earticle

영어

Singable translation of songs is a complex task mainly because the target text must be compatible with the music. Moreover, translating English songs into Korean is even more challenging because of the stark differences in their linguistic sources: different syntactic structures and different uses of meters and stresses. This study briefly describes the problems related to singability identified in the English (and French)-into-Korean translations of the lyrics of major licensed musicals performed in Korea. The numbers of Rent, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Jekyll and Hyde, Miss Saigon, and Notre Dame de Paris were studied, and the following problems were identified in the translated texts: incompatible phrasing of lyrics, inappropriate locations of keywords, additions of syllables (or note splitting), leaving source text words untranslated, and others. These problems hinder the effective delivery of the original music and make singers uncomfortable with singing the target text.