'Bratja' ("Brother") Lyrics

[Dragoncat]

It looks like people still have interest to the song, so I decided to make some more notes.
After I suggested my English translation of the song here some Japanese person applied to me with questions on the translation. She was working on her Japanese translation of the lyrics and wanted to clarify some uncertain passages. During the discussion with that person I realized that my translation is unsatisfactory in one or two passages. Namely, the following lines were bothering me: "Would help me to find the answer" and "So what should we do, how should [we] act?" So I've been feeling like correcting my translation.

"Would help me to find the answer". The problem with the translation of this line is that although in the Russian text there is only "would help me", the literal translation of the sentence to English probably changes its meaning. This looks like a part of a conditional clause, but since there is no subordinate clause, an English-speaking person may understand that "would" as an equivalent to "used to". Thus, the meaning will be "the one who knows the law of Being used to help me find the answer". I guess most of the English-speaking people will read it that way, but that doesn't correspond with the original. However, when I think about the actual meaning of the Russian phrase (what the author meant to say at all?), I realize that, most possible, it's something like "[If there was somebody / If I would meet somebody] who knows the law of Being, he/she would / could help me to find the answer. I guess this "would be able to" connotation exists in the Russian text, but it disappeared when I translated it to English using only "would help me".
Therefore I changed my translation from "would help me to find the answer" to " would [be able to] help me to find the answer".

"So what should we do, how should [we] act?" It was pretty hard for me to decide how to translate this line. There are too many possible variants of translation of the line. And as I mentioned, I'm not very good in English, so I don't know which of the variants is the most appropriate here. I chose "so what should we do?", but it may be better to translate it as "so what do we do?", changing the whole line to something like: "so what do we do, what to do?" Sorry, my English knowledge is not enough to be sure here. So eventually I decided to keep the variant of the translation I came up with first, but to add this note with the alternative translation.


Besides I found some information about the people who were taking part in making the song.

Here is the information from the CD leaflet:
Chorus: VERA
Lyrics: Seidi Mizushima, Tat'yana Naumova
Composer: Michiru Oshima

I found references to some Moscow children's chamber chorus Vera in the Internet. I guess that was the chorus that performed the song. Their site address is http://www.verachoir.chat.ru/ , but it looks like the site hasn't been updated since 2001.
In Russian "Vera" is a word meaning "belief" and also a female name.

I also found some article in a Russian on-line magazine: http://www.japon.ru/?Text&ID=41638
I believe it's an interview with the people involved in making music for FMA series, even though they never mention the title FMA and say nothing about the plot of the "new Japanese cartoon" they are making music for. It turned out that more than 50 musical recordings for Japanese cartoons, movies, computer games were made at "Mosfilm" tone-studio (in Moscow). It became possible due to human relationships between three Russians and one Japanese. That Japanese is producer Yukio Kitagami. As for Tat'yana Naumova, she is something like "go-in-between" (and thus also a translator) in that little group. Since I strongly doubt Seiji Mizushima (the director of the series) speaks Russian, I guess he gave some Japanese text to Tat'yana and asked her to make a poetic translation. This is my supposition concerning how the lyrics of "Brat'ya" song appeared.


I also made an English and two versions of a Japanese transcription of the lyrics. I decided to make them when I ran across a Japanese transcription that had many mistakes on some site. Now I think it is a right thing to present my English transcription here. After all, a transcription makes more sense than a transliteration for people who are not familiar with the language. A transcription can be used for karaoke, and what is transliteration good for?


brat'ja

prasti m'en'a, mlatshij brat!
ja tak pr'ettaboj vinavat.
pytattsa v'ernut' n'el'z'a
tavo, shto vz'ela z'eml'a.

kto znajet zakon bytija,
pamogby mn'e najti atv'et
zhestoka aships'a ja:
at sm'erti l'ekarstva n'et

milaja mama! n'ezhnaja!
my tak l'ubili t'eb'a.
no fs'e nashi sily
patracheny byli zr'a

t'eb'a sablaznil ja
pr'ekrasnaj nad'ezhdaj
v'ernut' nash s'em'ejnyj achak
moj brat, ja vafs'om vinavat

n'e plach, n'e p'echal's'a, starshij brat!
n'e ty adin vinavat
daroga unas adna,
iskupim vinu dadna.

mn'e n'e fchem t'eb'a upr'eknut',
i ja n'e abizhyn nichut'.
t'azhek nash gr'ekh
khat'et' byt' sil'n'eje fs'ekh.

milaja mama! n'ezhnaja!
my tak l'ubili t'eb'a.
no fs'e nashi sily
patracheny byli zr'a

ja sam sablaznils'a
pr'ekrasnaj nad'ezhdaj
v'ernut' nash s'em'ejnyj achak
ja sam vafs'om vinavat.

no shtozhe nam d'elat', kak byt'?
kak fs'o ispravit', zabyt'?
pytattsa v'ernut' n'el'z'a
tavo, shto vz'ela z'eml'a.


Of course, it's not as much an "English" transcription, but rather a transcription using the Latin alphabet, similar to reproducing Japanese texts using ro:maji.
By the letter "j" I designated the sound that is designated by this letter in German, that is the same sound as the last one in English word "boy" and the first one in "yoghurt". By the letter "y" I designated the sound that is absent in English and is more or less close to the Japanese "u". Probably one can say the Japanese "u" sounds somehow in between the Russian "u" and "y", and the Russian "y" sounds in between the Japanese "u" and "i". English-speaking people usually pronounce "i" (as in "bill") instead of this sound.
I designated the palatalization of consonants with the "'" mark, except for consonants before "i". Before "i" consonants are always palatalized, save for "zh" and "sh". "Ch" is always palatalized by itself. (Palatalization of consonants is usually designated in English by putting "y" after the corresponding letter, but I find it rather misleading, and besides I'm using "y" to designate a specific vowel here. If you are absolutely clueless concerning how palatalization works, just try to put a very short "i" instead of every "'" mark. And if you are familiar with the Japanese phonetics, you can base upon your knowledge of how palatalization works in Japanese. For example, both for Russian and Japanese in "mya" and "rya" "m" and "r" are palatalized, sounding different from "m" and "r" in "ma" and "ra". )
"Zh" sounds close to "si" in the English word "vision" and to "s" in "usual". "Kh" sounds close to the English (and Japanese) "h", but is more tense, contains more noise in it (that is, it sounds as the German "ch" in such words as "Loch").
I marked the stressed vowels by using the bold font, however, sometimes the singing kids pronounce words as if those don't have any stress at all, or so it seems to me. (I don't have a good ear for such matters, so it's very hard for me to make such estimates.) In some cases the kids have to put "additional" stress, or something like that. I don't know though why the kid sings "iskupim" - the correct pronunciation is "iskupim".
By using the italic font ("e") I marked the vowels that are hard to represent using just the Latin alphabet - sounding somehow in between "i" and "e". To be on the safe side, it's better to pronounce these sounds as "i", but I can hear very often in the song the kids are pronouncing vowels that sound very close to "e" in the corresponding positions (and that is quite usual for songs). Thus, in every such case you should choose the sound that seems more appropriate to you - "i" or "e". (Once again, I don't have a good ear for such matters.)
"A" in unstressed positions is also not exactly "a", but rather close to the first sound in the English word "umbrella".

[Wolfsbane68]

Frankly, the Russian lyrics sucks, and more importantly, you can hear the singers struggling with them 'cause the words don't flow with the tune (a similar effect in the Samurai Champloo op).

[Seroth]

Frankly, the Russian lyrics sucks, and more importantly, you can hear the singers struggling with them 'cause the words don't flow with the tune (a similar effect in the Samurai Champloo op).

Actually, you're just making that up, because the entire FMA soundtrack was done by a russian orchestra. So, the kids singing here are Russian, and I don't see why russian people would be struggling with their own language?

[Gravi-T]

Originally Posted by Seroth

Actually, you're just making that up, because the entire FMA soundtrack was done by a russian orchestra. So, the kids singing here are Russian, and I don't see why russian people would be struggling with their own language?

He meant the LYRICS! The kids were singing it, but they had to struggle with the lyrics because the flow of the words weren't as fluid as it could be, if it had been written differently. And if you've seen the Samurai Champloo OP you'd understand too. ^^

OMG, I didn't know that the choir was all-female!! I thought it was an all-boy choir! Hmm...

Chamber choir "Vera" was founded in 1993 from the Chorus Section of Moscow Music School ?48.
The choir is made up of about 40 girls whose age ranges from 10 to 15.

Well, they sure sound like boys! :P

[Seroth]

OMG, I didn't know that the choir was all-female!! I thought it was an all-boy choir! Hmm...

Quote:
Chamber choir "Vera" was founded in 1993 from the Chorus Section of Moscow Music School ?48.
The choir is made up of about 40 girls whose age ranges from 10 to 15.



Well, they sure sound like boys! :P

nah, I thought they sounded more like a mixed choir, with both boys and girls. Guess I was wrong, too.

[Dragoncat]

Originally Posted by Gravi-T

OMG, I didn't know that the choir was all-female!! I thought it was an all-boy choir! Hmm...

Well, they sure sound like boys! :P

Apparently, it's not an all-female choir.
As I mentioned, it looks like the site hasn't been updated since 2001.
In any case, there are both girls and boys in the members' list for 1999-2000. Besides essentially more than 40 members are mentioned.
I suspect it's just that they meant to say originally the choir had consisted of 40 girls.

[DigitalisAkujin]

Sorry I'm coming into this late but I must say your translation was really good. When I was 'trying' to translate I ran into the same kinds of problems.

Specifically lines
Милая мама! Нежная!
Milaya mama! Neznaya!

Dear mother! 'Tender!'

Tender is obviously not used in that context in the english language and finding a synonym that works was really hard. I decided on "Delicate!"

Then there was this part:

Тебя соблазнил я
Прекрасной надеждой
Вернуть наш семейный очаг.
Мой брат, я во всем виноват.

Tebya soblaznil ya
Prekrasnoy nadezhdoy
Vernut' nash semeynyiy ochag.
Moy brat, ya vo vsem vinovat.

Now this part killed me: соблазнил [soblaznil].

I came to the US when I was 6 years old from Ukraine so I didn't even know this word till I looked it up. Even after that I couldn't really figure out how to word this part of the song so it doesn't sound weird in english so I gave up here.

My personal opinion on this song is very high. I found it sung very well. Many times I can't make out words in russian songs because of my inexperiance (raised in the US remmember!!). This song however I heard the words right away. And when I heard this song in FMA Episode 51 it was so perfect....

This really is one of the best russian songs I have ever listened to. When I was in Bremen, Germany this summer I listened to a lot of russian songs at the international Choir competition (no I wasn't participating, just got there at a good time) but none of them where this good.

In response to Seroth:
You might feel that they aren't singing it well but it could be that some words are sung across a few syllables. Sorta like trailing a word to fill in gaps. You would do that in any language.

[sakura_wingz]

one of my favourite FMA song is "i will" ... the last ending song...its so nice...

[er2125]

Originally Posted by sakura_wingz

one of my favourite FMA song is "i will" ... the last ending song...its so nice...

Still, this is the one song that actually sings the beginning of the story.
I love it very very much.

[Chara]

Originally Posted by Lexander

Alright here's a translation I did. Another russian reader please double check mine! I'm Armenian so my russian isn't perfect! I never realized how hard it is to translate, some phrases simply don't have an exact english counterpart.

There's another transelation here, if you want to compare :/

[Rain Night Blue]

Sounds like a lot of you went through a lot of trouble to let us understand the serenity of the song.
My self, when I first heard it on the OST, I thought it was French, because I wasn't paying attention and heard what I thought was "J'adore" (I love in french) but now I see that was just part of "nad'ezhdaj." Just a little different I guess. It is Beautiful though isn't it? Add another language to my list of "wants to know."

[Suffix of the North]

Hello!

I've watched "FullMetal Alchemist" and it was great! I couldn't help notice that there was a Russian song playing in the background throughout several episodes. I have found that song with my limited Russian knowledge and it's called "Brother" as you know.

I was wondering whether you could help me find the Russian lyrics.
I mean the actually Russian letters?

Thank you!

[Suffix of the North]

I have found it. Thanks anyway!

"Братья"

Прости меня, младший брат!
Я так пред тобой виноват.
Пытаться вернуть нельзя
Того, что взяла земля.

Кто знает закон Бытия,
Помог бы и мне найти ответ.
Жестоко ошибся я:
От смерти лекарства нет.

Милая мама! Нежная!
Мы так любили тебя.
Но все наши силы
Потрачены были зря.

Тебя соблазнил я
Прекрасной надеждой
Вернуть наш семейный очаг.
Мой брат, я во всем виноват.

Не плачь, не печалься, старший брат!
Не ты один виноват.
Дорога у нас одна,
Искупим вину до дна.

Мне не в чем тебя упрекнуть,
И я не обижен ничуть.
Тяжек, наш грех
Хотеть быть сильнее всех.

Милая мама! Нежная!
Мы так любили тебя.
Но все наши силы
Потрачены были зря.

Я сам соблазнился
Прекрасной надеждой
Вернуть наш семейный очаг.
Я сам во всем виноват.

Но что же нам делать, как быть?
Как все исправить, забыть?
Пытаться вернуть нельзя,
Того, что взяла земля.

[XYKE]

awesome quality song, even the non-lyric version are AWESOME and give you this feeling while watching the series / movie

one of the best anime with one of the best songs ive ever heard

[Mizu_Alchemist]

I Have English Lyrics.

Heres Vic's Version of Brothers.

Brothers:

How can I repay you, Brother of mine?
How can I expect you to forgive?
Clinging to the past, I shed our blood. And shattered your chance to live.
Though I knew the laws, I paid no heed. How can I return your wasted breath? What I did not know has cost you dear,
...for there is no cure for death.
Beautiful Mother, soft and sweet. Once you were gone we were not complete. Back through the years, we reached for you. Alas, twas not meant to be.
And how can I make amends... for all that I took from you?
I lead you with hopeless dreams.
My brother I was a fool.

Dont cry for the past now brother of mine. Neither you nor I are free from blame. Nothing can erase the things we did. For the path we took was the same.
Beautiful Mother, soft and sweet. Once you were gone we were not complete. Back through the years we reached for you. Alas, twas not meant to be.
My dreams made me blind and mute. I longed to return to that time. I followed without a word. My brother the fault is mine.
So where do we go from here? And how to forget and forgive?
What's gone is forever lost. Now all we can do is live.

[Faeyice]

I have the English lyrics.

[Lylanna]

Hm, I realize there hasn't been a reply to this topic for quite some time now, but I have to admitt that only now I have discovered the magic of this beautiful Russian song. What's really interesting I understood almost every line when I read lyrics written by sunflame. I can read Cyrillic, it's only - this is Russian Cyrillic, and that's a little different. So, thanks sunflame! Btw, I'm gonna translate some lines in Croatian, so you can see the similarity

Brat'ya
Braća


Prosti menya, mladshiy brat!
Oprosti meni, mlađi brat!

Togo, chto vzyala zyemlya.
To, što uzela je zemlja.

Kto znayet zakon Byitiya,
Tko zna zakon Bića

Pomog byi mne nayti otvet.
Pomogao bi mi naći odgovor.

Zhestoko oshibsya ya;
Žestoko sam pogrješio;

Ot smerti lekarstva nyet.
Od smrti lijeka nema.

Milaya mama! Nyezhnaya!
Mila mama! Nježna!

Myi tak lyubili tebya.
Mi smo te tako ljubili!

No vse nashi silyi
No sve naše sile (snage)

Potrachenyi byili zrya.
Potraćeni bili su.

Tyazhek, nash gryekh
Težak, naš grijeh

No chto zhe nam delat', kak byit'?
No što nam je delati (raditi), kako biti?

Kak vse ispravit', zyabyit'?
Kako sve ispraviti, zaboraviti?



...


I sure hope this forum can read diacritic letters...

[ENOLA44]

Originally Posted by Dragoncat

Excuse me, but I cannot agree with such translations as “Lets bury the blame to the depth” and “Heavy is our cause”, and hardly with “It is impossible to return” (in the later case the author may have meant it the way you translated, but it actually turned out to be different - see my translation below).
Therefore, here is my variant. (Though I’m not sure anybody has any interest in the topic still.)


[Please] forgive me, [my] junior brother,
I’m so guilty towards you {with the meaning “I’m so sorry”}
One shouldn’t try to regain
What was taken by the earth

[The one] who knows the law of Being
Would [be able to] help me to find the answer
I was grossly mistaken:
There’s no medicine against death

Dear mother! Affectionate [one]!
We loved you so much
But all our efforts {*}
Were spent in vain

I lured you
With the beautiful hope
To regain our familial hearth
My brother, it’s all my fault

[Please] don’t cry, don’t be sad, [my] senior brother
You’re not the only one to blame
We’re along the same road
We’ll {or “Let’s”} fully expiate our guilt {**}

I have nothing to reproach you with
And I bear no grudge at all
Grievous is our sin
To desire to be stronger than anybody

Dear mother! Affectionate [one]!
We loved you so much
But all our efforts {*}
Were spent in vain

I was lured myself
With the beautiful hope
To regain our familial hearth
It’s all my own fault

So what should we do, how should [we] act?
How shall we correct everything, forget [everything] ?
One shouldn’t try to regain
What was taken by the earth


Comments.
I was trying to keep as close to the original as possible, that is to translate literally (provided it was possible at all). Still, I had to make 2 major exceptions, suggesting the translations not of the actual meaning of the original, but of what I guess the author wanted to say. Here are my explanations.

{*} Literally, “all our strength was spent in vain”, as if they had some amount of strength and ran out of it, had no more strength left, but that was all in vain. It sounds more or less OK in Russian, but (I suppose) pretty oddly in English. However, in Russian it sounds rather close to “all our efforts were spent in vain / were wasted”, moreover, for Russian language the expression “all the efforts were in vain” reminds itself in that situation. That’s why I decided to translate it “But all our efforts” instead of “But all our strength”, although “efforts” in Russian is “usiliya”, and “silyi” means “strength, forces, powers”. After all, what Elric brothers wasted was not their strength or powers, but their efforts, right?

{**} Literally, “We’ll/Let’s expiate our guilt to the bottom”. Sounds somewhat strange even in Russian and definitely reminds of the Russian expression “to drink to the bottom” (“pit’/vyipit’/ispit’ do dna”) which has the English equivalent “to drink to the dregs”. So I decided to translate it the way it was obviously meant: “We’ll /let’s fully expiate our guilt” - for it was impossible to translate it literally anyway.
(It is interesting to note though, that if you change “do dna” to “spolna”, it sounds somewhat better and has exactly the meaning I suggested in my translation, while even keeping the rhyme intact.)

As for the Russian language of the original, I’d say it’s not perfect, but generally decent (even better than the language of some contemporary Russian pop-songs) and the lyrics were definitely written by some Russian-speaking person (unlike Origa’s nonsense which is hard to believe to have been written by a person whose mother tongue is Russian).

I am not very good in English, so my translation may have some defects too. Once again, I’ve just tried to keep as close to the original as possible, though I realize the result may sound little bit oddly in English.


As for the translit, it also contains some mistakes.
First of all, I should note that in the majority of cases one should write “ye” instead of “e”, according to the logic presented. (“Y” is not needed after “h” though.) Russian “ye” palatalizes the preceding consonant the same way as Russian (and Japanese) “ya”, “yu”, “yo”. By the way, Russian “i” also palatalizes the preceding consonant. However, when I see words like “syemyeinyiy” written using the Latin alphabet, I think to myself: how can one pronounce such a thing without hurting his/her tongue? The trick is, most of those “y”’s are not pronounced after consonants at all. They just mark the palatalization. If you know how all these “sya” and “rya” are pronounced in Japanese, it is better to keep in mind that Russian “sya” and “rya” sound almost the same as Japanese ones.
In case of “ye”, if it confuses you too much, just throw “y” away and write simply “e”. Even if you pronounce it as in English word “pet”, one still understands you.

Besides, I’ve noticed some mistypings in the translit:
should be “nye obizhen” instead of “nye obihen”,
should be “pryekrasnoy nadyezhdoy” instead of “prekprasnoy nadezhdoy”,
should be “zabyit’” instead of “zyabyit’”,
should be “nyel’zya” instead of “nyel’zhya”.


And one more thing, people. Please don’t complain that I am lagged. I’ve just run across this forum the other day.

pretty good translation although I liked the first one better. yes i speak fluent russian. I'm 100% russian. Born in Moscow.. ayyaya. i stil see some ways to improve it though.. ^^ amybe I'll post someday!

[Shiiy]

oh thank you very much