Vidrec and translation question (Guardian OST)

[mekare]

1 Hey everyone, I watched a comparison video of novel vs drama today which I found really helpful. In this video it is explained that during pre-production the show had a lot of money and they got the best composers for Cdrama for the soundtrack. Which brings me to my next question:

2 I am thinking of writing a meta post on Guardian's music. I got the soundtrack on iTunes (19 tracks) and am listening constantly. Unfortunately all track names (as well as artist's names) are in Chinese. Are these translations accurate? Right in the first track which is sung by Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong they translate the characters for Bai Yu's name as "white" (which I know is technically true for his family name but not helpful?) I’d appreciate any input!

Comments

[jo_lasalle]

I love the music of the show fiercely and spent a few weeks probably listening to nothing else. I have nothing on translations but I'd definitely love to read a discussion of the soundtrack!

it is explained that during pre-production the show had a lot of money and they got the best composers for Cdrama for the soundtrack

Nothing to do with your question, but this jumped out at me. I hadn't picked up on that info but this is so interesting! It is a little hilarious but I actually spent about the first half of my first viewing thinking this was a show with a huge budget, just because of the set - I kept being impresesd by the size of the set and, yes, the music, and only realised later that they had like ten extras they were budgeting carefully by the minute and the supporting characters had one outfit each...

So it's an interesting detail that at the start they had a decent budget.

[mekare]

YES! Let's have a music discussion! I'll try to write some thoughts on the weekend (though titles would be helpful).

The sets are so amazing, especially Yunlan's and Shen Wei's flat&office. perfect attention to detail and lovely colour schemes. <3 As an artist I appreciate these things so much.

[jo_lasalle]

Okay, I was being slow, I only just properly noticed you meant all the titles of the tracks, not just the translations of the lyrics.

I still can't help with translations, but when I bought the soundtrack off Amazon, all the titles were in English (and the English titles are different than on the site you linked to). Would that be useful, or did you also want someone to check if those English titles were translated correctly?

[rheasilvia]

I can't help with the translations, unfortunately - but thank you for the link to the video! I will definitely check that out. :-)

[mekare]

<3 have fun! She actually has more Guadian videos and seems to be as much in love and obsessed as we are. :-)

[rheasilvia]

It is so easy to fall in love with this series. :-) I have a vague memory of coming across one of her videos when I hadn't yet finished watching the series - this is a good reminder to check them out now!

[asya_ana]

I would love to read your meta on the music! I also have a weird love for it and need more of it. Thanks for that link!

With regards to the titles, I don't think the translations are good, either from Chinese or into English. But my Chinese isn't good enough to provide you with strong alternatives. Like #20, it's kind of a casual way of speaking in Chinese, but I think it means something closer to "I let things affect me too much" rather than the directive the current English title implies.

And yes, for names it's better not to translate at all.

Wish I could be more helpful!

Also I love that vid. It's so informative.

[mekare]

No worries, and I'm glad you liked the vid! Somehow I thought that everyone must have seen it already (since I'm coming into the fandom half a year late).

[extrapenguin]

My Chinese isn't good enough to really help, but I do know that Orange Biscuit has subbed three of the soundtrack songs, and provided translations for the titles! 时间飞行 | Flying Across Time (in your source: Time Flight), 初心 | Chu Xin (Beginner's Heart), and 只是太在意 | Just Cared Too Much (Just Pay Much Attention To It). Given that your list also translates a song titled 沈巍 (Shen Wei) as "Sinking", I'd just toss the translations, tbh. I'd really love to hear your meta on the music, whatever you end up calling the tracks, though!

[mekare]

Ooooh thank you, the lyrics translations will definitely help! Especially as those songs are used for all sorts of scenes during the 40 episodes, it will help to interpret the effect of the music on the scene.

[extrapenguin]

You're welcome! Chu Xin and Just Cared Too Much are used a lot as inset songs.

Also, because I was so very annoyed at the way that translation was basically Google Translate quality and also obeyed no consistent name order for the artists, I redid it so it's Surname Given name and translated the song names based on MDBG's dictionary and my own basic knowledge of Chinese. Behold:

01. 白宇 Bai Yu, 朱一龙 Zhu Yilong - 时间飞行 (Time Flies)
02. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - We Won't be Falling
03. 李琦 Li Qi - 时间飞行 (Time Flies)
04. 张赫宣 Zhang Hexuan - 初心 (Original Intent)
05. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 生者之魂 (Soul of the Living)
06. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 乱心曲 (Confused Heart's Song)
07. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 笃念力 (True Telekinesis/Power of Remembrance?)
08. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 昆仑 (Kunlun)
09. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 沈巍 (Shen Wei)
10. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 诀焰 (Farewell Flame)
11. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 再多一眼 (One Glance More)
12. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 重燃这一颗心 (Reignite This One Heart)
13. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 默守 (Silently Guard)
14. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 归 (Return)
15. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 云开日落 (Clouds Appear at Sunset)
16. 罗锟 Luo Kun, 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 镇魂 (Guardian)
17. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 万年不负 (Ten Thousand Years Without Turning One's Back)
18. 陈雪燃 Chen Xueran - 染灵 (Contaminate the Soul?)
19. 罗锟 Luo Kun - 一点真心 (A Bit of Sincerity/A Little Sincere)
20. 宁桓宇 Ning Huanyu - 只是太在意 (Just Cared Too Much)
21. D.Mao - 咫尺 (Very Close)
22. 你哩西服老公 Suit - 大封无面 (The Big Seal Without Face?)
23. 你哩西服老公 Suit - 山河不破 (The Mountains and Rivers Unbroken)
24. HITA - 镇断魂 (Suppress and Break the Souls?)
25. HITA - 镇断魂 (Suppress and Break the Souls?) (Inst.)

Note that 镇魂 is translated officially as "Guardian", but it's more "Suppress the Souls". 镇断魂 is thus "Suppress and Break the Souls". Maybe. 山河 literally means "mountains and rivers" but figuratively means "the whole country". See OrangeBiscuit's notes on how to translate 初心. Treat this list as a lightly more accurate Google Translate, as if Google Translate had figured out how to use a dictionary.

[mekare]

Thank you so much for this! I have to check it against my list of tracks because I only have 19? Weird.

ARGH. ITunes uses different characters (maybe the traditional ones instead of the simplified Chinese ones? I have zero knowledge of this.) Dammit. I am making an excel spreadsheet to find correlations but may need your help again. This will take some time though.

Example: Zhu Yilong
a) on the website I linked earlier: 朱一龙
b) on iTunes: 朱一龍

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, that's traditional (iTunes) vs simplified (website)! There are a few online traditional-to-simplified converters; here's one. Converting to traditional*:

01. 白宇 Bai Yu, 朱一龍 Zhu Yilong - 時間飛行 (Time Flies)
02. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - We Won't be Falling
03. 李琦 Li Qi - 時間飛行 (Time Flies)
04. 張赫宣 Zhang Hexuan - 初心 (Original Intent)
05. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 生者之魂 (Soul of the Living)
06. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 亂心曲 (Confused Heart's Song)
07. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 篤念力 (True Telekinesis/Power of Remembrance?)
08. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 崑崙 (Kunlun)
09. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 沈巍 (Shen Wei)
10. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 訣焰 (Farewell Flame)
11. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 再多一眼 (One Glance More)
12. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 重燃這一顆心 (Reignite This One Heart)
13. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 默守 (Silently Guard)
14. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 歸 (Return)
15. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 雲開日落 (Clouds Appear at Sunset)
16. 羅錕 Luo Kun, 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 鎮魂 (Guardian)
17. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 萬年不負 (Ten Thousand Years Without Turning One's Back)
18. 陳雪燃 Chen Xueran - 染靈 (Contaminate the Soul?)
19. 羅錕 Luo Kun - 一點真心 (A Bit of Sincerity/A Little Sincere)
20. 寧桓宇 Ning Huanyu - 隻是太在意 (Just Cared Too Much)
21. D.Mao - 咫尺 (Very Close)
22. 你哩西服老公 Suit - 大封無面 (The Big Seal Without Face?)
23. 你哩西服老公 Suit - 山河不破 (The Mountains and Rivers Unbroken)
24. HITA - 鎮斷魂 (Suppress and Break the Souls?)
25. HITA - 鎮斷魂 (Suppress and Break the Souls?) (Inst.)

* Note that some characters were merged when simplifying. For example, 後 was re-written to be 后, whereas 后 already existed as a character. This means there might be some things off about some of the names, but hopefully it'll help!

When you figure out which 6 songs are on the list but not on iTunes, do drop a note – I'm interested! I don't think we heard 23 and 24 on the show, frex.

[trobadora]

I don't know about iRunes, but there's also a Spotify playlist which has the first 19 songs. Not the ending theme (#20) or any of the ones afterwards, which I've never seen listed before! I'm so curious about those now.

[extrapenguin]

I highly recommend listening to them! They're all more modern pop style stuff, with lyrics and stuff. The ending theme is nice. Of the other four, I quite like #23 山河不破 and #24 镇断魂. I'm pretty sure none of them was featured in the drama itself. Perhaps they were planned and then axed due to budget issues/no space? If only someone more knowledgeable of the behind the scenes of the production issues could help.

... I should write a post on "and 生者之魂 is the Dramatic Things Happen music, which I rate 5/5", shouldn't I.

[trobadora]

Thank you! I know the ending theme, obviously (and it's a serious earworm), but I'm going to listen to the others now. I wonder if there are lyrics online somewhere? *searches*

And yes, you should totally write that post!

[extrapenguin]

And yes, you should totally write that post!
Over the weekend! Perhaps the 2nd, as I have other stuff to post about on the 3rd.

Lyrics is 歌词 in Chinese, so some combo of 镇魂[song name]歌词 should bring up the stuff, right? Time to Google... (I think I found 山河不破! Promising.)

[trobadora]

Thanks! I found lyrics for them all. Yay Google!

#24 isn't in Standard Mandarin, is it? Do you know what it is?

[extrapenguin]

#24 isn't in Standard Mandarin, is it? Do you know what it is?
Oh hey, I didn't notice at first! Listening, the biggest note it that it didn't undergo the formation of the q j x series of sounds, and seems to only have one set of sibilants? (So only c z s, no ch zh sh, even.) Based on the pronunciation of 一 as "jat" and a few other characters (星火) matching, it might be Cantonese? (Someone more knowledgeable than me please help.)

EDIT: It's Cantonese! Putting the hanzi through a converter into jyutping (pinyin equivalent for Cantonese) produced the sounds sung.

[trobadora]

Yay, thank you for working that out for me!

[mekare]

As far as I can see it is the last six tracks (20-25) which are neither on amazon nor iTunes.

[extrapenguin]

Huh, not even the ending theme??? This is baffling.

[mekare]

Ha I copied the Chinese Title from orange_biscuit's translated lyrics video into iTunes and lo and behold! The ending theme IS on iTunes as a single, albeit in a slightly different version. I like the ending theme version better TBH.

[asya_ana]

In my internet travels today I ended up going down a Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong singing rabbit hole and thought it would be helpful fodder for your post.

Here's a vid of the outro that has Chinese characters/pinyin/English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNdZO4EdRco

And here's BY/ZYL singing a song they WROTE about ?? The Guardian? Themselves? It's a LOT.
http://for-the-flail.tumblr.com/post/177392992699/asukajude-arcadianwishdom-there-are-some

And here is an AWFUL video about another Guardian-themed song that the actors are singing. In the description there is Chinese characters/pinyin/English. And can I just say? The main verse is, "Flying together across time" ok.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHz6e8c0FZY



Needless to say, it's been an emotional day.

[mekare]

*shakes a weak fist in your direction*

THAT. SONG. THEY. WROTE. TOGETHER.
.
.
.
.
I am dead, I tell you. You ruined my life evening.

I can't

[asya_ana]

You are me yesterday. I HAVE SUFFERED.

[mekare]

I have a tag for this in my journal: 'the perils of fandom'

[kat_lair]

And here's BY/ZYL singing a song they WROTE about ?? The Guardian? Themselves? It's a LOT.

... that. that sure was. something. I mean, I... also? have a feeling? *cries a little into my pillow*

[asya_ana]

I have been deeply upset.