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This dialogue.

ジュースを零してしまうのだけど

こぼさずに全部欲しい

I'm told the 1st line would be like "I spilled the juice by accident but..."

What I want to ask is if the 2nd line also means "spill" in this case? Or does it mean like "complain"? I wondered cause the one is in kanji and other's not.

Does the 2nd line mean "I don't want to complain."

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    What's the context? Someone who is asking for help because he/she cannot handle a cup well for some reason?
    – naruto
    Commented Jun 9, 2019 at 9:44
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    This dialogue. <- So the two lines were said by two different people, right?
    – chocolate ♦
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 23:44

2 Answers 2

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I think you answered yourself (=intentionally playing with words).

I guess the real talent of people translating literature is to be able to recreate the original in the other language even when the original relies on something that cannot simply be translated...

... not having that talent, we could say:

I wanted to have all the juice, without having to complain about part of it having been spilled.

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  • PLEASE IGNORE THIS UNLESS YOU DOWNVOTED MY ABOVE ANSWER WITHOUT GIVING ANY COMMENT (I don't want to waste the time of others than you who did. As far as I know we all are volunteers here, so we should be motivated, as nobody forces us to be here. I am new and of course want to contribute, and any complaint and advice is more than welcome. But, we make this site together, so, I think it would be reasonable to write (just a few words) about what was the reason, i.e. how could I improve. Was it the irrelevant comment about the challenging job of a translator (instead of the pure answer), or else?
    – Tuomo
    Commented Jun 9, 2019 at 14:25
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    ダウンボートしたの私じゃないですけど、「complain」の意味はないと思いますよ…
    – chocolate ♦
    Commented Jun 9, 2019 at 15:18
  • I'm not the downvoter, and I don't know the right answer to the OPs question, but your translation seems rather suspect to me. 1) Why past tense? 2) Which part corresponds to 'having to'? 3) Where does the passive in 'having been spilled' come from? I'm afraid that silent downvotes are a feature of this site. Rest assured that it is not personal: japanese.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1976/…
    – user3856370
    Commented Jun 9, 2019 at 15:21
  • @user3856370, thanks for your comment! I agree with your past tense comment. I added to the "having to" (maybe could have also been "ending up complaining" to make it more natural and to highlight the fact that the こぼさず欲しい meant both "not wanting to complain" and "not wanting the juice to be spilled"
    – Tuomo
    Commented Jun 9, 2019 at 23:28
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I think it's up to artistic interpretation. We could argue and say that because it is spelled differently, the writer intends to have two separate meanings of the word.

Under that assumption, I would guess that it can be read these ways:

The juice ends up spilling, but
I want it all without spilling

or

The juice ends up spilling, but
I want it all without complaining

or even

I end up complaining about the juice, but
I want it all without complaining

or even still

I end up complaining about the juice, but
I want it all without spilling

...however, without further context, or direct input from the writer, it may be impossible to know which meaning was truly intended.

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