FAQ and notes

First, a little background for those who have not studied Japanese and may be confused by my terminology. The Japanese writing system consists of different types of characters.

- Hiragana characters are very curved and gracefully written. They represent sounds and are used for original Japanese words.

- Katakana characters have more lines and sharp angles. They represent the same sounds, but they are used mainly for foreign words that have been adapted to Japanese, and are sometimes used to emphasize a word. For example, there is no original Japanese word for "ice cream," so you won't find that written in hiragana. Their word for "ice cream" is based on the English pronunciation and so is written in katakana. In addition, there are some sounds not found in Japanese, like the sound "fi" as in "Final Fantasy" (weird, huh? ^_~). To make that sound, the characters for "fu," "a" and "i" are combined and the sounds blended together. Such foreign sounds are denoted in katakana. Also, katakana are sometimes used when someone wants to emphasize a word; instead of writing the word in hiragana, the person will use katakana.
- Side note: There is only one way to pronounce Japanese vowels. A, I, U, E, O are pronounced (as best as I can put it in writing) "ah," "ee," "oo," "eh," and "oh," respectively. The sounds are short and stacatto; don't drag them out in a long breath when speaking.

- Kanji are characters taken from the Chinese writing system. Chinese is a pictoral language, and the characters represent ideas and concepts rather than sounds, which sometimes makes them extremely difficult to learn. For example, if you look at the kanji for "forest" below ("mori" in Japanese), you will see that it looks like three trees standing close together.

"Mori" (forest)

- Hiragana and katakana are collectively known as kana, although when I say "kana" I am also including kanji.

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In my CD details, I use the words romanization and translation. Those words cannot be used interchangeably. Romanization is keeping the original Japanese sounds and changing them to Roman characters, which are referred to as romaji. You can't really call them "English" characters because many other languages use the same characters, with some additions (Spanish, Filipino, French, etc.). This is opposed to translation, in which the Japanese is actually translated into a different language. Thus, if you had this kana:



It would be:
Romanization: Mori e ikimashou
Translation: Let's go to the forest

Get that? If not, you'd better read it again. Good! You now understand the fundamental aspects of Japanese. ^_^

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I am not a native Japanese speaker, nor do I teach Japanese. My formal education on Japanese consisted of one introductory college semester. I know, it's not much. ^_~ During that time, we learned just 50 basic kanji. My experience with kanji has been mainly through trying to read Japanese song titles and lyrics for Ranma 1/2, Final Fantasy, Mononoke Hime, Mermaid Scar and Forest, and various other anime and game CDs I've come in contact with over the years and for some reason had the urge to attempt to translate. ^_~

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Why, then, do I even attempt it? Well, through all my travels on the 'Net, I rarely find romanized song titles; they're usually translated. Even FF7, popular as it is, has few romanized tracklists. Maybe it's just me being anal, but I'll bet there are some people out there looking for romanizations. ^_^

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With such a limited background, I've had to rely heavily on the following sources:

1. Japanese-English/English-Japanese Dictionary by Seigo Nakao. Published by Random House. I really need a better one, so if you've got suggestions, please let me know.
2. A Toyo Kanji chart.
3. Several online Japanese translation sites, mainly Jim Breen's Japanese Dictionary Server. His work has become the basis of many online translation sites.
4. The few romanizations I've found on the 'Net.

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Because Japanese is also an evolving language, and because kanji represent concepts rather than sounds, it's difficult to correctly romanize some titles. Most, if not all, kanji have more than one pronunciation when strung together in different combinations. For instance:

-- The only kanji I can find for "airship" translates to "hikouten" (blimp). But the kanji used in FF tracklists are different; after some informal study, I believe you read them as "hikuutei." "Hi" is "to fly"; "kuu" is a mid-word pronunciation for the kanji "sora," which means "sky"; and "tei" is a kanji often used at the end of words to mean "ship" (which, when it stands alone, is pronounced "fune").
-- "Machi," which means "town," has two entirely different kanji that read the same; a Japanese homophone. ^_^ It drove me nuts figuring this out.

I asked one of my Japanese friends, Kahori, for more on the subject of kanji. Turns out there are as many as three different pronunciations for one kanji: "On" readings, "kun" readings and "nanori." Not all kanji have all three pronunciations.

• "On" reading: This is the Japanese sound closest to the original Chinese pronunciation -- or at least, what the Japanese heard when they listened to the kanji being pronounced. They make no sense by themselves; therefore, the "on" sounds are used only when the kanji are strung together.
• "Kun" reading: Used mainly with verbs, but is also used for nouns. For verbs, the word is usually made of a kanji in the beginning and hiragana as the ending. For instance, in the word "atsumeru" (to collect), "atsu" will be written as a kanji and "meru" is written in hiragana. "Atsu" is the kanji's "kun" pronuncation. The kanji by itself does not complete the word but can be generally understood alone.
• Nanori: This is the pronunciation used if the kanji were in a person's name.

Kahori tells me that she sees a lot of "made-up" words in game music titles, made up of kanji strung together in new ways (such as "hikuutei"), and she says she sometimes doesn't know their correct pronunciation. ^_^ This explains a lot of track titles that I can't romanize. So my general approach to those new kanji combos is to use the "on" pronunciations.

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I've heard someone complain that people often romanize incorrectly. Actually, as one "ice wolf" pointed out to me, there are several systems of romanization. The one apparently most often taught to Japanese-language students is the modified Hepburn system, which is what I learned and is the system I use in my romanizations. According to that particular system, the following romanizations hold:

Modified Hepburn
	Romanized as "o" NOT "wo" (although in actual speech, slurring will make it sound like "wo"). This is different from the regular character for "o"; this particular one has a certain grammatical use.
	Normally romanized as "he." Romanized as "e" in certain cases, usually to denote a place where someone is going (such as "Mori e ikimashou" instead of "Mori he ikimashou").
	Romanized as "shi" NOT "si."
	Romanized as "fu" NOT "hu."

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Before you read this section, please note that I have made no formal, educated study on this matter, so please don't take any of this as gospel. The following observations are simply based on trends that I've noticed.

In the Japanese writing system, there are no apostrophes. The apostrophe is generally an English-language thing, used to show ownership ("Schala's desk") and for contractions ("can't," "shouldn't," etc.). Most other languages use special parts of speech (usually called "particles") to denote things like ownership ("Schala no tsukue" translates to "Schala's desk" in Japanese). Other languages also either do not use contractions, or if they do, then they have some other way of denoting one other than using an apostrophe.

So why are apostrophes sometimes used in romanizations? I have made no formal study on this, but I believe apostrophes are used only on the romaji side, to make it easier for Japanese-language students to know which kana to use to properly spell a word. Take, for example, track 14 in the FF5 Dear Friends CD, which I have romanized as "Shin'ai naru tomo e." Because Japanese characters represent sounds rather than single letters, there are two possible ways you could write the first word, "shinai," in hiragana:



It may not seem so much of a difference to English speakers when romanizing, but if you use the Japanese characters, you can see the words are very different. In addition, depending on which hiragana you use, the kanji displayed by a language processor will also be very different.<

	These kanji mean "deep affection"
	These kanji mean "a bamboo fencing stick"

However, if you put the apostrophe in the romanization, it separates the word into its distinct parts. So you know that instead of using the characters "SHI-NA-I" the correct characters to use would be "SHI-N-A-I."

Of course, there are probably many such romanized words on my site that, by virtue of the above observation, would probably do well to have apostrophes. It's not a really big thing for me, so I won't be scouring my text to see where to put them. However, if I do notice it, I will put apostrophes where I see fit to do so.

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You're rarely going to get the EXACT same translation from everyone. I suppose if you ask enough people, you will eventually come upon a person who uses the exact same translation as another person for a few tracks. But because English has many synonyms, people therefore have a lot of leeway in translating certain tracks. Syntax (the way in which sentences are structured in a certain language) has a lot to do with things, as well.

For example, take the FFX OST. The second song on disk 1, "TIIDA no TEEMA," literally translates to "Theme of Tidus." The "no" in Japanese is a particle that modifies the noun; in this case, it denotes that the "theme" belongs to "Tidus." So in English, you could also translate this to "Tidus' theme," which is what I did. It's comparable to saying, "My desk," or "This desk of mine."

As another example on the FFX OST, take disc 1, track 7. I have translated "monogatari" to mean "tale." Others have said it means "story." Those words are generally the same; they are synonyms of each other and shouldn't be very confusing to English speakers, since you know they are pretty much the same thing. Or disc 1, track 14; I've seen some translations say "Underwater ruins," whereas I translated it to "Undersea ruins." Again, the words mean much the same thing. (Of course, it would make a difference if the ruins were in a lake or other non-ocean body of water, but from what I've played in the game, I think it's safe to call them "undersea" ruins. ^_^ )

Translating something from a different language is always difficult. As yet another example, if you compare the translation of the FF8 liner notes from the Japanese release that I have on my site with the version found in the FF8 domestic release, you'll see again that the meaning is still the same but the sentences are quite different. If you read and compare many translations, you'll see this is true for all. ^_^

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My Style

With a tracklist that has titles in both kana and English (like the FF4 and FF6 OSVs), my translations are usually in parentheses.

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Well, other than when I don't know how to translate it properly. ^_^ If the translation of a title is very close to the listed English title, then I don't bother to translate. For example, "Akai Tsubasa" translates to "Red Wing," and the listed English title is "Red Wings." So I don't translate that.

This is actually a throwback to the days when I didn't have a proper HTML editing program and was creating my pages in plain text documents, which, as I found out, have a limit as to the amount of text. So one way I conserved space was by not translating some titles.

However, now that I do have an HTML program, I no longer need to work under those restraints, so I'm slowly adding those translations again.

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Katakana is denoted by myself in ALL CAPS in the romanization. I will translate katakana as far as I am able, unless the listed English is exactly the same, such as the Sanbo de Chocobo in the FF4 OSV. (Remember, katakana indicates only that the word is of foreign origin; it does NOT mean the word was taken specifically from English. I've seen katakana for words taken from French.) For example, the first track in the FF4 OSV is "PURERYUUDO," which means "prelude," and its English listing is "The Prelude." But I will still translate the katakana.

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If an English track title is italicized, that is the English name that was given in the original CD. Some CDs, such as the FF4 and FF6 soundtracks, include both kana and English names.

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Some FF songs have their original names in English, such as the FF9 theme, "Melodies of Life." Sometimes, however, they may be spelled incorrectly; one such example is the first track in the FF Tactics soundtrack, titled "Bland Logo" -- someone tells me it should actually be "Brand Logo" (and in thinking about it, that does make more sense).

However, I will NOT correct any such perceived misspellings. (Another one that pops to mind is track 38 in the FF9 soundtrack Plus CD, "Mediteiranean." I'm pretty sure they meant "Mediterranean.") Why will I not do so? Well, because you never know what exactly the creator's intent was. Kinda like those pop song titles that go something like "U R mine 4-ever." And the fact that many of the people on the music staff are not fluent in English throws a wrench into things, as well.

Of course, there may be times when a misspelling is due to error on my part, but those will mainly be in my personal romanizations or translations. If you think you've caught a typo, please e-mail me and I will correct it. ^_^

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Japanese are rather erratic in their capitalizations. This explains why "Have You Ever Seen Me?" is correctly capitalized and "GAIA," for some reason, is in all caps in the FF Love Will Grow CD. With titles that incorporate Roman characters, I follow whatever capitalization appears on the track list.

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Blanks in track lists mean I haven't been able to figure out the kanji, or that I'm not comfortable with what I *do* know. Most times I just haven't been able to verify that what I've got is the true pronunciation. Any romanization or translation that I've generally accepted but am not 100 percent sure of has a "(?)" following it.

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Final Fantasy 5 has had several releases in Japan: one as the original Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) game; one as a stand-alone Playstation game; and one as part of Final Fantasy Collection for the PS, which included FF4-6. It was finally translated and brought over to the U.S. as part of Final Fantasy Anthology (whose lag time still drives me NUTS). Before that, the only "official" English translation of FF5 names was available through CDs and artbooks that had English on them.

Before the Anthology version came out, there was a fan-translated ROM available. It used the same spelling of names that had been used throughout the various CDs and artbooks. However, the Anthology release did not use most of those generally accepted names -- for example, "Lenna" became "Reina" and "Butz" became "Bartz," for crying out loud.

On my site, I generally use the names as spelled in the ROM. But because I haven't yet played FF5 all the way through in any of its incarnations, some of my English names are uncertain. ("Exdeath" and "Olgol" are some examples.) If anyone's completed the ROM version and can give me definitive spellings, please let me know, thanks!

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The Japanese interchange the sounds that in English we denote as "R" and "L." (This is the root behind most Japanese pronunciation jokes. ^_~ ) So if you listen to the language, you will find some Japanese who pronounce the sound more like an "L" and others who pronounce it more like an "R." So, depending on the person speaking, "Risa" may sound like either "Risa" or "Lisa." When such words are Americanized, they're usually spelled with an "L." However, I prefer "Risa" and will use that name throughout the site.

I've technically been spelling Risa's last name incorrectly all this time -- at least if you go by the system of romanization that I use. In the modified Hepburn system, the letter "H" is not used. So technically, her last name should be romanized as "Ooki." However, on the FF Love Will Grow CD, her name is printed as "Ohki." This was before I had any extensive knowledge of Japanese, so I accepted it. But, as we know, many track titles have shown that the people involved have a hazy grasp at translating Japanese to English. ^_~ In any case, I've gotten used to spelling her name "Ohki," so I will continue to use that spelling.

This issue is coming up more often now that more Japanese CDs are using Roman characters in their liner notes credits. I've come upon other names that have use the "oh" instead of my prefered "oo" romanization. The main reason "oh" is used, I think, is to let people know how to pronounce it. And I'll leave it as that, as this explanation is already going far beyond the scope of this FAQ; if you've studied Japanese, then you understand what I mean, and if you haven't, then you don't need to worry. If you REALLY want a more detailed explanation, feel free to e-mail me.

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My translations are literal, according to what I've learned. Because I haven't learned much, I'll probably have wrong verb tenses, etc. And because it's literal, I know the titles aren't as graceful as they could be. I always welcome corrections; email me!

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Miscellaneous

The biggest question you might be asking is, "WHY am I doing this if it doesn't relate to the music itself??" While I do love the music for itself, I'd also like to know the name of what I'm listening to. I think it's cool to know what the composer/musician has named his or her songs, especially if they're instrumentals; it helps you get a "feel" for the song. In fact, before I actually translated the FF1 OSV, I went solely by my memory of when a particular track had played in the game, and I renamed the tracks on my computer. I could have been boring and went for things like "Ship music" and "Shop music" (which, as I found out later, was what Uematsu *did* name those songs! *laugh*). Instead, I named the ocean music "Traveling on the Waves" and the shop "Let's Go Shopping!" or something like that. I mean, it's just fun!

But the fact that it's in a foreign language is a sticking point, so I have to indulge in a lot of other things to get the proper song titles. I also think Japanese is a very beautiful language, and it makes for some sheer poetry when translated into English -- even something as simple as a song title (although my literal translations probably butcher any possibly poetry ^_~). For example, read this translation (you'll have to scroll down the page to find it) of "Melodies of Life." "The running tears change into shining courage"...that's just a beautiful line.

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Perhaps another question is, why don't I just find a native Japanese speaker or an advanced student to correctly translate? Well, it's an awful imposition on someone, considering how many CDs there are. Besides, this is a great learning experience. I've gotten to recognize many kanji and can exercise my limited Japanese skills.

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Although I'm no longer actively promoting my redirection URLs, which I used more before I moved to my own domain, I will keep this question here.

The answer is semi-complicated. My favorite FF game is Final Fantasy III, which I played before ChronoTrigger, and I really liked Daryl, despite her bit part in the game. So in my original Geocities site, when I created the Final Fantasy part of it, I used the name "Daryl." Then when I played CT, I really liked Schala, so I took that as another nickname. (There must be something with me and bit-part characters...)

So how'd "Schala" come to be my nick of choice? It had to do with the Final Fantasy Mailing List, which I was a part of. I use different nicknames on different parts of my Geocities site; I use "Nabiki" on the main page because my site was originally going to be centered around the anime "Ranma 1/2," and I started using that nick when I first joined the FFML. Then, not long after I joined, this utterly *insane* Moogle War started up on the list. The war was basically Moogles against humans and was a big collaborative writing effort that many list members participated in, including yours truly. (For more on the war's storyline and background, check out Spacecat's Moogle War page.)

Well! I felt that, for me to participate in the war, I'd need a character with more abilities than Daryl, so I chose Schala. And I've been using that nick ever since. ^_^

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As we all know, different CD players will detect different play times. When I first started this site, the only times I gave were the total playing times of the entire CD or soundtrack using a stereo that eventually got stolen. -_- When I redesigned in September/October 2002, I starting giving individual track times using RealPlayer on my computer. However, I didn't always change the total playing time that I originally got from my first stereo. So you might find play times that don't add up.

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I don't claim my romanizations to be "THE" way to pronounce the titles. Like I said, kanji have many pronunciations, and I haven't studied their syntax. I could also probably get a more accurate translation if I were to remember where the music came in each game, but it's been so long since I played that I don't remember anymore. So, if anyone has any corrections of my translations or can offer any help, please email me. I'm also a big stickler for typos, so let me know if you find any, and I'll correct them. I'd greatly appreciate it, so don't be shame! I won't flame you for it! ^_^

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BEFORE you e-mail me...

• the glossary of terms
• the game music buying guide
• the FF game history page
• and my Japanese kanji notes

• I CANNOT take requests for particular updates to the site.
• Please do NOT ask me to translate or give any info on the misc. CDs tracklisting page that isn't already up there. There are blanks for a reason! However, if you can provide me the info, then I will post it.
• Please do NOT ask me anything about SELLING on Yahoo Japan! I do NOT know how to do so. If you would like more information, you will have to look up the relevant help pages on YJ and run them through a translator. However, I can NOT point you to to the proper pages; you will have to try to find them yourself. You can also take a chance and ask a middleman to do so, but I do NOT guarantee whether they will offer that service.

BEFORE you e-mail me...

• the glossary of terms
• the game music buying guide
• the FF game history page
• and my Japanese kanji notes

• I CANNOT take requests for particular updates to the site.
• Please do NOT ask me to translate or give any info on the misc. CDs tracklisting page that isn't already up there. There are blanks for a reason! However, if you can provide me the info, then I will post it.
• Please do NOT ask me anything about SELLING on Yahoo Japan! I do NOT know how to do so. If you would like more information, you will have to look up the relevant help pages on YJ and run them through a translator. However, I can NOT point you to to the proper pages; you will have to try to find them yourself. You can also take a chance and ask a middleman to do so, but I do NOT guarantee whether they will offer that service.

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Last revised October 04, 2009