Catch You Catch Me: Part 4

The next line is an easy one, due to being almost completely in English.

ほら　Catch You Catch You Catch Me Catch Me　待って

ほら　Catch You Catch You Catch Me Catch Me　まって

The word ほら means “hey”, but can also be translated as “look” or “see” (using the same English meaning as “hey” holds).

The verb 待つ (まつ), wait, conjugates into the -te, or commanding, form as 待って. 待って translates as “wait (for me)”.

“Hey, Catch You, Catch You, Catch Me, Catch Me, wait for me.”

The bootleg translation tries it out with “Hey, Catch you Catch you Wait!” Nice try? The licensed translation chooses not to drop plainly-English words: “Now, catch you, catch you, catch me, catch me, wait for me.” I don’t know about using “now” in place of ほら, as I’ve never seen it before, but it does give a slightly different meaning from my translation. I thought for sure mine would be 100% the same as the licensed translation, too.

Continuing on after such an easy one comes one with words I don’t know yet. Time to pull out the translation dictionary.

こっちをむいて　スキだと言って

こっちをむいて　スキだといって

The word こっち means “(over) this way” or “(over in) this direction”. Along with it is the particle, -o, which indicates the object of an action. That is to say, doing “むいて” to “こっち”.

むいて comes from むき, if you’ll believe it. The verb むき means to “face” in a direction. I’m assuming むいて is the -te, commanding form of むき, so “むいて to こっち” becomes “face to this over here” becomes “look over here”.

Often spelled in katakana from what I’ve seen, スキ means “like” or “fondness” or “love”. It really depends on how it’s used. “スキだ” extends this, meaning “(be) like(ing)”, “(be) fond of”, “(be) love(ing)”.

The particle と puts two things together. “スキだ and 言って”

The word 言って is known after the previous lines. 言う (いう) means “(to) say”, to the commanding form can be “say it (to me)”.

With this, “スキだ and 言って” becomes “Love me and say it (to me)”, or simply “Tell (me) you love me.”

I’d go with a translation something like, “Look over here and tell me you love me.”

The bootleg translation goes with, “Look at me and please say I love you,” which if you are not careful with, you might confuse the the subject. The licensed translation flows as “Look over here and tell me you love me,” matching perfectly with what I had decided upon.

I think I did better on this translation because I spent a little more time looking up words rather than trusting my memory. Unfortunately, most of the time I don’t trust my memory with Japanese only to look it up and find I was right about the translation, purpose, or meaning.