Lost in Translation- v. musical

Several Korean musical theatres are conducting try-outs in London. Interestingly, none of them seem to employ a lyricist as part of their translation team. I firmly believe Han Kang’s recent Nobel Prize in Literature was heavily influenced by the quality of her translation team. I’ve read there are nine levels of linguistic difference globally, with Korean and English lying eight levels apart—almost entirely dissimilar. Even translating prose is tricky, but for verse…?

Verse presents an entirely different challenge—musicality and sentence length. It’s impossible to preserve rhythm, meaning, and scansion simultaneously.

Korean, structurally, tends to follow a dactylic rhythm, whereas English often favours pickups, such as iambic patterns. In Korea, using pickups in speech is often perceived as muttering or indicative of a regional accent. However, this issue can usually be resolved by adjusting pickups during translation.

A second problem arises with syllable count. English often has far more syllables than Korean when writing lyrics. Consequently, translating into Korean requires a succinct and poetic approach. In attempting to fit more syllables into the music, the relationship between the hook and the lyric can sometimes be lost.

Finally, the most challenging issue is scansion. This deserves a separate discussion, but unfortunately, many Koreans have become accustomed to incorrect scansions due to their frequent occurrence in translations.

Background is the song that I wrote on Korean, and am not daring to translate in English. Guess what the lyric means… to be continued….