Cantonese cover of English song - By Kourtney Woo

Hello everyone, this is Kourtney and this is my first post here. Today I would like to share a very hilarious video that film by a YouTuber, AhG.

Does anyone like to listen English songs like me? This is a video that AhG covers the song Wide Awake by Katy Perry with Cantonese lyrics. Before getting into any discussion, let’s watch the video first.

  

Though this video was made for entertainment, we can still learn something about translation in this video. We found this video funny because we know that AhG translated the English lyrics into Chinese word by word and this made no sense. English and Chinese are different in many ways: sentence structures, pronunciations, use of idioms, etc. Therefore, a good translation cannot be done by translating word by word. Otherwise, it will sound as strange as AhG sang in the video.

On the other hand, some of the words are actually hard to translate due to language difference. For instance, in the original song, Wide Awake, there is a line ‘I’m falling from cloud nine’. The phrase ‘cloud nine’ means ‘a state of perfect happiness’ (from the free dictionary) in English. If we translate it like AhG, who just directly translated cloud nine as ‘雲九’, it will be very confused for the target audiences whom I consider as those speak Cantonese. However, this kind of translation can be counted as foreignization. This can help to introduce a new word to our language.

I also found another Chinese translation for the song. Here is a quote of the chorus from the translated version:

Falling from cloud 9 從天堂跌入地獄
Crashing from the high 於高處往下墮落I'm letting go tonight 我今晚將一切放手(Yeah I'm) Falling from cloud 9 （是的我正）從天堂跌入地獄(Source: http://twolightstar.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=4132000)

This is a different translation. I think the translator is using domestication here. The translated version is based on the meaning of the original song so that the target readers will understand what the lyrics mean.

In my opinion, I would prefer the second translation here as I think that the aim of the lyrics translation is to help the target readers to understand the meaning of the whole song. Unlike reading a fiction or watching a film, we can know very little about the background of the song. It is hard for the audience to understand a new word from the lyrics. Therefore, I would prefer using domestication in this case.

Do you have a different opinion? What do you think about the video? You are feel free to tell me your thoughts in the comment :)