will ask you what lanuage you want to translate to, and what language you start off in, so you would probably click on "English to German" or "English to Japanese".


Hope this helps!
Reply:I have done this with many of my songs, I speak english, spanish, and japanese, and the last two are the languages I translate into, however, I am by no means a master of the languages and cannot translate everything off the top of my head. Here are some methods I have found that work fairly well:


1. Study the languages you want to translate into and get at least a rudimentary understanding of the grammar (very important), vocabulary, etc. gaining an intermediate level (beyond hola, adios, etc.) really helps .


2. Take your lyrics (english) to a free web translation site like AltaVista Babel Fish Translation, and translate into the target language there.


3. This is where knowing the target languages comes in - The translator sites mess the lyrics up pretty bad, but most of the time the basic idea gets across into the target language. Now what you do is study the lyrics for mistakes and correct all the ones you can find.


4. If you have a friend or know someone who speaks the language then give them your translated lyrics and have them read over it looking for mistakes. After they laugh at a few of the errors they will correct the few remaining mistakes and you have a perfectly translated piece of music.


Hope this helps - good luck!
Reply:Use Babylon 6 to translate every words and sentences to other languages.Go to www.babylon.com and download it
Reply:Do NOT use automatic translators / online translators. The results are utter rubbish, and if you try it with lyrics the results will be disastrous.


I should think that for lyrics which make sense you need a very proficient level of the language, or you have to be a native speaker. Translation is not a matter of replacing words one by one, it is about transporting the sense and meaning of a text into another language. With lyrics, I'd say it is an art itself.
Reply:Try Altavista. It is not perfect, but it helps!


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