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Translating a phrase 2020/4/28 03:08
Hi all,

How would you translate the phrase 「人は殺されれば死ぬ」to English?
by Lynn (guest)  

Re: Translating a phrase 2020/4/28 10:26
That's the line from Fate/Stay Night, right?

The translation is just like the one shown in memes: "People die if they are killed."

That said, the emotion behind the line, in the anime, is basically "People who are killed are supposed to stay dead," since the character who says the line is reacting to someone else's ability to come back to life after being fatally injured. When the character says 「人は殺されれば死ぬ」, he's not stating an obvious fact in a failed attempt to show how smart he is or how dumb the listener is. The obvious, unspoken follow-up is "So why are you still alive?"

You could say it's a clunky or cheesy line in the original Japanese, but in this case "People die if they are killed" isn't a mistranslation at all.
by . . . . (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Translating a phrase 2020/4/28 14:25
Thanks for replying . . . .!

Yes, it’s from Fate/Stay Night :)

I’m not a native English or Japanese speaker, so I wasn’t 100% sure, but I thought the official translation was correct. Guess people were just taking it out of context to make Shirou seem dumb.
by Lynn (guest) rate this post as useful

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