SID - Rain

I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it, and that was the opening in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime series.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - Opening 05

I decided to analyze the first chorus, consisting of four (shorter) lines. They're pulled from the full-size version, so if you might not be familiar with the last part of the fourth line if you've only heard the song as an opening sequence.

雨はいつか病むのでしょうか

ずいぶん長い間冷たい

雨はどうして僕を選ぶの

逃げ場のない僕を選ぶの

After that, we'll take a look at a few more words that are presented in this song, be sure to check them our as well.

In-Depth Analysis

So how about we stop wasting time and get to some work, eh?

雨はいつか止むのでしょうか

ame wa itsuka yamu no deshou ka

Well, let's begin. The first word we encounter here is 「雨」ame, and it means rain.

Next up is 「は」wa, the usual subject-maker. Although it knows to be trouble-maker as well, here it's not making any problems for us: it simply states that our previous word, ame, is the subject of this sentence. Don't forget to check if it's particle or not, because you might end up confusing hiragana symbols.

As we move on, we get to the word 「いつか」itsuka. It means one day or sometime, and although there is a proper kanji for it 「何時か」itsuka, it's used so rarely that I've never really ran into it (except in dictionary, where I've actually learned that about it). So you won't have to worry much about the kanji characters in it, but they're so common that you'll learn them soon enough anyway. Actually, they mean what and time, and 「か」ka is a particle which turns everything into a question, so it kind of makes sense.

And here we have a word which you actually probably already heard before, yet you might not recognize it. 「止む」yamu means to stop, and you've probably heard it a bunch of times while watching anime in form 「止めて」yamete which is its imperative form (the form used when giving an order to someone).

The last part of the sentence is 「のでしょうか」no deshou ka. Although you might remember it (from here or somewhere else) that auxiliary particle 「の」no is used to make the previous word take its possessive form, or as an subject-maker, it's actually used in a few other situations. However, here it's used in an entirely different context, so it's almost impossible to mix them. Here, it's the question-maker, pretty much like 「か」ka, although it's more wondering than actually asking something, especially when followed by 「でしょうか」deshou ka, which is a phrase and it's equivalent to saying might it be? in English.

So, what did we get? Will rain ever stop, I wonder. Time to move on.

ずいぶん長い間冷たい

zuibun nagai aida tsumetai

Our first word is written in hiragana here, because it's rarely seen in its kanji-form　「随分」, pretty much like 「何時か」 and 「いつか」itsuka which we covered before. Anyway, 「ずいぶん」zuibun is an adjective which means extremly.

What waits for us next is an adjective 「長い」nagai which means long. Just like in English, it's used for both lengths and time periods, just like it's used here.

Remember when I mentioned that the kanji of which 「時間」jikan is consisted are time and interval? Well here it is, our interval kanji, although on its own it's read as 「間」【あいだ】aida.

For the end, we've got one more adjective, 「冷たい」tsumetai. It means cold or chilly, but only for personal feeling. You wouldn't say that coffee is 「冷たい」tsumetai, for example.

Well this one was quite easy. What did we get in the end? It's been cold for quite a while.

雨はどうして僕を選ぶの

ame wa doushite boku o erabu no

In the third line, 「雨は」ame wa repeats, so I obviously won't explain that again.

Next, we've got an expression 「どうして」doushite which means why, followed by 「僕」boku which means I. (I will keep repeating, be careful when saying this in Japanese, single it's quite different from English.)

And we got to another particle here: 「を」o. Before I explain the details, be careful not to mix it with hiragana 「お」o. Alright, so up until now I've mentions a lot of subject-makers (four of them), so it's time to introduce object-maker as well, and that's exactly where o kicks in. Although there are a few others, 「を」o is the one and only which marks the direct object, so no worries there. In this particular example, we see that 「僕」boku is an object of the sentence, so something's happening to 「僕」boku. We'll see what now.

The verb waiting for us is 「選ぶ」erabu and it means to choose. It's not that common in songs, but a lot of modern anime have concept of "The Chosen Ones", and that's where you might heard it in its form 「選ばれた」erabareta, which actually just the plain past form of 「選ぶ」erabu.

For the end, we've got the particle 「の」no which we've already covered. See how it's obvious that it's making a question here? Firstly, it's at the end of the sentence, secondly, you can't make possessive of a verb, and you can't make it the logical subject, either. Not to mention that 「どうして」doushite already suggests that the sentence is interrogative, so there's nothing weird in it ending with a question-maker.

So, what do we have here? Why does rain choose me?

逃げ場のない僕を選ぶの

nigeba no nai boku wo erabu no

The first word here is pretty interesting to analyze for someone who's just getting into Japanese. In a dictionary, you would only find that it's a noun and means refuge or escape, but let's take a better look. It has somewhat weird structure of kanji-hiragana-kanji, so let's look at what these mean on their own. The first kanji, along with hiragana ge comes from 「逃げる」nigeru which means to escape, and the last kanji means place, and it's commonly used in 「場所」basho, which also means place.

Breaking down words like this and looking up kanji they are made of is a great way to learn language better, since you're making connections between words.

 Oh, god, that 「の」no-thingy again... A already written about a similar situation, but it never hurts to repeat a few things, right? Alright, so, 「の」no is usually used to mark a noun to be possessive, for example, 「猫の魚」neko no sakana means cat's fish. However, when it's used inside a relative clause, it can be mark a logical subject as well, and that's exactly what it's doing here.

「ない」nai is actually negative form of 「ある」aru, although they don't resemble at all like you're used to. The good thing is, this is one of the rare irregularities with verbs. Japanese language tends to be quite clean about verbs, unlike particles (which is, ironically, quite opposite from English which has a lot of irregular verbs, yet doesn't almost have particles at all and uses word order instead to determine a lot of things). By the way, verbs are very important, so you might want to learn more about them.

And as you can see, the whole 「僕を選ぶの」boku wo erabu no thing repeats again from the last line, so there's no need to explain things individually. But it's still very important to notice a few grammar differences you might miss.

I mentioned that 「の」no is used as logical-subject-maker in relative clauses, but I never explained why this is relative clause. It's not really easy to explain how to recognize them, there's no easy algorithm that will work all the time. This is where your experience and intuition kicks in. Basically, the whole 「逃げ場のない」nigeba no nai sentence (It's a sentence, right? There's a verb, which is enough to define a sentence) acts as an adjective to 「僕」boku. In the previous line, 「を」o was marking only 「僕」boku as the object of the sentence, asking "Why does it choose me?", but here 「を」o marks the whole part 「逃げ場のない僕」nigeba no nai boku: it's asking "[Why does it] choose me who has nowhere to escape". Notice how I've put "why does it" in brackets. This line goes immediately after the previous, so it's obvious that 「どうして」doushite still affects this line. Besides, this is a song. Lots of things can get omitted and some things might be repeated for no obvious reason. Lyrics are a form of art after all, so take everything with a grain of salt from them. You might want to check this, as well.

Other Words

Time to take a look a few other words that I found important or interesting throughout the lyrics. I hope you learn new things from them, or at least revise what you've already learned.

• 「やっと」 (yatto) — This one means finally, but it has the feeling of having something barely done in time.
• 「新しい」【あたらしい】(atarashii)  — Nothing special here, I just thought this was important word, it means new.
• 「朝」【あさ】 (asa) — This means morning. I love the way kanji looks because there's early in it.
• 「頬」【ほほ】 (hoho) — For some reason, this kanji consists of come and page splashed together. I couldn't find any theories about how that turned into a cheek, but I could just as well leave that as a homework to you, right?
• 「落ちる」【おちる】 (ochiru) — Ah, such a poetic word, you definitely have to know it. It means to fall, and it's used with huge liberty just like in English. Here it was used together with namida to form tears are falling. Note that there is a word for crying (naku), but this is just a poetic way to say it.
• 「指」【ゆび】 (yubi) — Finger.
• 「傘」【かさ】 (kasa) — Umbrella. I'm amazed by the fact that kanji looks exactly like one. Can't be unseen.
• 「温もり」【ぬくもり】 (nukumori) — Warmth. Pretty poetic word, I think.

What do you think of this song? What words and grammar rules did you learn? Be sure to tell other learners of Japanese, just like you, in the comment section below!