I kept meaning to do a “commonly mistranslated phrases” type thing for my crew at Funimation, but then I thought, why not do it in my Copious Spare Time^TM instead, so that I can share it both here and there?

Welcome to my (possibly-not-monthly) Japanese Phrase of the Month!

 

「何が悲しくて」・「何が悲しゅうて」

Have you been translating it correctly?

 

You’ve seen this phrase before, but have you dived into its usage?

That 悲しい in there might trick you into thinking the phrase has to do with “sadness,” but you’d be sadly mistaken.

Instead, it’s a “Why me?” phrase. You use it to ask why you have to deal with something you don’t want to deal with, like this:

「何が悲しくてお前と組まなきゃならねえんだ！？」

And some possible translations would be:

Why the hell should I have to pair up with you?!
What did I do to get stuck with you?!
Why do I have to be stuck on a team with you?!
I can’t believe I’m stuck with you for this.

You might be sad about the situation, but there is no sadness in the sentence. ;)

Here’s a great, thorough explanation:

https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1181181636

Tune in next month (or whenever) for the next phrase!