English for「不器用と見せかけて策略家でも萌えます。」?

[MamaMiki]

I'm translating a Japanese story for a friend who only speaks English.
I came across the sentence: 「不器用と見せかけて策略家でも萌えます。」
I can understand the meaning...but I'm not sure how to put it in natural English. Anyone know?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Toritoribe]

What's your translation, roughly, not in natural English?

 

[Kraise]

I'm not sure if he's coming back any soon...
Is it safe to assume that 策略家 is the subject of 不器用と見せかけて too in this case?

 

[MamaMiki]

What's your translation, roughly, not in natural English?

*shrug* Something like, "Even though it's awkward and they're pretending they're experts at it, it blooms."

My interpretation is that the these people are obvious not professionals and are totally clumsy about it, but they still try to shrug it off and pretend it's not big deal. Yet, everything still ends up working out. Thoughts?

I'm not sure if he's coming back any soon...
Is it safe to assume that 策略家 is the subject of 不器用と見せかけて too in this case?

Hmm, I'll provide some context for you both. Basically, the person is writing in a theme where two people kind of awkwardly fall in love. This is coming from the synopsis for the story.

The whole thing is:
恋に不器用な大人達の不器用な恋愛をイメージ。不器用と見せかけて策略家でも萌えます。診断メーカーで出たお題で書きました。

I so far have it like this in English.
"It details the awkward romance of awkward adults in love. //mystery sentence//. I got this theme from Shindan Maker, and I wrote this as a result."

Obviously the last line literally translates as "I wrote in a theme that came out of Shindan Maker." but based on the rest of the context of the whole synopsis, it would seem a bit awkward to English readers, or so I believe. I'm kind of leaning towards doing a natural English translation rather than a 100% accurate one, but is that even a good way to go about it? This is my first time actually translating something into English, haha. Normally, I just read these on my own without thinking about how I would put it in English. So, any advice would be fantastic.

Thanks, you two! ;D

 

[Toritoribe]

The subject of 不器用と見せかけて策略家 is the characters in the story.

萌える is a slang; meaning "to be strongly attracted".
Moe (slang) - Wikipedia

 

[MamaMiki]

萌える is a slang; meaning "to be strongly attracted".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_(slang)

Ohhh!! So I can translate it as something like, "Even though they're awkward and acting like they're above that stuff, they're strongly attracted to each other."? In this case the interpretation would be that these two characters are awkward and pretending they don't like each other, but they really do.

 

[Toritoribe]

The subject of 萌えます is the writer.

 

[Kraise]

Is 策略家being modified by The whole clause 不器用と見せかけて?

Or os there a completely new clause starting with 策略家, sorry but I got somewhat dizzy with this one.

 

[Toritoribe]

登場人物たちが、不器用と見せかけて、実は策略家 makes more sense, maybe?

 

[Kraise]

A lot more. はっきりしていただいてありがとう

 

[MamaMiki]

Is 策略家being modified by The whole clause 不器用と見せかけて?

Or os there a completely new clause starting with 策略家, sorry but I got somewhat dizzy with this one.

Me too... I thought it 策略家 was being modified by 見せかけて, so now I'm really lost...

登場人物たちが、不器用と見せかけて、実は策略家 makes more sense, maybe?

That does make more sense!! :O So, then...

"Even though they are pretending to be clumsy when they actually have skill, I am strongly attracted to them"?

 

[Toritoribe]

Roughly, yes, you got the gist of it. My attempt is;
I'm also strongly attracted to the case/situation/plot that the characters are actually strategists pretending to be clumsy with love(lit. the characters are pretending to be clumsy with love, but are actually strategists).

 

[MamaMiki]

Roughly, yes, you got the gist of it. My attempt is;
I'm also strongly attracted to the case/situation/plot that the characters are actually strategists pretending to be clumsy with love(lit. the characters are pretending to be clumsy with love, but are actually strategists).

Aha! I see! Thank you so much for your help. Also, thanks for not just giving me the answer and, instead, actually letting me think about it on my own, haha.

Lesson learned: In the future I'll be putting invisible commas in sentences where the Te-form is next to a noun to see if that makes any more sense. lol

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

[Kraise]

I still have problems figuring out subjects sometimes, as in "一体誰が萌えているのか"

 

[MamaMiki]

I still have problems figuring out subjects sometimes, as in "一体誰が萌えているのか"

Yeah, it's definitely something I'm getting used to as well. :/

 

[Toritoribe]

The subjects of イメージ（しました） and 書きました are both the writer, so it's most reasonable to judge that the entire sentences are written on his/her viewpoint and therefore the subject of 萌えます is also the same person.

 

[MamaMiki]

The subjects of イメージ（しました） and 書きました are both the writer, so it's most reasonable to judge that the entire sentences are written on his/her viewpoint and therefore the subject of 萌えます is also the same person.

The sentence before that is 恋愛小説です。 Does that change everything?

 

[Toritoribe]

No, the interpretation is not changed at all.

これは恋愛小説です。私は恋に不器用な大人達の不器用な恋愛をイメージしました/して書きました。私は不器用と見せかけて策略家でも萌えます。私は診断メーカーで出たお題で書きました。

 

[MamaMiki]

No, the interpretation is not changed at all.

これは恋愛小説です。私は恋に不器用な大人達の不器用な恋愛をイメージしました/して書きました。私は不器用と見せかけて策略家でも萌えます。私は診断メーカーで出たお題で書きました。

That does make sense... However, for future reference, how exactly are you able to tell the subject? Just something you practice? Or do you have any tricks?

 

[Kraise]

That does make sense... However, for future reference, how exactly are you able to tell the subject? Just something you practice? Or do you have any tricks?

Its something Tori have taught me thousands of times, yet my silly mind keeps repeating the same mistakes.

Whenever the "subject" is not cited, you should assume its talking about itself right? as in "カレ食べたい" (i wanna eat kare) , paying attention to the particle 「は」specially , if a different person isnt brought up then it is somehow safe to keep the focus on said person(in this case, me)... whatever (verbs) come after that, a native japanese speaker should take it as something related to me, unless I bring a new topic.

It surely is easier said than done, about the practice part, yes, It is a matter of maturing our comprehension I think

 

[lanthas]

Now add a question mark: カレー食べたい？
And suddenly the subject is the addressee, not the speaker.

 

[MamaMiki]

Its something Tori have taught me thousands of times, yet my silly mind keeps repeating the same mistakes.

Whenever the "subject" is not cited, you should assume its talking about itself right? as in "カレ食べたい" (i wanna eat kare) , paying attention to the particle 「は」specially , if a different person isnt brought up then it is somehow safe to keep the focus on said person(in this case, me)... whatever (verbs) come after that, a native japanese speaker should take it as something related to me, unless I bring a new topic.

It surely is easier said than done, about the practice part, yes, It is a matter of maturing our comprehension I think

That's generally how I understand it; however, the sentence where これは was the implied subject, a new subject was not indicated right after. So I continued translating as though これは was still the subject, which was where I had trouble. It threw me off.

Obviously, it wouldn't make sense if 私は was the subject of 恋愛小説です. So, I'm wondering what logic one uses to recognize the subject change from the first sentence to the second...because in my interpretation, 私は or これは could be the subject. Thoughts?

 

[Kraise]

That's generally how I understand it; however, the sentence where これは was the implied subject, a new subject was not indicated right after. So I continued translating as though これは was still the subject, which was where I had trouble. It threw me off.

Obviously, it wouldn't make sense if 私は was the subject of 恋愛小説です. So, I'm wondering what logic one uses to recognize the subject change from the first sentence to the second...because in my interpretation, 私は or これは could be the subject. Thoughts?

I got your feelings...

Since we're in a similar position in this one, I can only guess(without offering you that satisfatory answer though) that as I said before the "verbs" are possibly the key to this one, perhaps a subject that is at the same time a non-agent(as the 小説) can't perform actions, this way, whenever in lack of a precise description about the next sentence, one should take the writer/narrator as the do'er of whatever verbs comes in.

 

[nekojita]

There doesn't have to be a spelled-out switch here because the rest of the sentences involve actions that a novel can't do. (Which you sort of got instinctively since you did have it as "I wrote" in your first attempt.)

I think the main issue is that you weren't familiar with those verbs. My question would be, then, on your strategy for handling unfamiliar vocabulary. How did you get from ~~をイメージ to "details" (in your first translation attempt?

 

[MamaMiki]

I got your feelings...

Since we're in a similar position in this one, I can only guess(without offering you that satisfatory answer though) that as I said before the "verbs" are possibly the key to this one, perhaps a subject that is at the same time a non-agent(as the 小説) can't perform actions, this way, whenever in lack of a precise description about the next sentence, one should take the writer/narrator as the do'er of whatever verbs comes in.

That does make sense now in retrospect, haha. Thank you!! ^^

There doesn't have to be a spelled-out switch here because the rest of the sentences involve actions that a novel can't do. (Which you sort of got instinctively since you did have it as "I wrote" in your first attempt.)

I think the main issue is that you weren't familiar with those verbs. My question would be, then, on your strategy for handling unfamiliar vocabulary. How did you get from ~~をイメージ to "details" (in your first translation attempt?

I assumed the subject was still これは, so I was like, "Wait, an object can't 'imagine' or 'illustrate', but it can 'show' or 'detail' something." That's how that went, haha. So, if the issue here is unfamiliar vocabulary, then do you have any suggestions for handling it in the future? Or just learn more words? I think in particular I need verbs... o.o