English Translation
Tell me the truth.
Would “Tell me the facts.” be a better translation?
@Conor_JPN
The “truth” in the original translation is better.
真相 has a connotation of “something veiled but important to solve a criminal case or a complicated problem”. We often say 真相 when people are making a wrong assumption or a wild guess due to lack of critical background information. In other words, people are biased.
The antonym of “facts” in English refers to “subjective perceptions” while that of “truths” means “fakes”.
It doesn’t matter if 真相 is revealed based on objective/scientific facts or on subjective perceptions. So, I support the original translation “truth”.
For example, “Why did you kill your wife? 真相を語ってくれ！” is a typical line in a crime drama. The speaker wants to understand the killer’s motives and background of how the killer committed to a murder because the killer doesn’t look like a violent guy at all to the speaker (i.e. having an assumption). The speaker doesn’t intent to understand each step of the murder such as where the killer but the weapon and when exactly the murder was taken place (i.e. fact-finding).
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