Dear fellows at Reviewing the Kanji forums

It's been quite a while since I used this website to help me get through Heisig's books and they have been more than crucial to my learning. Kanji has become a breeze and there is no hint of fear when I have to learn new kanji vocabulary.
Nevertheless, the grammar and expressions are quite tricky sometimes, and although I have studied for almost two years now, it is still very difficult for me to create texts in japanese. Some times I feel I get the message across, but deep inside I know that a japanese person wouldn't say it like that.
Recently, my brother started dating a girl who loves japan and the japanese language, and he wants to impress her with a japanese love letter. He wrote the original, fortunately, in English (we are Brazilian), so you will have no problem understanding it. I tried to make it sound good in japanese, so I had to make a few changes, but I'm pretty sure that it is not that good. I was wondering if someone here could kindly help me with this.

The original is:
"When I'm feeling cold or in pain, just seeing you warms my heart and makes all my worries go away. And when you hold my hands, I smile, because I know you are there for me. And I'll be there for you, any time or any where when you are feeling sad or just lonely. And that's a promise...

My attempt:
僕は、寒くなって痛みがあってと、君を見るなら心が暖かくなって心配している事が消える。そして、僕の手を持つと、君が生きているので、僕はニコニコしている。それに僕も、君が悲しくなっている時のために、生きている。それは、約束だ。。。

I need to deliver this to him today, so I appreciate any help possible!

Thank you all

Luis

i'm not a native speaker, and make tons of mistakes, so certainly don't take my word for it. Have you tried Lang-8 btw, cos then you'd get native corrections?
here's some thoughts anyway:

* 僕は、寒くなって痛みがあってと、君を見るなら心が暖かくなって心配している事が消える。
僕が寒くなったら、痛みがあったら、君を見るだけで心が暖かくなって、心配していることが溶ける。(消える is also fine though)

*そして、僕の手を持つと、君が生きているので、僕はニコニコしている
-> そして、手をつなぐと君が僕の力になったと分かったからニコニコしてしまう

* それに僕も、君が悲しくなっている時のために、生きている
^^This means something more like "I live for the times you're unhappy" ...! ；）
いつでも力になる、悲しい時でも寂しい時でも。

Hopefully some else'll come along with better corrections soon :lol:

I'm no expert so please don't take this as anything more than possibly a bit of inspiration..
but I find it fun to write stuff like this so I wanna give it a try lol!

寒い時、苦しい時、僕は君を見るだけで心が暖かくなって、すべての心配が消える。君が僕の手を取ると、微笑んでしまうよ。君がそばにいることを実感するから。そして君が淋しくなった時、悲しくなった時、僕はいつでもそばにいるんだよ。約束だ・・・

Hmmm pretty crappy ><;
But I think 君を見るだけで is good for capturing the 'just' in 'just seeing you'.
and I think そばにいる works pretty well here for 'being there' for somebody^^

Wow, I'm glad that there were people interested in helping me with this on such short notice!

I really like you suggestions and, mixing a bit of both I created version 2.0 of this letter:

僕は、寒い時、苦しい時、君を見るだけで心が暖かくなって心配している事が消える。そして、手をつなぐと、君が僕の力になってくれるとわかってニコニコしてしまう。それに僕は、いつでも力になってあげる、悲しい時でも寂しい時でも。それは、約束だ。。。

I really liked 力になる, I didn't know that one, but when I looked at my ever present 電子辞書 I noticed that this expression captures exactly the feeling I was looking for! When I looked at 研究社's Green Goddess, I noticed that, in the examples, they used 力になってあげます, which I liked. So i decided to use with くれる on the first time and あげる on the last one. What do you think?

If there are more people willing to help as well, I am all ears!

This is probably awful since I'm really tired, but it seemed fun so I thought I'd have a go.

sirnigel Wrote:そして、手をつなぐと、君が僕の力になってくれるとわかってニコニコしてしまう。

そして、手をつなぐと、君が僕の力になってくれる事がわかってて、ニコニコしてしまう。

sirnigel Wrote:それに僕は、いつでも力になってあげる、悲しい時でも寂しい時でも。

I think it's a bad idea to use それに here. It sounds like you're arguing a point which creates the impression you want something in return. (本当に愛してるからラブホテルに行こうよ）

The inclusion of 僕 and あげる seems like a good idea since I don't think it was clear before, but probably only one is necessary.

I'm also pretty sure that あげる (or なる if you take あげる　out) has to be the end of the sentence, so I'd write something like:

だからいつでも力になってあげる。悲しい時でも寂しい時でも。

Edit: Or maybe

だから、悲しい時でも、寂しい時でも、いつでも力になってあげる。

sirnigel Wrote:それは、約束だ。。。

You've not used だ　for any of the other sentences so it might be better not to use it here since Japanese people are always telling us to be consistent with that kind of thing. Also, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that although foreigners tend to use it when they're trying to write casually, ending sentences with だ actually has a more academic feel.

それは、約束。

Thank you for the tips, Splatted! I also found it strange to continue the sentence after あげる, but I was not sure of how to write it more appropriately.
それに really does sound kind of academic (like furthermore), but can't remember another word for "also" or "besides that". I think that だから doesn't fit very well because you are saying "because of that" instead of "besides that/also" which is the original expression, or am I wrong?

IceCream Wrote:僕が寒くなったら、痛みがあったら、

Isn't it actually 僕が寒くなって痛みがあったら? Or can you enumerate with multiple ~tara, too?

@sirnigel: Yeah I think you're right about だから but i couldn't think of how to accurately reflect the English. One possibility would be to で　(as in the で　form of だ), to link it with the preceding sentence, but I didn't think of that before.

そして、手をつなぐと、君が僕の力になってくれる事がわかってて、ニコニコしてしまうで、いつでも力になってあげる。悲しい時でも、寂しい時でも。

It might be better just to forget the "and", though.