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Currently I am trying to translate a video that's supposed to be a parody of some Japanese kids show.

At some point the character uses a magic spell and it gives me a hard time on more than one level: https://vid.me/necA

  1. I can't really hear what the girl says exactly. I came up with

    じゃあいつもの魔法を使うよ:テラ、テラ、テラ、くるりんパ。

    Here, "Terra" is the place where they are teleporting, but it's the final part that puzzles me. For more context, here's the full video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTwLaJhmr40

  2. I can't really tell if it's supposed to be a reference to pop culture or some other well-known thing in Japan and finally, I feel like it's a little bit harder to translate these special phrases compared to the sentences we generally hear, so I could greatly appreciate some help.

1 Answer 1

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My kinda question, this is, sadly....

  1. You are hearing the magic spell correctly. To be picky, we tend to pronounce the last syllable as 「パッ」 rather than the plain 「パ」. The pink character in the video pronounces it 「パッ」 as well.

  2. 「くるりんパ(ッ)」 consisits of two onomatopoeias. Conquer our onomatopoeias (and particles) and you will conquer our language, trust me.

「くるり(ん)」 is a very common onomatopoeia to describe a thing's circular or rotating motion as in rotating a magic wand.

「パ(ッ)」 is an onomatopoeia describing a thing's movement or appearance all of a sudden. Use a magic and something will happen all of a sudden, won't it? The two "guys" suddenly got transported into the building/offices, correct?

The use of the magic spell in the video should not be a reference to a particular phenomenon in our pop culture. We all have been hearing this spell in stories since childhood.

If my life depended on translating this spell, I might go with:

"Round and round and here we go!"

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