Translation request from a reader

By | May 2, 2015

I recently received a comment about translating a certain phrase, and I thought I would make an article to discuss it.

“After that time, I decided that I don’t want to see him again by any means.”

I think a fairly natural Japanese translation for this would be the following:

“その後、彼とは二度と会いたくないって決めた。”

As with most translations, there are a bunch of ways to tweak things for a different nuance.

  1. If something really dramatic happened that “that time”, you can say “あの後”. A slightly more literal translation could be “その時から” or “あの時から”。
  2. Originally I had translated “by any means” as  “どうしても”, though I was told since “二度と” together with that sounds redundant so I removed that. You could replace the “二度と” with ”どうしても” if you wanted, however.
  3. “二度と” has a somewhat dramatic feeling to me, you can replace it with “もう” (anymore) to arguably be a bit more tame.
  4. Instead of ”彼とは二度と会いたくない” you can use the phrase “彼の顔はもう見たくない”, though I believe this expression is used more women. Since the original phrase sounds like it was said by a girl this may be OK.
  5. You can replace 彼とは with 彼には without a major change in meaning. I’ve been told that と会う has more of “planned” nuance when compared to “に会う”, but here I don’t think it matters much.
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6 thoughts on “Translation request from a reader

  1. GHAIDA

    Thank you very much for Explaining it … I JUST have little question and I HOPE YOU can understand me and get it . Can I translate this sentence using the volitional form to get the same meaning ?
    Thank you very much …

    Reply
    1. locksleyu Post author

      I’m not sure if that would make sense, since the volitional form is usually used for things like “let’s”。If you were talking to the person you didn’t want to see anymore, you could say “会わないでいよう”, though that sounds a bit awkward to me.

      Why do you want to use the volitional form?

      Reply
  2. GHAIDA

    Never mind … I just try to make sentences and translate it after a hard lesson ….
    Thank you very much , and sorry if I made you annoying… thanks again.

    Reply
  3. Korean Vitamin

    “After that time, I decided that I don’t want to see him again by any means.” そのことがあってから、彼と会うのをやめようと決心した。

    Reply
    1. locksleyu Post author

      nice! Thats a great example of how to leverage the volitional for the desired meaning.

      Reply
  4. GHAIDA

    Korean vitamin thank you very much for your comment …. its clear.

    Reply

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