On the bayfm radio program “Tonight, Under Sakura’s Tree” (every Wednesday from 24:00 to 24:30), broadcast on Wednesday, September 23, 2020.
IZ*ONE’s Miyawaki Sakura answered a listener’s question, “What is the difference between writing lyrics from scratch and translating Korean lyrics?”
Miyawaki Sakura: I, Nako, and Hii-chan are in charge of the Japanese versions of the Korean songs “La Vie en Rose,” “Violeta,” and “FIESTA,” respectively, and we wrote the Japanese lyrics.
We received the following message from a radio name “N77” about this.
Listener email: This time, Saku-chan is in charge of the lyrics for the Japanese version of “FIESTA,” and I’m really looking forward to it. Saku-chan is also in charge of lyrics and composition, but I think writing lyrics from scratch and translating Korean lyrics are “completely different,” so what is the difference?
I’d like to hear about that “difference.”
Miyawaki Sakura: Ah. It’s completely different.
After all, “Yummy Summer” is a song I composed from scratch, so I have all of my thoughts in my head about what I was thinking when I wrote it… so it’s not that difficult to write lyrics for a song I wrote.
It’s like “fitting together the pieces,” almost like “fitting together a puzzle.”
I already have an “image” in my mind.
But with “FIESTA,” it was really difficult to get the “thoughts” of the person who made it. It was really difficult to “check” and see if my interpretation was correct.
That’s because you can’t actually “talk to the person directly.” So the only information I have is the lyrics of “FIESTA.” Only the Korean lyrics. And Korean and Japanese have slightly different expressions… there are quite a few expressions that are “common expressions” in Korean, but in Japanese, “I don’t think this is an expression that would be used in lyrics.”
So it was really difficult to understand those differences and to understand the feelings of the lyricist who wrote it.
To be honest, it’s harder to write Korean lyrics in Japanese than to write lyrics normally…
But, well, it was my second time. I wrote the Japanese lyrics with Nako for “Fantasy Children’s Story,” and now it’s “FIESTA.” So…
…I could talk about this today (laughs). I could talk forever.
But “FIESTA” is… Every song is like that, but “FIESTA” in particular is a very special “meaningful song” for us. Every word in the lyrics is meaningful to us, so we thought “we don’t want to miss a single word.” It was a cool song that made you feel “standing up” and “strength,” so it was hard to think “how can I express that worldview in Japanese…”
But that process was really fun, too. I quite like writing lyrics.
…What does “I quite like it” mean? (laughs)?
“I like (writing lyrics).”
It’s like a puzzle. “I only have four letters, but I want to convey this and that, this and that… what should I say?” and then I search for the letters.
The process of searching for words is quite fun. It’s so refreshing when I manage to express something well…