I first started translating “Tuyo” by Rodrigo Amarante into Korean because I couldn’t sing it properly in Spanish, and I couldn’t bring myself to butcher a love song: Wikipedia calls it a Cuban Trova bolero (unrelated to Spanish dance bolero of the same name). Below are the lyrics in Korean, English, Spanish, and a few observations on translation:
My Lyrics
[Verse]
난니 피부를 태우는 불
(I, your skin, its burning fire)
나는 니목을 적시는 물
(I, your throat, its wetting water)
너에 요새 보우하는성
(Your fortress, its protecting sword)
La espada que guarda el caudal
(The sword that guards the castle)
[Pre-Chorus]
Tu el aire que respiro yo
(You the air that I breath)
산속에 봄빛, 눈빛, 달빛 등
(In the mountains, spring light, eye light, moonlight, all else)
니 빛이 항상 보아라
(Your light is, always see)
Part 1: Deep translation pain
The typical English (and Spanish and Chinese) sentence form goes:
subject - verb - object (SVO),
but the basic Korean sentence structure roughly goes:
subject - object - verb (SOV).
My parents have often said that this gives Chinese ESLs a leg up when learning English, compared to Korean ESLs. The majority of all spoken languages use either an SVO or SOV structure.
As to why, I’m sure there is a PhD you can do about it, but Reddit user u/TBoneWalker suggests it has something to do with punching Paul McCartney, which to me seems to get at a certain truth at the center of things:
The translation of SVO sentences into SOV sentences and vice versa is a mental function I can now perform reflexively thanks to many heated three way customer service calls I recall from childhood when my mother and the call center dude are furious at each other, but mostly only yelling at me. Every immigrant kid understands the deep translation pain of this linguistic spit-roasting.
However, the structure conversion is further complicated in song lyrics which aren’t usually full sentences designed to transmit purely linguistic information, but instead, closer to poetry or art sentences, which use grammar (form) to the end of creating beauty/rhythm/vibes. This second type of translation more closely resembles music composition.
Part 2: Translation as composition
Take for example, the first two lines of the first verse:
난니 피부를 태우는 불
(I, your skin, its burning fire)
나는 니목을 적시는 물
(I, your throat, its wetting water)
When translating the original Spanish to Korean, I made a few changes. The first line of the Korean verse doesn’t even have a verb. If it did, it would go at the end. I sacrificed it for meter so that the Korean and Spanish versions have the same number of syllables in the first line: 7.
I also sacrificed the verb for rhyme, so that the last word of the first line “불” meaning fire, pronounced bool, would rhyme with the last word of the second line “물” meaning water, pronounced mool. The original Spanish lyrics don’t actually rhyme the ends of the first two lyrics, but the first two lines do use the same sentence structure, drawing the listener to naturally compare “piel” (skin) and “sed” thirst, also fuego/agua (fire/water), and arde/mata (burn/quench). I aimed to carry over this suggested comparison via mirrored form in the Korean version as well. Can you can hear it in the rhythm of the words?
Part 3: Translation as isolation
In the English subtext of my own lyrics above, I tried as hard as possible to translate literally, and I kept the English words in the same place in the sentence as in the Korean lyric, making the translation decidedly choppy and un-Englishy. This type of translation, which resists idempotency, is interesting. I did it to show you exactly what the Korean part is saying, but this method doesn’t optimize necessarily for understanding, and also shatters the art-aesthetic (in this case, the metric, the music, the flow) of the sentence, so it’s hard to call this translation. Maybe at minimum, a translation of surgical sterility, lacking all music and sensuality.
Meddling in translation is inevitable though, you just have to choose which kind of meddling suits you. Did I tell the call center guy that my mom was calling him a lazy bastard? No, I protect him from this truth. In all translation, something is lost and something else gained. There is no linguistic transformation that is without pollution. I’m glad I know two languages, but the pain of being eternally between things is difficult to pinpoint, especially when any travel between two places requires a secret change, not only of the words, but of myself. My Spanish speaking friends tell me they’re funnier in Spanish, or more passionate, earnest, or more filial, even.
In Korean, I am childlike. I don’t know the words for law, chemistry, or politics. I know how to call the dog, and how to ask what we are making for dinner. I can say I am angry, but I cannot say why. I have never dated a Korean, so no one who has been in love with me has ever understood me among my family. I’m not so bothered by this. I’ve actually grown used to it, and have come to appreciate the privacy, but at times the distance feels sharp: translation is isolation. To translate something is to remove yourself to the third limen where one thing becomes another, and is temporarily unmade before your witness alone. I imagine the transformation of words is in some way parallel to the transformation of translator, but in that delta, for a little while, we are both unknowable.
Original (Spanish) Lyrics
[Verso]
Soy el fuego que arde tu piel
(I am the fire that burns your skin)
Soy el agua que mata tu sed
(I am the water that kills your thirst)
El castillo, la torre yo soy
(The castle, the tower I am)
La espada que guarda el caudal
(The sword that guards the treasure)
[Pre-Coro]
Tú el aire que respiro yo
(You’re the air that I breathe)
Y la luz de la luna en el mar
(And the moon’s light on the sea)
La garganta que ansío mojar
(The throat I yearn to wet)
Que temo ahogar de amor
(That I fear to drown with love)