Catch You Catch Me: Part 2

Continuing with the theme song Catch You Catch Me from Cardcaptor Sakura, after line one comes line two.

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.