[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by fryc86

I forgot to clarify this before. But why did you give two translations? Is one more common, and one traditional? Sorry for so many questions, I just really want to make sure I get this right.

The first is a bit more old and formal. I'll be honest that outside of church I've never heard the first (and technically I'm not Catholic, so I never heard either in church anyway!).

But basically the first is a bit more "literary" than the latter. I've never heard conjunctive+給え spoken in my life. But I'm only an above-average non-native Japanese speaker, so that could explain it, too.

It sort of happened outside of your view (since the exchange was going on in Japanese), but I'm a non-native Japanese speaker and allhailhata is a native Japanese speaker. So his Japanese is better than mine.

On the other hand, I'm Christian, and he's not, so I (allegedly, haha) have a bit more expertise there.

My honest evaluation is that both of our answers are correct. His is absolutely grammatically perfect (him being a native). The only issue is whether his is actually what they say in church or not.

I'm not 100% sure what they say in Catholic church, either (I'm a Protestant, and we don't do Hail Marys and stuff).

The nice thing is that our suggestions boil down to exactly the same thing for the simple phrase "pray for us" with one being a more "literary" version.

Additionally, we were discussing the translation, and allhailhata provided a good link about Ave Maria, which includes the phrase "pray for us" in it. The link he provided is the Japanese Wikipedia page for Ave Maria: アヴェ・マリア - Wikipedia

Here is the more literary version of Ave Maria:
アヴェ・マリア - Wikipedia

めでたし、聖寵（せいちょう）みちみてるマリア、
主（しゅ）御身（おんみ）と共にまします。
御身は女のうちにて祝（しゅく）せられ、
御胎内（ごたいない）の御子（おんこ）イエズスも祝せ られたもう。
天主（てんしゅ）の御母（おんはは）聖マリア、
罪人（つみびと）なる我らの為に、
今も臨終（りんじゅう）の時も祈り給え。

Here is the more colloquial (口語) version:
アヴェ・マリア - Wikipedia

恵み溢れる聖マリア、
主はあなたとともにおられます。
主はあなたを選び、祝福し、
あなたの子イエスも祝福されました。
神の母聖マリア、
罪深い私達の為に、
今も、死を迎える時も祈って下さい。