What’s in a Title: chay’s song

「あなたに恋をしてみました」

あなた

This just means “you”. As a bonus, I found a kanji from my playthrough of Persona 4 Golden for this word. They are 貴方・貴女・貴男. 

The first kanji can mean “precious” or “honorable” while the 方 (if you have been studying keigo might be familiar) means “person”. This word can also be split into genders as you can see with the kanji for woman（女・おんな） and man（男・おとこ） respectively. 

It can be used for someone of equal or lesser status than you. Even Sora from Kingdom Hearts uses it with this strange figure talking to him in the cave. Except it is a different way to say 貴方、あんた. This is usually used in a familiar way. The tone and the context can also help understand how to translate this. Think of it as something similar calling someone “dude” in the way characters like Sora says it.

に

This particle is just a destination particle. It can mean to or in, or at.

恋（こい）

This word means “love”. More of a romantic love than the usual word you see pronounced as  愛（あい）. 

を

This particle is the direct object particle. It just puts a spotlight on what came before it. In other words, it is making the word before the particle, become the subject of the sentence.

When 恋 is paired with をする it means to fall in love. 

してみました

Now this has the てーform mixed with the verb みる, as in to try (in this it doesn’t mean “not  see”. It’s more like “trying to see if you can do something”.). When put together it means to “try to do something”. However since it is in the past tense it needs to be “tried to do something”.

Put あなたに恋をしてみました together and you get “Tried falling in love with you”

I found this song on the TODAI Easy Japanese App I use. It’s pretty useful. Other than news, you can take JLPT Practice Tests, listen to a few podcasts, and of course listen to some music with lyrics.

I like how jazzy and upbeat the song is, so I might check out more of chay’s music.