here are various translations into japanese of english lyrics, which i have done for use in english classes. these translations are deliberately as literal as possible. i try as far as possible to follow the structure of the english, rather than using japanese idioms or more natural japanese that gives the 'flavour'. i've sometimes had to compromise that, especially when translating some english idioms. in these cases, i give the students a more literal 'translation' when we go through the material in class. i think more literal translations of this sort are far more useful to those learning english than the usual more natural translations, as they gives the student a much better idea how the english is formed. at some point i hope to do similar for film subtitles and try to persuade the distributors of the profit in providing both types of subtitles. my most recent translation is at the top. all of these translations were checked afterwards by a native high school japanese teacher. there are usually two or three small mistakes: translation is generally best done into your native language, rather than from it. these translations take approximately twenty minutes to do - i used to be slower, i'm now probably a bit faster than that. when using these songs in classes, i tend to give extra social background for various parts of the songs. at some point i'll try to add some of these (japanese) explanations to the various lyrics pages.
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