Next up, we have a native Japanese speaker! I believe it.

About the song

From Y to Y is a pretty generic breakup song by JimmyThumb/OneRoom-P without much notable about it other than its considerable popularity. It’s my personal breakup song of choice though, so it gets the nod over all the other ones out there.

 

About the uploader

This my-name-is-Yuki-backwards person’s channel has a bunch \English-subtitled Vocaloid music videos, many of which have 100k+ views. Certainly a laudable contribution to the world. This particular video (link) is their second attempt at subbing from Y to Y, so I’m sure it’s their best effort. I also hear they’re a native Japanese speaker, which is good! They must understand the lyrics perfectly!

But can they share their understanding of the lyrics with the Anglosphere? Let’s find out.

 

Title

There isn’t much to translate in the title unless you can figure out what the fuck it means. I hear there’s a light novel or something based off this song out there, so maybe you can find the answer there or something.

 

Prettiness

It’s a pretty simple black-on-white that kinda matches the original video’s song title text. There’s also a fade effect on each line.

It’s not world-shattering, but it’s fairly pleasant to look at.

 

Lyrics

This kind of alyrical shit is what you’re going to find throughout the video. I won’t point too much of it out, but know that it’s there pretty much every line.

It really isn’t possible to make story-changing mistranslations in this kind of song, so stuff like this is as big as you’re gonna get. The picture Mr. Jimmy Thumbs is painting is one where ex-boyfriend-kun is coldly walking away while girl-chan wants to say “don’t go”, but can’t. The insideness of the screaming is important.

Try something like “Deep in my trembling heart, I screamed like a child…” (though once you get the basic shit down, you could probably stand to fancy this line up a bit).

You could call this a clever pun with the word “teardrop”, but you’d be wrong. One, because it isn’t clever, and two, because I’m 100% sure it wasn’t done on purpose. Honestly, I’m not sure preserving the idiom here does anything positive. Even then, you’d probably be better off with something like “I have to leave before the tears start to flow”.

I’ll ignore the grammar in the first shot for now. I just have something to ponder.

So, like, I know what the original lyrics mean, and with that knowledge, I understand the English translation perfectly. But is it actually clear? I guess?

Is this another pun? Could they all be intended? I refuse to believe it. And what’s a “one-room”? I mean, I know it’s a one-room apartment, but they’re certainly not giving us any clues.

I’d also like to correct the grammar, but fixing that abomination would require rewriting the whole line.

C’mon, this parallel structure is Grade-A breakup song lyrical genius, and you’re messing it up with your shitty translations. Ex-boyfriend-kun has the power to warp both space and time and you’re hiding it from us!

This is 100% wrong.

You may ask, “But all the words in the Japanese are there in the English!”, to which I respond that your question was not a question, and that the English makes no sense and has no meaning, which makes it an incorrect translation.

I’ll admit this is tricky to word nicely in English, but try something like “Do we live in a world where I’m not even allowed to dream?”

There’s a kind of poetry to the broken English ikuy398 churns out.

These five lines form a stanza. Can someone tell me if it makes any sense? You might as well not have a translation. How about

“Every day of the present pushes out a day of the past” // “when time and memory are limited.” // “And once the time comes” // “your memories of me, too…” // “…will disappear”

You don’t have to be figurative about it, either. Just make it make sense.

This makes it sound like they got turned into frogs or something.

Sigh… (And yes, the largeness of the bed is supposed to be important—it shows how not there ex-boyfriend-kun is)

Uh… I don’t know what to say. I personally don’t wish we meet up again in a former mind.

“I hope our paths cross again one day and we can be like we used to be.”

 

Results

Not a good run for our native Japanese translator. There’s a reason why professional translators almost exclusively translate into their native language—production is harder than comprehension. And it’s not just grammar and flow issues (which on their own would have made this a shit-tier sub)—the subs are riddled with straight-up translation errors. When your English skills are so bad that you can’t make yourself understood, you probably shouldn’t be translating into English.

That said, an incomprehensible translation is better than an incorrect one, so it could be worse.

• Heart: –
• Faith: F+
• Craft: F
• Sheen: B
• Overall: F