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I am trying to translate some lyrics that go like

We can talk about nothing

then I hit a snag because I am not sure what the word for "nothing" could be. Things that keep coming to mind:

話すことがない
have nothing to talk about

何も話していない [we] are talking about nothing

Usually a sentence with "nothing" in it becomes 何も + a negative verb, but I'm not sure it could also work in this context. What would a standalone noun for "nothing" or "nothingness" be? I am not thinking of the religious/philosophical concept of nothingness (e.g. 空、無).

My best attempt:

何も話さなくてもいい

But I'm not really happy with it since "nothing" is not directly rendered.

Eddie Kal
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  • Link to the full lyrics? – JansthcirlU Jul 09 '21 at 07:59
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    Perhaps 語らない can do better job? 何も語らない, 何も語らなくていい, etc... – Skye-AT Jul 09 '21 at 08:02
  • @JansthcirlU I am going to leave the link here instead of putting it in the question, for several reasons: 1. Focusing on the lyrics too much might shift the attention away from what this question was intended to focus on. 2. The lyrics are highly metaphorical and the meaning could be subjective and open to debate, as most if not all lyrics are. 3. I don't intend to invite subjective speculations or interpretations on the vagueness and metaphors of the lyrics; otherwise the question would opinion-based – Eddie Kal Jul 09 '21 at 08:19
  • @Skye-AT Thanks! – Eddie Kal Jul 09 '21 at 08:20
  • @EddieKal It's entirely possible that the concept of nothing simply isn't articulated in Japanese (culturally or linguistically) in a way that's similar to English. I'd argue in that case that the question is not opinion-based, but rather an exploration of language differences. So while the question might be ambiguous, it might not necessarily be subjective. – JansthcirlU Jul 09 '21 at 08:50
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    何も言わなくていい would (normally) be "You don't need to say anything", so, does that mean something similar to "We don't need to talk about anything" (since you translated it as 何も話さなくてもいい)? Btw in a song I know, I think its lyric "You spend hours on the phone, talking about nothing at all" is interpreted as たわいもないことを/何でもないことを/とりとめのないことを話して... (but this is not what you're looking for, is it.) – chocolate Jul 09 '21 at 08:57
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    My reading of 'nothing' in 'we can talk about nothing' is that it means 'we can talk about things which are unimportant'. I'd be inclined to focus on a natural translation of that, but maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick. – user3856370 Jul 09 '21 at 13:48
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    If you are looking for X such that 'Xについて話した' = 'talk about nothing', then there is simply no such word X. – sundowner Jul 10 '21 at 14:10

2 Answers2

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"Talk about nothing" here I believe means talk about things that are not important or don't matter.

In that case you could say "くだらない話をしてもいい" you could also use 意味のない話 or similar words.

zeuswife
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「何のことも話さない」 - lit. "don't talk about anything".

Maybe this would work in your context?

Strechie-go
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