The dialogue for this section is available to listen to.

Dialogue

While on break during cheerleading practice, なおこ tells ちはる and さくら about her encounter with a ghost in a nearby forest. Just as the story has the ghost flying toward なおこ, さくら can’t stand it anymore and lets out a frightened scream, forcing her two friends to cover their ears.

ちはる：「さ…さくらちゃん…」

さくら：「ご、ごめんなさい。」

The phrase ごめんなさい is an apology, meaning here, “I’m sorry”.

ちはる：「なおこちゃん、　その　話　本当　なの？」

その means “that”. The word 話 has various (related to speaking) meanings, and here it means “story”. 本当 means “real” or “true”.

I’ve read that なの goes at the end of a question and gives emphasis. なんだ functions in the same way, but なの is the feminine of the two, and gives a softer emphasis. (More on this below, with さくら’s dialogue.)

なおこ：「うん。」

This is a simple confirmation, such as the English “mm” (or “mm-hm”).

ちはる：「何か　お見間違い　ちゃったって　ことは？」

Thanks to Kay in the comments for helping out with this line.

The first word, 何か, is an expression meaning “something”.

Next is お見間違い, which uses the polite prefix お〜. The word 見間違い, which combines 見る (the verb “[to] see”) with 間違い (the noun “mistake), has a combined meaning of “mistaken in seeing”. Related to 間違い is the verb 間違います (”is mistaken, is wrong, is in error”).

〜ちゃった is the past tense of 〜ちゃう. 〜ちゃう is an informal way of saying 〜して　します. This means 〜ちゃった is an informal 〜して　しました. This form of grammar marks a verb as being an action in the “past perfect tense”. If “saw” is in the past tense, then “had seen” is in the past perfect tense.

For another example, consider 見る, which is the verb “see”, or “to see”. Writing it as 見てします provides the present perfect tense, “has seen”. This may be condensed informally to 見ちゃう.

In the past tense form 見ました, it becomes “seen”. The past perfect tense is written as 見てしました. This is “had seen”. Because 〜てしました can be condensed into 〜ちゃった, an informal way of saying “had seen” is 見ちゃった.

The ことは part I’m uncertain of. From what I’ve read in the past, I’m under the impression that the ことは following しました (from the ちゃったて) gives a meaning along the lines of “(has) done”. With “mistaken in seeing” in its past perfect from before this, it would read as “have been mistaken in seeing”.

Putting the pieces together, the sentence word-for-word becomes “Something mistaken-seeing have been?” Or, reordered, “Could you have mistakenly seen something else?”

The region one translation is, “Can it be you saw something else?” The bootleg translation goes with “Could you have just mistaken it with something else?”

なおこ：「んん。」

“Mmn” better matches the sound なおこ makes, but that’s not so easy to express in Japanese letters. This time, it’s a negative sound, along the lines of the English “mm-mm”.

さくら：「その　話を　やめよよ。」

This is another I’m uncertain of, especially the “やめよ” + “よ”.

Here, その, meaning “that”, and 話, referring to a “discussion” or “conversation” or “talk(ing), are a single object. “That conversation”. The following を marks “that conversation” as the object of the sentence, the item being talked about. The verb of the sentence is directly targeted as this object. The verb here is found in やめよ. やめよ is the verb やめる, meaning “stop”, in its imperative (requesting) form. The final よ marks this sentence as a request, as さくら is urging her friends to cease discussion of the scary story.

My translation puts this as, “(Let’s) stop that conversation.” The region one translation is “Let’s stop talking about that…”

さくら：「こわい　話　ダメ　なんだよ。」

Another uncertain, transcribed as “なんだ” + “よ”.

Starting さくら’s second sentence is こわい, an adjective meaning “scary”. Once more, 話 is the noun for “story”. The word ダメ is a noun, meaning “no good”. Finishing is なんだ, an auxiliary verb (used similarly as です). It’s actually a contraction of なのだ, the casual form of the polite なのです. なのです, to my understanding, is a softer way of saying です. A “polite” way for さくら’s sentence to be written would then be, “こわい　はなし　ダメ　です”. The よ here again makes this sentence an urged request by さくら.

Scary + story + no good + auxiliary = “Scary stories are no good (for me).” Fitting it more comfortably into English might result in a translation along the lines of “I can’t handle scary stories.”

ちはる：「ねぇ、ねぇ。」

ちはる：「その　話が　ほんとう　かどうか　確かめて　見ない？

“その 話” combines その (that) with 話 (story) for “that story”, and が marks “that story” as the subject of the sentence.

The adjective ほんとう describes something as “real” or “true”.

かどうか is an expression, with a meaning along the lines of “whether (or not)”.

The new verb here is 確かめます (”make sure” or “check out [something]“), heard here in its て form (making it an imperitive, a “let’s do this”, sentence).

見ない is the verb 見る (mean “[to] see”) spoken in its 〜ない (negative present tense) form, meaning “not see”. Within the context of the sentence as a whole, I don’t clearly understand the use of “not see”, so I’m judging its meaning based on the subtitled translations.

Putting the pieces together, the sentence becomes “(Why) not see whether the story checks out as true?”

The region one translation is “Why don’t we see if that story is true?” and the bootleg uses “Why don’t we go check if that story is true.”

I’m at a loss as to how the “why” fits into the translations. (Anyone able to explain this?)

ちはる：「今日は　クラブの　早く　おわるし。。。」

The noun 今日, as its kanji for “now” and “day” suggest, is the word for “today”. The particle は　marks 今日 as the topic of the sentence. “As for today, …”

Written in katakana here, クラブ is a loanword from English. It’s “club”, referring to Sakura’s cheerleading class, which may be an afterschool club activity. (This would explain why Tomoyo and other students are casually walking around, rather than being in classes.) The region one subtitle replaces “club” with “practice”.

The の throws me off. On page 69 of Naoko Chino’s All About Particles, Chino writes that の is Used to replace [が] to indicate the subject of a clause modifying noun. I wonder if this applies here.

The adverb 早く means “early” or “soon”, and it modifies the verb following directly after it.

The verb おわる means “(to) finish” or “(to) end”. The final し is a particle similar to “and” or “and so”.

“Today, club ends early, and so…”

The region one translation for this line is “We’ll be done with practice early today.” Region two uses “Club ends early today,” continuing into the next line of dialogue.

ちはる：「。。。りかちゃんも　誘て　みんなで　行って 見ようよ。」

The も particle means “with”, for the meaning “with りか”.

The noun 誘い, or “invitation”, relates with the verb used here: 誘う. In its て form, the verb becomes imperative, saying “let’s invite Rika”.

みんな means “everyone”, and the で means “with”. “With everyone.” “Let’s invite Rika, and with everyone …”

The 行って is the て form of 行く, “(to) go”. This is the verb for “go” in its imperative form.

The final verb is 見よう. This is the verb 見る in its volitional form. Whereas 見る means “(you) see”, 見よう means “(you) will see”.

The ending よ once again makes the sentence a request (”Let’s do …”).

“Let’s invite Rika, and everyone will go together.” Or, better worded in English, “Let’s invite Rika, and we’ll all go together.”

The region one subtitles translate this sentence as “Let’s invite Rika and go together!” The bootleg continues from the last sentence, with “…so let’s invite Rika-chan and all go together.”

さくら：「あのう、あのう、あのう！」

あのう means “um”, so さくら here is saying, “Um, um, um!” to get the attention of her friends.

ちはる：「なに？」

なに here simply means “what”.

さくら：「ほら！」

ほら is an expression along the lines of “Hey!”, used in this situation to get the attention of ちはる and なおこ.

さくら：「あそこの　もり、 　おくが　がけみたいに　なってる　じゃない。」

Once again, some words I can’t hear clearly enough to transcribe. I’ll work with what I can here. Any help on what さくら is saying would be appreciated.

あそこ is “(over) there”, or “(that place) (over) there”. The noun もり refers to a “forest”. With the possessive particle の, this becomes “that forest”. The noun おく means the “inside” of something, and the particle が marks “inside of that forest” as the subject of the sentence.

The noun がけ refers to a “cliff”.

I don’t know the meaning of みたい, but the general context I gather by checking sites via Google is “(something) like …” or “(something) along the lines of …) Add to the end the particle に, or “at”, and it becomes “There’s (something) like a cliff inside of that forest.”

This appears to me to be the verb なる (”become”) in its 〜て いる form (present progressive; continuing), and contracted from なって いる to なってる. However, “becoming” doesn’t seem to fit the subtitle translations, unless I’m missing something. Any help on the meaning here?

The negative of である (”is”) ie じゃない (”not is”, “isn’t”).

The region one translation goes with, “Y–You know, those woods… The other end is like a cliff.” The bootleg’s translation is, “Isn’t there a cliff inside the woods?”

さくら：「危ないよ。」

The adjective 危ない means “dangerous”, and the following よ adds certainly to さくら’s statement. It isn’t simply dangerous, it’s definitely dangerous.

ちはる：「そばに　？？？　だいじょうぶよ。」
そば means “near” or “beside”, and the particle に marks it as a location where the verb takes place.

Any help on the ？？？ portion?

だいじょうぶ means “all right”, and with the よ adding certainty, it means along the lines of “(Everything will be) all right”.

The region one translation is “It’ll be okay if we don’t go near that.” The bootleg’s translation is “As long as you don’t go next to it, everything is okay.”

さくら：「で、でも、　もし　本当に　おばけがて たら？」

The “がて　から” part I’m very uncertain of my transcription of.

でも means “but”. もし means “if”.

While 本当 means “real” or “true”, 本当に means “really” or “truly”.

An おばけ is a “ghost” (or “monster” in other contexts).

The rest I believe I’ve incorrectly transcribed, as I can’t determine its meaning.

The region one translation is “B–But if a ghost really appeared…”

ちはる：「すぐに　にげて　？？？　だいじょうぶよ。」

Any help on the missing portion?

すぐ means “quickly”, and すぐに means “right away” or “at once”.

The verb にげる, meaning “run”, is used in its て form here, its imperative form. If I can transcribe the whole sentence, I can expand on this form of the verb.

The region one translation is, “It’ll be okay if we run away as soon as it shows up.” The bootleg uses “If we run away right away, it will be fine.”

さくら：「だ…だけど…」

The conjunction だけど means “however”.

ちはる：「とにかく、だいじょうぶよ。」

とにかく means “anyway” or “in any care”. だいじょうぶよ is “safe” or “all right”. ちはる is saying, “At any rate, everything will be fine.”

The region one translation is “I’m saying, it will be okay.”

さくら：「うんん…」

なおこ：「？？？」

Laziness means I didn’t get this far. The region one release subtitles it as “Oh, break is over.”

ちはる：「行こう！」

Based in the verb 行く, meaning “go”, and in its volitional form, its form when expressing intent to do something. In this case, “go” becomes “let’s go”.

さくら：「？？？」

Difficulty in making out what’s said means I didn’t get this far. The region one release subtitles it as “Why does everyone like scary stories?” The bootlet uses “Why does everybody like scary things?”

My notes on what’s being said are written as “Doushita minna kowai-no [suki] kowai koto ??? shiranai ??? [doushita].” Any help?

さくら：「？？？」

Laziness means I didn’t get this far. The region one release subtitles it as “Scary things might happen… Why are they going?” The bootlet uses “Even though scary things might happen, why do we go?” Any help on what’s being said?

ともよ：「？？？」

Difficulty in making out what’s said means I didn’t get this far. The region one release subtitles it as “Oh, Sakura, what’s wrong?”

Any help on what’s being said? My written notes are “Ara, Sakura-chan. [Doushitan] desu ka?”, but I’m not sure if the word in square brackets.

さくら：「ともよちゃん…」

さくら：「？？？」

Difficulty in making out what’s said means I didn’t get this far. The region one release subtitles it as “Tomoyo, come with me!” The bootleg uses “Tomoyo-chan, come along!”

My notes on what’s said are “Wahah, Tomoyo-chan [suki-atte],” but I’m uncertain of the last part. Any help?

ともよ：「はい、はい。」

Vocabulary

Nouns

Verbs

Adverbs

Auxiliaries

Adjectives

Conjunctions and Expressions

Interjections

Miscellaneous

Forms of Verbs

Out of laziness, I’m going to hold off on this for now. After I become for familiar with the verbs used, I may come back and fill this out to practice on forms of verbs.

Characters in Cardcaptor Sakura have their own ways of speaking. Because these mannerisms exist in every episode the character appears in, I’ve decided to compile them in one place, rather than repeating their explanations every episode post.

さくら

Nothing yet.

けろ

Nothing yet, but I expect this to fill out nicely due to his Osakan accent.

ともよ

ます

ともよ uses the polite form of verbs. This includes using ます, ません, ました, です, and other polite forms.

わね

The suffix わ (not to be confused with the particle は, which is pronouced the same) is a “sentence ending” used generally by females. Naoko Chino in All About Particles, page 56, writes that わ softens the tone of a statement.

The suffix ね has many uses the same as わ, but can also be used to [indicate] emotion or feelings of admiration.

ゆきと

だね

This combines だ (the familiar form of です), with a meaning along the lines of “is”, with the particle ね. As with ともよ in an entry above, ね here makes for a soft-spoken closeness to さくら and her brother in ゆきと’s speech.

そう　Nice To Meet You Good To See You　きっと

Simply put, そう means “so”. Easy enough. And きっと is “surely” or “certainly”.

“So, nice to meet you, good to see you, certainly.”

Bootleg translation: “Yes! it’s nice to meet you, good to see you, I’m sure.”

Licensed translation: “Yes, nice to meet you, good to see you, I’m sure of it.”

I’m just going to bow out of this one and move on…

私の想い　あなたのハートに飛んで飛んで飛んでいけ

わたしのおもい　あなたのハートにとんでとんでとんでいけ

A repetition of words makes this less work than it might at first appear.

私 (わたし) is I, me, myself; this is basic stuff even for a beginner.

The word 想い (おもい) is one of the most evil words ever. It has so many similar meanings and different meanings depending on its situation. It can refer to ones mind, ones heart, ones feelings, emotion, ones wishes or hopes or desires, etc.

The particle -no combines these two as “my feelings”. Or “my emotions”, “my hopes”, etc.

Another basic word, あなた is “you”. And ハート is the English word, “heart”. The particle -no combines again, for “your heart”. The particle -ni can mean “in”, “to”, or “at”, depending on context.

The thrice repeated 飛んで (とんで) is an expression for “fly”.

Finally, いけ probably comes from the verb いく, or “go”. I don’t know what form puts it as “いけ”, but I’ve heard it used before in the same context as the -te form of いく would be.

Putting together, I get the following:

“My feelings go fly, fly, flying into your heart.”

This comes from the pieces “my feelings” and “go fly(ing) to your heart”.

For comparisons, the bootleg translation is “My feelings to your heart will go fly, fly, fly!” This is actually close to what I almost went with, but I decided on moving the “fly” to the middle for a smoother reading. I’m not content with using “go fly fly flying”, though. Continuing to show what a professional translation looks like, the licensed translation goes, “Let my feelings for you fly, fly, fly away to your heart.” It’s like poetry. I think I missed out on the “いけ” part by using “go” whereas this translation uses “let” and “(fly) away” together.

One final word finishes the song.

コ・イ・シ・テ・ル！

こい (with the kanji 恋) means “love” (differently from the prior used スキ).

してる is a difficult one if you don’t know it comes from している. The base verb is する, “do”. The -teiru conjugation shows the that verb is in its present progressive (happening presenting and continuing to happen) form, “doing”.

Love + doing = loving. “I’m (being) in love.” “I’m loving.”

The bootleg translation is “I’m in love with you!” The licensed translation is “I’m in love!”

That concludes the short version of the opening theme song, the version used at the start of the earlier episodes in Cardcaptor Sakura. And yet, I don’t feel I’ve picked up anything. The sentences are fragments, pieces of song. I don’t think I’ll put the time into translating any of the other songs line by line. Listening to Catch You Catch Me, you’d think I’d recognize every word as it’s spoken, but I don’t. I need to add the words I learned to my spaced repetition review, but first I want to see how well I can do picking up words and phrases from the episodes. This is going to be difficult without Japanese subtitles.

ほら　Catch You Catch You Catch Me Catch Me　待って

ほら　Catch You Catch You Catch Me Catch Me　まって

The word ほら means “hey”, but can also be translated as “look” or “see” (using the same English meaning as “hey” holds).

The verb 待つ (まつ), wait, conjugates into the -te, or commanding, form as 待って. 待って translates as “wait (for me)”.

“Hey, Catch You, Catch You, Catch Me, Catch Me, wait for me.”

The bootleg translation tries it out with “Hey, Catch you Catch you Wait!” Nice try? The licensed translation chooses not to drop plainly-English words: “Now, catch you, catch you, catch me, catch me, wait for me.” I don’t know about using “now” in place of ほら, as I’ve never seen it before, but it does give a slightly different meaning from my translation. I thought for sure mine would be 100% the same as the licensed translation, too.

Continuing on after such an easy one comes one with words I don’t know yet. Time to pull out the translation dictionary.

こっちをむいて　スキだと言って

こっちをむいて　スキだといって

The word こっち means “(over) this way” or “(over in) this direction”. Along with it is the particle, -o, which indicates the object of an action. That is to say, doing “むいて” to “こっち”.

むいて comes from むき, if you’ll believe it. The verb むき means to “face” in a direction. I’m assuming むいて is the -te, commanding form of むき, so “むいて to こっち” becomes “face to this over here” becomes “look over here”.

Often spelled in katakana from what I’ve seen, スキ means “like” or “fondness” or “love”. It really depends on how it’s used. “スキだ” extends this, meaning “(be) like(ing)”, “(be) fond of”, “(be) love(ing)”.

The particle と puts two things together. “スキだ and 言って”

The word 言って is known after the previous lines. 言う (いう) means “(to) say”, to the commanding form can be “say it (to me)”.

With this, “スキだ and 言って” becomes “Love me and say it (to me)”, or simply “Tell (me) you love me.”

I’d go with a translation something like, “Look over here and tell me you love me.”

The bootleg translation goes with, “Look at me and please say I love you,” which if you are not careful with, you might confuse the the subject. The licensed translation flows as “Look over here and tell me you love me,” matching perfectly with what I had decided upon.

I think I did better on this translation because I spent a little more time looking up words rather than trusting my memory. Unfortunately, most of the time I don’t trust my memory with Japanese only to look it up and find I was right about the translation, purpose, or meaning.

だって　だって　翼広げ二人で

だって　だって　つばさ　ひろげ　ふたりで

Continuing the trend of lines repeating the same verb, this line repeats the conjunction “だって”, meaning “however” or “because”, two times.

Anyone who knows anything about Syaoran’s counterpart’s series, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, may be familiar with this word already. The word tsubasa means “wing”, and Sakura can’t be without all her wing-related goods and trinkets.

The verb 広げる (ひろげる) means “spread”. 翼広げ, “tsubasa hiroge”, means “spread wings”.

二人 (ふたり) consists of the kanji 二 (ni, two) and 人 (hito, person), meaning “two people”.

Finally, the particle で means “with”.

And when it’s all put together? “However, however, (we’ll) spread our wings together.”

Or how about this? “However, however, the two of us spread out wings.”

I think the first of the two is the better-sounding of the two, but the “however” is a bit clumsy. I could use “but”, but that still doesn’t flow well for me.

The bootleg translation goes, “Because. Because. Together we’ll spread our wings…” I don’t know if “because” is a better or worse translation than “however” in this line. I still think “however” doesn’t sound quite right.

The official licensed translation from the region one release chose to go with, “But still, but still, I want to spread my wings with you…” Yeah, that completely knocks my try out of the ring. This translation uses a more comfortable “but still”. While my translation and the bootleg’s translation suggested that both Sakura and the other person would fly with wings, this translation goes with the idea of Sakura being the one with wings, a much better translation I feel.

This line continues into the next.

空をマラソン　夢をユニゾンしたい

そらをマラソン　ゆめをユニゾンしたい

This line contains all words I know. Nothing to look up. It also continues on lessons learned in prior lines.

I’ll begin with the end. したい comes from the verb する, but puts it in the -tai form, making it a desire. The word する means “(to) do”, so したい means “want (to) do”.

There are two English words here. マラソン is marathon, and ユニゾン is unison.

Finally, 空, そら is sky and 夢, ゆめ is dream.

This compiles easily: “I want to marathon (across) the sky (with you), to dream in unison (with you).” The “across” is added in to make the sentence flow better in English.

The bootleg uses the translation (continuing from the previous line) as, “…and I want to run a sky marathon and dream in unison with you.” The licensed translation can only top that, and does so with (continuing from the prior line), “…marathon across the skies with you, and have dreams in unison with you.” Somehow their translation always outdoes mine. This is why they get paid to translate and I get paid to write software. I’d say “have dreams in unison” is a huge improvement over “to dream in unison”.

言えないの　言いたいの　チャンス逃してばかり

いえないの　いいたいの　チャンスのがしてばかり

The theme of using the same word in two forms continues from the first line. this time, the verb is 言う, or “say”. They also end in の, which I understand to have a similar meaning to な seen in the first line: it softens the words. This could be probably as the song sings the first two words softly before increasing the voice for the final portion of the line.

The -nai and -tai forms were covered in the post on the first line, but I’ll review them here.

Conjugating 言う to 言え puts it in its imperative, commanding form. Adding -nai makes it negative. 言え means “can say”, and 言えない means “cannot say”.

The -tai suffix puts the verb into the form of a desire. If 言う is “say”, then 言いたい is “(I) want to say”.

“I cannot say, I want to say.” Two words down. Three to go.

チャンス is an easy one. It’s the English word “chance”.

The verb 逃す can be read as “にがす” (run) or “のがす” (miss). In this situation, it’s the latter. It has the meaning of miss as in “miss a chance”, to “waste” a potential.

The -te form of 逃す is 逃して. The -te form expresses a command. 逃して can be translated as “miss it!”

The final word is ばかり. This word, typically written in kana rather than kanji, is a particle meaning “approximately”, and focuses on the smallness of that amount. Think, “Missed it by that much.”

Putting these last three words together, it’s “(I) barely miss my chance!”

Consider the first line of to song, and who Sakura is as a character, and how this song conveys her feelings for Yukito, I’d say a more comfortable English translation would be along the lines of, “I can’t tell you (what) I want to tell you. I keep missing my chance!” I’m using “keep” here under its meaning of “continue”. This is on the idea that Sakura has “barely missed my chance!” more than once. It both is easier to read in English and makes sense in the context of the line.

“I can’t tell you what I want to tell you. I keep missing my chance!”

To compare, the bootleg goes with a fairly literal, “Can’t tell you. Want to tell you keep missing chances to tell you.” The licensed translation goes, “I can’t tell you but I want to tell you. I keep missing my chance.”

This time around, it appears I made over 90% close to the licensed translation. Considering some of the simple lines in this song, I expect to hit 100% matches at least a few times, and probably under 50% other times.

The first word here is a verb repeated twice, but in different conjugations.

会いたいな (あいたいな). The verb 会う (あう) means “meet”. The -tai form is used to express a wish or desire of the speaker. “au + tai” = “aitai”, “want to meet”.

会えないな (あえないな). This time, au takes on a -nai form. Normally the -nai form conjugates as 会わない, but this appears to use the blunt, commanding form, 会え (あえ). If “ai” is used such as “let’s meet somewhere” and “ae” is used such as “let’s meet somewhere!”, then I take it “awanai” is used in the fashion of “I can’t meet you there” and “aenai” as “I can’t meet you there!”

If I’m not way off here, then these first two words can be written more verbosely as “I want to meet you, but I can’t meet you!” The -na ending each word softens them.

The third word is 切ないな (せつないな). This continues the -nai format, but with an adjective this time around. The adjective “setsu” means “eager”, and the -nai form, “setsunai” is “sad”.

Again, the “na” here softens the word.

The final quarter of this first line is この気持ち (このきもち), combining kono (this) with kimochi (feeling).

The context of this song isn’t about meeting someone, but rather seeing them, so I’ll substitute “meet” for see”. Putting these four together, I get “I want to see you, but I can’t see you. This feeling (I have) is sad(ness).”

So, how do I compare with other translators? The bootleg release of Cardcaptor Sakura settings on “Want to see you, but I cannot see you with this heartbreaking feeling.” The licensed English release’s translation tops it with, “I want to see you, but I can’t see you. This feeling I have is so lonely.”

I matched the licensed translation about 70% word-for-word, so I can’t complain too much! But where did I go wrong? My dictionary translates “setsunai” as “sad”, but this translation chooses “lonely”. Not just lonely, but “so lonely”.

Considering who Sakura is as a person, I’d say “so lonely” is a better fit than “sad”. She’s generally an upbeat person. She doesn’t get sad. She’s cheerful. But she’ll still find loneliness. When Sakura can’t be with the one she wants to be with, any sadness stems from her distance from that person, her inability to be with that person, her loneliness of not being able to be with that person.

Or maybe “so lonely” is just an all-around a better translation than “sadness”. I’ve never been accused of under-analysing something, no matter how small.

But this post isn’t about Princess Tutu, this is about Cardcaptor Sakura.

I haven’t gotten very far with my Japanese grammar posts, and my studies are lacking because of it. Since I do spaced-repetition vocabulary review using the cross-platform Anki software, once I’ve learned a word, it shows up less and less. Once I comfortably learn all the words I’m studying, my reviews are down to one to five words each week. I need more than that! Unfortunately, my quest to pick up more words watching two series of Ojamajo Doremi didn’t work out very well. I did pick up new words to be sure, yes, but not many. Not even one per episode. Now that’s just sad. Watching without subtitles forced me to pay attention to the words, but that was split between also paying more attention to the animation. It’s amazing how much subtitles can distract, even if you’re a seasoned subtitles reader. Sometimes you don’t even notice it until you’re watching a well done dub.

No, this post isn’t about any Cardcaptor Sakura dub, thank goodness. I plan to work my way through 70 episodes (and maybe two movies) of pure Japanese, no English subtitles Cardcaptor Sakura.

“Subtitles” is not a bad word when it comes to learning new Japanese words. It allows you to see which words are being used, so you can re-watch a scene, and listen carefully. If a word isn’t spoken clearly, you can look up the English subtitle in a translation dictionary and find the Japanese versions, then use this to more clearly understand the word as spoken. If you don’t know what’s being said, it can be more tricky to pick up on what characters are saying when it comes to words you don’t know. You instead have to pick up on rules of grammar, such as English words ending in the “-ing” sound being one form of verb.

I think the reason I failed to pick up many wods from 100 episodes of Ojamajo Doremi is because I didn’t have any expectation to pick up words. I think I walked away from those 100 episodes with less than 20 new verbs learned, a bad showing indeed. With Cardcaptor Sakura, it’ll be in the context of “Let’s see how many words I can recognize, and how many new ones I can pick up.” Anyone reading the posts can pick up new words and recognize old words from their own learning, giving me an extra incentive to continue. I have to “do it now” if I want to increase my vocabulary. Obviously reading a list of words isn’t going to be enough for me. I need visual mnemonics.

Rather than watching an episode through, then trying to pick out words, or remember what I heard, I expect I’ll use a “stop and go” method. When I hear something I want to include in the post, I’ll stop, take a screenshot or three to visually show where the scene is, re-watching the scene as many times as necessary to type out the dialogue and its translation (including refering to my Nintendo DS and a Japanese dictionary with English words if need be for new-to-me words), typing out any related translation commentary, then continuing on watching. I can easily do this as I’ve already seen the series, so it won’t be jarring or holding me back from enjoying the series. The only issue I’ll have is a complete and utter lack of Japanese subtitles.

Before posting something for the first episode, I decided to try translating Cardcaptor Sakura’s opening theme song, Catch You Catch Me. This didn’t go as well as I’d hoped for me, but I’ve always had trouble with song lyrics. I’ll still post it (across multiple posts, about one a day) before posting on the episodes.

Past posts of mine have shown scenes from an anime series with a transcription and translation of the dialogue in the scene. These work for me because I’m able to put the words into the context of a scene and the characters involved.

Whereas I’ve previously put kana and romaji side-by-side on similair posts, I’ve decided to drop the romaji for this series of posts. Others may use these posts as a learning aide, and anyone planning on learning Japanese needs to be able to read kana. Having romaji is only a crutch, and a harmful one at that.

The same can be said about kanji, but my kanji knowledge is limited. I’ll try to add in a kanji here and there, but I may make mistakes.

I’ve decided to put all names in kana, rather than romaji, when using the name in an English sentence (excepting full-sentence translations). For someone struggling to learn kana, this would make for a nice amount of repetition of letters, a good way to become familiar with them. For someone who already knows kana, this can help with speed of word recognition.

I’ll also openly welcome transcriptions of scenes from an episode in that episode post’s comments, which I could add to the post. I’m sure there are many, many, many out there with better Japanese understanding than I have.

This is not a fansub project. This is not an attempt to do a full series fan translation of Cardcaptor Sakura. This is a learning experiment.

(By the way, whoever said Tomoyo is subtle about things obviously never asked her to break a wall of text.)

This scene takes place in Ojamajo Doremi ♯, episode 25. On the Taiwan box set release, it’s roughly 1:54:40 into the DVD.

Hazuki

ビ、ビックリした。

Bi-bikkurishita.

(Y-you) startled (me).

The following is from Ojamajo Doremi ♯, episode 19. On the Taiwan box set release, it’s roughly 01:29:00 into the DVD. The scene is when Nanako is recounting to Aiko, Onpu, and Poppu the events when young Hazuki learned young Doremi lied to her about what happened to the class rabbit. Young Masaru explained the reason for young Doremi’s actions, and young Hazuki approaches young Doremi to apologize for her reaction.

Hazuki

どれみちゃん、ピアノ　慣らってるの？

どれみちゃん、ピアノ　ならってるの？

Doremi-chan, piano naratteruno?

Doremi, are you learning (to play) the piano?

Doremi

うん、おかあさんに　ちょとね。

un, okaasan-ni chotte ne

Yes, a little by my mother.

Hazuki

わたしも　ヴァイオリンを　慣らってるの。

わたしも　ヴァイオリンを　ならってるの。

watashi-mo violin-o naratteruno

I’m also learning (to play) the violin.

Lala

ミミ、ファファ、ロロ、隠れて！

ミミ、ファファ、ロロ、かくれて！

Mimi, Fafa, Roro, kakurete!

Mimi, Fafa, Roro, hide!

Here, Lala uses kakureru in the imperative te form, which is explained on page 32 of Japanese Verbs at a Glance by Naoko Chino: The -te form can be used by itself to make informal commands among family or close friends.

This scene takes place in Ojamajo Doremi ♯, episode 25. On the Taiwan box set release, it’s roughly 1:52:30 into the DVD.

Witches

マジカルステージ！　ハナちゃんを　助けて！

マジカルステージ！　ハナちゃんを　たすけて！

Magical Stage! Hana-chan-wo tasukete!

Magical Stage! Save Hana-chan!

Posts on “Japanese Grammar” from visual media will include the following aspects:

• The name of the series or movie the word use is from.
• The location on the DVD of the word, as well as which DVD is being used.
• A quick summary of the events surrounding the use of the word.
• Screenshots of the event surrounding the use of the word.
• The sentence containing the word, and possible relevant sentences from before and/or after it. These should appear in Japanese (once with kanji, once with kana only), in rōmaji, and in English.

If you’re learning Japanese, it may be worth it to review Japanese grammar posts, even if you don’t know the series containing the word. The number one way I’ve found to learn a new word is to first learn the word.

When I learned “mitsukeru”, I was having trouble remembering it. In the following two episodes of Ojamayo Doremi ♯ I watched, the word came up multiple times. In one episode, Doremitchi and Onputchi are trying to find their friends (who’ve vanished in the woods, after hearing a scary story about vanishing friends). While pondering, Onputchi says to herself, “mitsukeru hoho, mitsukeru hoho…” In the episode prior, a witch is announcing a trial Hana and other babies have to pass, finding a panda doll within a pile of dolls. The witch’s sentence ends in “panda ningyo mitsukete kudasai.” I wouldn’t even have “heard” this word in either situation had I not read the word and its meaning prior. It would have been unnoticed, remaining unlearned.