the moon reflects my heart ~ for the birds ~ joy of my life

月亮代表我的心 / the moon reflects my heart

i know the conventional translation is "the moon represents my heart", but when i was little, my mom explained this song as being the moon reflects my heart, so i'm just stuck with that now. just like how i went almost two entire years thinking, "damn i wonder what almond tofu is like", only to be told by my mother that the almond jello she's been giving us since childhood is 杏仁豆腐 (almond tofu) in chinese.

basically, it is too late for me now; there are things i will probably always unconventionally translate as a result of my mother.

anyway i have been given far too much pride in my taiwanese heritage to not take a crack at translating chinese songs to poetic english with my own two hands.

they're probably bad, or inaccurate, but at least you'll be able to see my flawed train of thought.

this table is structured– from left to right– as rhyme scheme, cn lyrics, conventional translation (taken from lyricstranslate.com), and then the lyrics i have translated so that i can sing along in my head. occasionally, underneath will be translation notes.

i tried to follow the same rhyme scheme as the original cn, but um. that is hard <3

[verse 1]
A ㄣ	你問我愛你有多深	you ask me how deep/profound my love for you is	you ask how deeply i love you
A ㄣ	我愛你有幾分	how much i really love you	how much do i love you?
this is an act of interpretation on my part, but the use of 幾分 (ji3 fe1n) gives me the impression of asking for a specific percentage, as if there's only so much love that a person can give. as such, the second line's meaning to me gives me the impression of " out of all your love, how much of it/what percent is for me?"
A ㄣ	我的情也真	my affection/adoration is real/true	my affection is true
A ㄣ	我的愛也真	my love is real/true	oh, my love is true
B ㄧㄣ	月亮代表我的心	the moon represents my heart	yes, my heart, it shows in the moon
it admittedly did feel really strange to alter the titular lyric in any way. but i really wanted it to semi-rhyme.
most of you guys probably can't read the zhuyin in the rhyme scheme column of the table but that's, like, Fine, honestly, but i picked it over pinyin bc i feel like it's easier to see the logic of the rhymes going on here when you can see that every line has a word that ends in 「ㄣ」 ['en' in pinyin]. in the case of the last one, the 「ㄧ」 [pinyin 'yi'] like, uh, overwrites the 'e' sound in the -en, making it sound like -in but anyway, so the first verse rhymes all the way through to the last line, which is slightly different. as such, in the lyrics i ended up writing, 'moon' doesn’t fully rhyme w/you or true, but the long o sound remains similar btwn all those words.
[verse 2]
A ㄣ	你問我愛你有多深	you ask me how profound/deep my love for you is	you ask how deeply i love you
A ㄣ	我愛你有幾分	how much i really love you	how much do i love you?
C ㄧ	我的情不移	my sentiment/feelings do not hesitate/waver	my affection won’t sway
line gives me the impression of like, " my feelings will not move/transfer/waver from you [so as to love another]".
?? ㄧㄢ	我的愛不變	my love will not alter/change	oh, my love won't break
notice the parallelism btwn the first n second verse with "my affection" / "oh, my love" in each of their third n fourth lines. this is an intentional parallel to the cn using 「我的情」/「我的愛」 in the same way. in searching for more parallelism btwn the first n second verse, i ended up kind of fixating on this fourth line for a while, since i didn't really get why the idea of love changing or transforming was like, undesirable (since isn't it a good thing to have your heart transformed by love?) until i finally found 變心 [changed heart] → cease to be faithful; and 情變 [feelings changed] → break up. then i understood lol. neither here nor there, but as you can tell, i'm not entirely sure how to classify this line's rhyme lol.
B ㄧㄣ	月亮代表我的心	the moon represents my heart	yes, my heart, it shows through the moon
i chose the word "break" in the fourth line bc, well, reference to "breaking up", but also because i feel the assonance in the vowels of "sway" and "break" appropriately mirrors the cn rhyme scheme.
[bridge]
A ㄣ	輕輕的一個吻	just one mild/tender/soft-soft kiss	just kiss me soft one time
B ㄧㄣ	已經打動我的心	is sufficient to inspire my heart has already moved my heart	and my heart will have been moved
D ㄧㄥ	深深的一段情	an abstruse love one deep-deep affection a period of time when our affection was deep	one part of loves profound
B ㄧㄣ	教我思念到如今	has taught me to contemplate of/miss you until now	taught me how to yearn ‘til now
[verse 3]
A ㄣ	你問我愛你有多深	you ask me how deep/profound my love for you is	you ask how deeply i love you
A ㄣ	我愛你有幾分	how much i really love you	how much do i love you?
E ㄤ	你去想一想	go and think/ponder about it	you should give it thought
E ㄢ	你去看一看	go and take a look [at the moon]	you should see on a walk
B ㄧㄣ	月亮代表我的心	the moon represents my heart	yes, my heart, it shows in the moon

a fun fact abt this song is that when my mom was explaining its meaning to me as a kid, she translated it as "the moon reflects my heart", and that the deeper meaning behind it is that you, like, go outside and see the moon, and it is always there, reflecting the fullness of your love as this steadfast romantic symbol.

anyway, i never really understood the steadfastness of the metaphor bc i was like, "but mom, the moon's phrases are always changing; does that mean that when there's a new moon, there is no love to be reflected??" LOL

(back to translation notes)