Your Lie in April

I have yet to watch any of the episodes with the music in them yet. I'm sure it's going to hit me like a tsunami of feels...(yes i've only seen like 2 eps...I'm reading it )

 

so why did they name shigatsu wa kimi no uso your lie in april if it translates to april is your lie?

 

You sure about that translation there? Last time I checked 'wa' didn't give any sort of ownership to anything. It simply marks the topic of the sentence. There is also a lack of 'desu' where your translation says 'is'. There is no 'is' in the original Japanese text. To say 'april is your lie', the sentence would be, 'Kimi no uso wa shigatsu desu'. Your lie (marked as subject) april is. -> Your lie is april.

I'm sure others have noticed the occurrence where translations to English aren't exactly what the Japanese text says. Why is this? Because of the way the Japanese language works. There are some words that you simply can't translate exactly to our language and there are some instances where the Japanese language relies on context clues of the situation to make sense. It can be a very vague language. (Look in anime for where people misunderstand each other all the time because the subject wasn't clearly stated)

In this case we have April marked as the topic and then 'kimi no uso' or 'your lie'. Therefore the language is saying, 'your lie' in regards to the topic of April. (Roughly, 'your lie in april')

Hope this helps ^.^

 

-Walks in jamming to "Royals" by Lorde, whistling it-

OK, so I will explain Funimation or whoever's reasoning in this translation:

Shigatsu wa- in this case the topic is simply being said to be April.

Kimi no uso- Your Lie.

Blazer is right, there is no "desu" so there is no "is" or any verb, iyt's a phrase

Shigatsu wa (Concerning April . . .)

Kimi no Uso- Your lie regarding April

Your Lie In April.

 

but desu is usually used just to make you sound politer and wa is used as is in some cases and to say in you use naka ni so it doesnt make sense for in but when i say shigatsu wa kimi no uso means april is your lie it just flows well like that but when i think about it wa is weird seeing how it can be used like watashi wa anta ga suki or suki desu (i love you) but can also be used like kore wa anta no ishi (this is your will (not sure if i used ishi right)) so you could be right and im wrong i think im mainly just confused on how they are using wa

 

As far as politeness, I don' see where that is relevant. You can say oyasumi or oyasuminesai and many other words for similar meanings with different politeness. Desu is basically used for 'it is' whether you are speaking politely or not.

Wa itself doesn't mean 'in', it simply states the topic of the sentence and what you are referring to. Depending on the sentence or the situation it can be expressed in english in different ways. Like I mentioned before, some things in Japanese just don' translate to a specific meaning or word in English. Sometimes they can be used as multiple words depending on the situation. For 'ni' you can reference this website for more explanations on it's meaning http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa090901a.htm. It doesn't necessarily mean 'in' something, but in cases where it is used (the Osaka example) it's a direct and physical location or reference.

When saying 'shigatsu wa kimi no uso' the sentence isn't directly translated as saying 'in' or specific location like 'ni' does. Wa works as the topic marker so the sentence is saying something like 'on the subject of april, your lie'. This makes no sense in English directly but you can understand that April is a period of time (a month) and you are saying 'your lie'. The context clues and topic marker leave the reader with 'in regards to the period of time known as April, your lie' or what makes sense in English 'your lie in April'.

With your 'watashi wa anta ga suki or suki desu (i love you)' example:
watashi wa anata ga suki - (i am the topic) you (subject marker) like - I as a topic, and you as a subject, are liked - I like you
following your translation method with 'suki desu', all you are saying is 'it's like' or 'it's love' and other synonyms. Just saying this means nothing but when you put it in to context, it comes out as 'i love you' or 'i like you' because the situation fills in the topic and subject.

For your last example, we can use something like this:
kore wa anata no dakimakura - this (topic of discussion) you (possession) hugging pillow - this, your hugging pillow - implicitly-> this is your hugging pillow
you can say 'kore wa anata no dakimakura desu' explicitly stating the 'is' with desu but it's not necessary because one can understand what the speaker is trying to say with 'this your hugging pillow'

They are simply using 'wa' as the topic marker. Nothing more, nothing less. It lets the reader know the topic/subject. Other particles let the reader know the 'direct object' and such which is what the verb is acted upon.
(Like in a yahoo post: Watashi wa hon wo yomimasu. (I read a book.) ) - Wa marks watashi as the topic/subject and wo marks hon (book) as the direct object. This lets the reader know that yomimasu is acted upon the book)

Hope this helps ^.^

 

"Desu" is just used for politeness? NO. Desu, is, a, polite verb. It means is. Without Desu, "is" cannot be in your sentence. The titel is a phrase, not a sentence. Wa is only a subject marker. We do not have these in English so that can be difficult to understand, but that is what it is. Just because it "flows better" does not mean it's right.

TL;DR LEarn Japanese to understand how these things work

Sorry if I seem angry, I'm having to make some big decisions right now

 

so rude

 

but thats not what my japanese teacher said not to mention when speaking casually many people drop desu and add da or nothing at all not to mention kore wa translates this is. sentences like kore wa anata no pen desu ka translates to is this your pen but dropping desu is well im still inadequite at japenese in some cases so i dont know how to do that without rephrasing the sentence to something like oi, kore anata no pen? which then translates to hey, this your pen? also its oyasuminasai (im not trying to be rude im really just trying to understand this better because i understand there are many different places in japan that use words differently based on context)

 

Type a word wrong with 1 letter and the whole world goes up in flames :O (you didn't spell perfectly either just so you know ;D)
By the way, this would be a lot easier if you used English grammar.

Believe what you will. I don't want to be rude to your teacher but not everyone is right (including myself). There could also be a misunderstanding between what you are saying and what we are trying to tell you or what you and your teacher were discussing.

Bottom line, 'wa' does not mean 'is'. It is a topic marker in a sentence. When translating to English we add 'is' because we don't speak like the Japanese do. Go back to my examples in this post for a reference. Also, feel free to browse the internet to look for resources regarding the particle 'wa' and its uses. They might be able to explain it better than we can.

final thought: think about like this, if 'wa' meant 'is' then what happens when 'wa' and 'desu' are both in a sentence. kore wa anata no dakimakura desu. this is your hugging pillow is? this is is your hugging pillow?

 

that must mean my brain translates weird because saying kore wa anata no dakimakura desu in my mind still translates to this is your hugging pillow

also im sorry about my english as a child my teachers didnt teach me grammer well so i still dont fully understand it

 

You translated that correctly. However if you make 'wa' be translated as 'is' then you get a weird one haha. One way that might help you think about it is that 'wa' doesn't get a direct translation to any word in English. Think of it like 'in regards to' or 'referencing this' and the like. It just adds the topic so people know what you are talking about, be it 'this' thing or 'april' or whatever it may be. This image might help.



No worries. Don't mean to bully or pick on you. It's just really hard to read sometimes I would send an unhappy letter to your teachers

 

dont worry i get it also thanks and the image is broken lol

 

well now...nevermind that image then xD

 

im so happy i figured out the lie before she said it but now im so sad its over it almost pulled me in the void

 

Soo... am I the only one here who thinks this anime is just a teeny bit overrated?

Cause you know, this is rated higher than the Haruhi Movie on MAL, which is stupid to say the least.

The production value is there. The writing is there. The animation is there. It's not a bad series by any stretch of the imagination [I gave it an 8/10]. But it's not the #13 best anime of all time according to MAL. I'd put it anywhere from 25-35 maybe.

 

I couldn't quit crying, and things that make me cry deserve at least a 9 usually in my book.
I was also super emotional when i watched this so, i probably cried for like 30 minutes but, THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT.

 

@Lince I agree with you. It was good, but not one of the top in my opinion.

I have a strange view on this show, I'm not exactly sure what kind of a rating I would give it. I dropped it around episode 11 a couple of months ago, because I felt like it was dragging on. Especially the first competition, it felt like 2-3 episodes were dedicated to that thing.

I started it again yesterday, and finished it today. I did feel a connection with the characters and did have tears by the end of the show, so that says something in itself. It definitely has emotional impact. It just took me longer than expected to feel that connection.

I am glad I watched it though. Looking back on it as a whole it definitely has a great story and characters.