How does this Japanese sentence differ from this "official" English translation (ついでに体も繋がっちゃう)?

Question

I've been reading a visual novel in English because I'm not in any position to even think about reading one in Japanese yet, but at the same time despite being firmly at the starting blocks of any language learning, I still have a habit listening out for words and phrases in the voice over that I might know before immediately looking at the English text. One of the hardest things for me to untangle is how things are translated from Japanese into English in a more naturally presented way, as opposed to focusing on the very literal translation of a sentence lacking nuance (which I have a bad habit of getting hung up on), such as specific words being mentioned in the Japanese but worded in a different way in English.

So for the example, context is two characters romantically involved, in response to the question "can we hold hands while we sleep tonight?", (after a bit of back and forth in the vein of "we already do that every night") the response from the other character was translated as "It's fine, though, of course. How about we get a little closer than that?". In Japanese this sentence is いいよ、もちろん。ついでに体も繋がっちゃう？. I understand bits of this sentence when chopped up, but it's bringing it together in a way that resembles the official translation I'm stuck on.

Now, "いいよ、もちろん" isn't a problem, very easy for me to see that there. ついでに I understand to mean while/at the same time and is used when you're taking advantage of an opportunity to perform an additional action which I think I understand on its own given the prior context. The Japanese sentence contains 体 (body) and the verb 繋がる which means "to be connected to", this also appears to have the verb ending ちゃう I've not encountered before (something about bodies being connected?). But I'm having trouble bringing these pieces together and seeing this as the complete sentence. Especially with any nuances, I imagine the sentence is referring to more than a simple hug for example, as the official translation seems to imply.

I am, quite obviously, getting above my station here in terms of my knowledge of the language vs the things I pick out to analyse, that's not lost on me, but this one has been bugging me regardless so if anyone could help me understand here I'd be appreciative.

Answer 1

ちゃう is a colloquial variation of てしまう, which typically means "to end up (with a bad result)", but in this case it means "to do it (and worry later)" or "to do it anyway". See What are these forms: かけちゃお, つないじゃお?. Your understanding of ついでに, 体 and 繋がる seems to be fine.

• 繋がる: to be connected
• 体が繋がる: our bodies are connected
• 体も繋がる: our bodies are connected, too
• 体も繋がってしまう: even our bodies are connected, too
• 体も繋がっちゃう: (the colloquial variant of the above)

So "ついでに体も繋がっちゃう?" literally means "while we're at it, (what if, not only our hands but) also our bodies are connected?"

I imagine the sentence is referring to more than a simple hug for example, as the official translation seems to imply.

The original Japanese sentence may look a little more explicit then the English translation, but there is still room for interpreting it as "just a hug", and such an ambiguity is probably what made this sentence sound more interesting. Therefore, I think "How about we get a little closer than that?" is a good translation.