Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume6 Asahina Mikuru's Adventure Episode 00

Translation Issue

An anonymous contributor (218.251.17.243) has altered the translation. Here is the text before the edit:

"I cannot explain right now, but one day you will understand. You have two choices: To travel around the universe with me or to explore the possibilities of the future with her."

And here is the text after the edit:

"I cannot explain right now, but one day you will understand. You have two choices: To put back the earth to what's supposed to be with me or to take away the possibilities of the future with her."

I believe neither of these are correct, but the first version is slightly more accurate. The original Japanese is:

「今は説明できない。しかしいずれ理解を得ることもあるだろう。あなたの選択肢《せんたくし》は二つある。わたしとともに宇宙をあるべき姿へと進行させるか、彼女に味方して未来の可能性を摘《つ》み取ることである」

Based on this, I believe the proper translation is actually very close to that used in the Anime (as fansubbed by A.F.K). It mentions outer space and it's proper form, and picking the possibilities of the future. Therefore, I have borrowed the fansub translation and inserted it into the text until we can get a proper consensus. Smidge204 03:57, 9 March 2007 (PST)

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"Only the did he raise his pitch and made a serious face." This sentence needs to be re-examined. There must be some translation error or missing words because it makes no sense to me.

-Psy

Changed to "Only then did he raise the pitch of his voice and make a serious face." -Teisu

"One morning, Mikuru found a letter inside her shoe letter." changed to "letter inside her shoe locker." ? -Teisu

"You look as though you got eaten by an old geezer." The word "eaten" in English is used almost exclusively with chewing and/or food. I think that a more appropriate word might be "fondled, or "leered at". - Teisu

Changed to "molested". -Teisu

Spelling (easy to verify):

   Typographical Errors?
       "platic" -> "plastic" (~l. 104)
       "ligtning" -> "lightning" (~l. 241)

   "sub-plot" -> "subplot"

   "stationary" -> "stationery"
   Usage
       "stationary" = unmoving
       "stationery" = having to do with writing

   "everytime" -> "every time"

"...which doesn't even have a single decent furniture in sight"

    "Furniture" is not a count noun.  Added "piece" as a countable unit.

"...a cat can be seen sticking out his paws and clinging onto Yuki's shoulder."

    "Onto" is used specifically to indicate motion towards, as in:
    "The cat jumped onto the table."

    "clinging on to" might be acceptable, but the "on" is not, strictly speaking, necessary.

"..it came very suddenly when she appeared and block Itsuki's path."

    Tense is, on the whole, somewhat inconsistent and questionable throughout this
    translation, but clearly the verbs "come" and "block" should have the same tense
    in this clause.

"It was only when Itsuki shook her shoulders did she wave the stars away."

    The syntax is off here.  I'm at a loss to summon a proper technical explanation but
    might suggest the following fixes, shooting from the hip:

    "Only when Itsuki shook her shoulders did she wave the stars away."
    "It was only when Itsuki shook her shoulders that she waved the stars away."

"...instead brought three people who seems to be high school students."

    Subject-verb agreement.

"Mikuru was now in a state of panic, and was beating the water frantically, this also meant she was hardly moving away from her spot as well."

    Run-on sentence between "frantically" and "this".  Possible fixes:

    "frantically.  This"
    "frantically, this"
    "frantically, which"

    Oops...  Strictly speaking, there should not be a comma after "panic" as no new
    subject is explicitly stated for "was beating", resulting in a complex sentence
    rather than a compound one.

"...it's not hard to guess that Itsuki's house must be very enormous, this can be observed from him carrying Mikuru into his very spacious Japanese-style room."

    Another run-on.  Same suggestions.

"Seeing how he has obediently follow orders from afar..."

    Verb tense.  Present perfect calls for past participle.

"..please do try and continue and suspend your disbelief."

    I guess people out there do use "try and" rather than "try to".  People do a lot of
    strange things, especially when bored, like yours truly.

"Since Mikuru is here to protect Itsuki, so it wouldn't be odd for both of them..."

    Too much of a good thing, namely conjunctions.  Really, we don't need both a 
    subordinating conjunction ("since") and a coordinating conjunction ("so") here.
    One or the other would be fine.

    "Since Mikuru is here to protect Itsuki, it wouldn't be odd for both of them..."
    "Mikuru is here to protect Itsuki, so it wouldn't be odd for both of them"

"For Yuki, who no one knows where she's staying. This is a difficult wall to climb..."

    The first "sentence" above is a fragment, which might be okay if you're into those.
    Really, there's no independent clause!

    As for a fix, dunno, it feels like these sentences belong together...
    "For Yuki,...this is a difficult wall to climb..."

    Meanwhile, "who no one knows where she's staying" is quite awkward as a relative
    clause.  I can't come up with a good fix that doesn't alter the feel a bit.  Perhaps
    something along the lines of the following:

    "For Yuki, whose residence is unknown..."

    Ain't pretty, though.

"Though it wasn't till very late that she had noticed."

    Fragment.  "Though" acts as a subordinating conjunction here, I think, so the clause
    is rendered dependent.  Easy enough to combine with the preceding clause.

"To the point of nearly getting burnt on the arse if no ending was made, of course."

    Also a fragment, but I'll chalk that up to style.  More importantly, the subjunctive
    mood is called for here:  "if no ending were made"

"Anyway, there won't be any closure if the story was allowed to run astray like this."

    Tense and mood seem to be confused here.  Then again, so am I, so I'll leave it at
    that for now.

"So all the broken scenes of each character doing god-knows-what has been forcefully joined..."

    Subject-verb agreement.  "...the broken scenes...have"

    Not sure I like present perfect tense here.

    Also not sure about starting a sentence with "so", which feelsmore like a
    coordination conjunction than a transition word.

"...Mikuru looked determined as though she was prepared to do something..."

    Subjunctive mood, definitely.  "as though she were".  Oops, a comma ought to precede
    that as well.

"...the one who has never even showed herself in front of the camera."

    Where I come from, the principal parts of the verb "show" are "show"-"showed"-"shown".
    Where I come from, we use the past participial form in the present perfect tense.
    Where I come from is a place on Earth, really, which is primarily Anglophone.

"Mikuru said softly in a volume that can barely be picked up by the microphone."

    Tense mismatch.  "can" -> "could"

"This would make that battle scene more intensifying..."

    Too much of a good thing (namely causativization, if memory serves, both
    morphological and syntactic)?  Probably better, either:

    "This would intensify that battle scene..."

    or:

    "This would make that battle scene more intense..."

Okay, I've spent waaaay too much time on something which will most likely only irritate the people who mysteriously decide not to ignore it.

I am very grateful to those who took the time to translate this. A million times, thank you. I am also very much impressed with the quality of the work. Translation is an extremely difficult art.

Please bear in mind that my comments are not meant to disparage the wonderful work that has been done here. As it stands, this translation is perfectly intelligible.

Nonetheless, for those who are interested in pursuing unnecessarily anally retentive perfection, there is room for improvement.

Tense is inconsistent, shifting from past to present and back again. Perhaps this is meant to make the narrative seem more informal and conversational. At times, verb tense is simply off. I have attempted to address a few of the most egregious instances, but I have not sought to address this issue exhaustively.

Basic subject-verb number agreement, e.g. "it smells"/"they smell" has been an issue,characteristic of non-native speakers. (This is not a criticism! I'm sure the translators' English is much better than my Japanese or Chinese.)

The subjunctive mood is not correctly employed (e.g., "if the subjunctive mood were completely forgotten, I do not believe the English language would be greatly harmed.")

Sentence fragments and run-on sentences abound, a common enough issue.

Punctuation is an issue as well, although I have made little attempt to address it as it may be subject to considerable debate. Some of the run-on sentences might be corrected simply by virtue of the use of a semicolon or period (and appropriate capitalization) rather than a comma). One convention to consider, if there is anyone interested in doing so, is the use of commas in compound vs. complex sentences.

A compound sentence consists of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction, which is preceded by a comma. Each clause has an explicit subject.

    "I wrote, and I wrote."
    "I wrote, but no one read."

A complex sentence features a single subject with two predicates joined by a conjunction, without a comma.

    "I wrote and wrote."

I hope I have not offended or irritated anyone excessively. I apologize both for being too thorough and for not being thorough enough. I pray to the gods of multiple religions that some well-meaning numbskull doesn't come along and look at "stationery" and exclaim, "Gee, that don't look right!" Don't take my word for any of these changes. Heck, even my IP address is dynamic. - anon