Machine Translation

 AI:

I chose to search online for the most recent article on the use of AI in literary translation. I found one titled “The art of literary translation exposes the limits of AI”, written by Krupa Shandilya on June 25, 2026. 

The gist of the article is that AI is a useful tool in many aspects of translation, such as for legal documents and interlingual doctor-patient communication, etc. But one thing heavily missing from most AI-translated texts or poems is the emotion and personal voice of the writer. In the article, Shandilya talks about a famous Urdu poem that was composed by a man who was separated from his wife and daughter and put into solitary confinement. The original poem was translated with biographical knowledge of the author and an understanding of his style. So, when the poem was translated, it had a lonely, lyrical note to the words. The AI translation, however, translated the poem literally, leaving out many small details that helped move the meaning of the poem as a whole. This is because AI translations leave out the voice of who you are reading. It severs the connection.

https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-literary-translation-exposes-the-limits-of-ai-282955 

So, with this knowledge, I decided to test the limits of AI’s ability to provide a translation to song lyrics I am fond of. Songs, much like poems, are filled with emotion and personal easter eggs placed by the songwriter. I chose to translate the chorus of 「僕らだけの主題歌」, a Japanese song from the anime Given by the band Centimillimental.

Original:

Boku wa ikuyo

Nee, mi tete yo

Okashikute waratta

Surechigai okotta

Anata to no yume o kanaete kuru yo

Kanashī toki sugoku tsurai toki

Omoidasu kioku o sugoshita jikan o

Kono kokoro no semotare ni shite

My translation:

I’ll leave now,

Hey, please look at me

We had fun and we laughed

Drifted apart in anger

I will make our dreams come true

When its sad and too painful

I will remember our time together

And have it support my aching heart 

Explanation: 

I mainly translate somewhat literally, but i researched more about the intended meanings of each phrase. I noticed that the English lyrics on Genius were lacking the heartache of the song. I chose to add in “We” for a line to connect the singer and the person they are singing for. As well as the last line, I added “aching” to emphasize the line about it being “sad and too painful”.

The Genius lyrics were very literal:

I'm going

Hey, look

It was funny and I laughed

Angry

I'll make my dream come true

When I'm sad

I remember the time spent on this memory

In the back of my mind

Let's see what ChatGPT comes up with:

Me: How would you translate these lyrics into English: 

Boku wa ikuyo

Nee, mi tete yo

Okashikute waratta

Surechigai okotta

Anata to no yume o kanaete kuru yo

Kanashī toki sugoku tsurai toki

Omoidasu kioku o sugoshita jikan o

Kono kokoro no semotare ni shite

Chat:

“I’m going now.
Hey, watch me.
I laughed at the silly things,
At the misunderstandings and the times we fought.
I’ll go and make our dreams come true.
When I’m sad, when things get really hard,
I’ll remember the memories, the time we spent together,
And keep them close within my heart.”

A couple of lines are a little ambiguous in the romanization. In particular, “Kono kokoro no semotare ni shite” looks like it may contain a transcription error; as written, semotare isn't a standard Japanese expression. If you give me the Japanese characters (kanji/kana) for the lyrics, I can give you a much more precise translation, including the emotional nuance of each line.

Go for it

Absolutely. I’d treat this as a lyrical translation rather than a word-for-word one, because Japanese lyrics often leave subjects and relationships implicit.

Line by line

Boku wa ikuyo
僕は行くよ
→ “I’m going.” / “I’ll be on my way.”

Boku is a relatively soft, masculine “I,” while yo adds a sense of assertion—almost “I’m going, you know.” Depending on the song's context, it could also carry the feeling of “I’m moving forward.”

Nee, mi tete yo
ねえ、見ててよ
→ “Hey, watch me.” / “Hey, keep watching me.”

This is actually quite affectionate. Mite te yo isn't simply “look at me”; it has the nuance of “keep watching / be there to see what I do.”

Okashikute waratta
おかしくて笑った
→ “I laughed because it was funny.”

Or, more naturally in lyrics: “We laughed at the silly things.”

Surechigai okotta
すれ違い、怒った
→ “We misunderstood each other and got angry.”

Surechigai literally evokes people passing one another without meeting, but emotionally it means misunderstandings, missed connections, or being unable to understand each other.

Anata to no yume o kanaete kuru yo
あなたとの夢を叶えてくるよ
→ “I’ll go make the dreams we shared come true.”

This is probably the most emotionally important line. Anata to no yume is literally something like “the dream(s) with you”, so “our dreams” works beautifully in English. Kuru gives the line a sense of going out and accomplishing something, then returning/coming back having done it.

Kanashī toki sugoku tsurai toki
悲しい時、すごく辛い時
→ “When I’m sad, when things get really painful.”

Tsura(i) is stronger than ordinary “hard.” It can mean emotionally painful, agonizing, or unbearably difficult.

Omoidasu kioku o sugoshita jikan o
思い出す、記憶を、過ごした時間を
→ “I’ll remember the memories, the time we spent together.”

There may be punctuation/line-break ambiguity here, but the imagery is clearly about remembering shared time and memories.

Kono kokoro no semotare ni shite
この心のせもたれにして
→ This appears to be the problematic line.

If the intended phrase is この心の背もたれにして (kono kokoro no semotare ni shite), then it means roughly:

→ “Make them the backrest for my heart.”

That's a very poetic Japanese metaphor. A semotare is a backrest/support for your back. So the idea would be that those memories become something the speaker can lean back against emotionally when life gets difficult.

Putting the whole thing together

I'd translate the passage as:

Writing

I’m going now.
Hey, keep watching me.

We laughed at the silly things,
Got angry when we misunderstood each other.

I’ll go and make the dreams we shared come true.

When I’m sad, when things get really hard,
I’ll remember the memories,
The time we spent together,
And let them be the support my heart can lean on.

Or, if you want to preserve more of the Japanese poetic feeling, I'd make it:

Writing

I’m going now.
Hey, watch me.

We laughed over foolish things,
We fought when we failed to understand each other.

I’ll go make our dreams come true.

When I’m sad,
When the pain becomes too much,
I’ll remember our memories,
The time we shared—
And make them the backrest for my heart.

That last image is especially beautiful: the memories of the relationship aren't something the speaker is merely nostalgic about; they're something they can lean on to keep going.

This was my translation, 

I’ll leave now,

Hey, please look at me

We had fun and we laughed

Drifted apart in anger

I will make our dreams come true

When its sad and too painful

I will remember our time together

And have it support my aching heart 

Yes — and honestly, your translation captures the emotional arc very well. I think yours is more natural as an English lyric than my first pass.

There are just a few places where I'd tweak it, mostly because your interpretation is slightly more specific than the Japanese.

• “I’ll leave now” — very good for boku wa iku yo. “I’m going now” is more literal, but “I’ll leave now” gives it that sense of departure.

• “Hey, please look at me” — nee, mite te yo is closer to “Hey, watch me” or “Hey, keep watching me.” Your version makes it more intimate, which I think works beautifully.

• “We had fun and we laughed” — this is the biggest interpretive change. Okashikute waratta is more literally “I laughed because it was funny/strange,” but your version fits the surrounding relationship context.

• “Drifted apart in anger” — this is poetic and actually captures something surechigai can evoke: two people becoming estranged/missing each other emotionally. It's less literal than “we misunderstood each other and got angry,” but arguably better as a lyric.

• “When it's sad and too painful” — I'd change this to “When I'm sad and it hurts too much” if you want the English to flow naturally. Japanese doesn't explicitly state the subject, so “I” is an interpretation.

• “And have it support my aching heart” — I really like this. If semotare is indeed 背もたれ, your translation gets at the metaphor: the memories become something the speaker can lean on.

If I were polishing your translation while preserving your interpretation, I'd go with:

Writing

I’ll leave now,
Hey, please look at me.

We had fun and we laughed,
Drifted apart in anger.

I will make our dreams come true.

When I’m sad and it hurts too much,
I’ll remember our time together
And let it support my aching heart.

I particularly prefer “let it support my aching heart” over “have it support.” It preserves your idea while sounding more lyrical.

And there's something interesting about your translation: “Drifted apart in anger” + “our time together” + “aching heart” makes the song sound like it's being sung after a separation or loss. That's a reasonable reading of the Japanese, even though the original is more understated and doesn't explicitly spell out the nature of the separation

What I noticed in its analysis of my translation is how mine is more accurate to the context of the song because I know the plot of the anime it came from. The lead singer of this band experienced a very painful loss, and the song reflects how he is still in pain, but he is on the road to healing. But the chat doesn’t know that, so while the translation is grammatically correct and more lyrical than the Genius translation, it is missing key nuances to make the grief of the singer be fully represented.

Melissa