I only briefly looked at some of the mails, I did notice the slight awkwardness with the use of "as if" but decided to leave it as it was. "Nante" is just a tricky term to translate because depending on how it's used, it could just add emphasis to a statement or be similar to the use of prefixes in english. However, by itself, it can be roughly translated to mean "why" but that's not much better.
For example, we could replace "as if" with "why" in this sentence:
"I love you. I can't live my life without you... As if..." ---> "I love you. I can't live my life without you... Why..."
It doesn't really change anything because the ambiguity is still there and the real meaning being expressed should be closer to:
"I love you. I can't live my life without you... why is that..."
That's why there's isn't really any one term we can use for "nante" since the meaning practically changes depending on the context of the sentence it's used in. Although the general meaning is still there, a lot of it is similar to filling in the blanks when you try to translate it so it might be best to leave it as an ambiguous term like "as if".
Edit: Right, made a slight typo. It's "??? (Nante)" and not "??? (Nande)".
For example, we could replace "as if" with "why" in this sentence:
"I love you. I can't live my life without you... As if..." ---> "I love you. I can't live my life without you... Why..."
It doesn't really change anything because the ambiguity is still there and the real meaning being expressed should be closer to:
"I love you. I can't live my life without you... why is that..."
That's why there's isn't really any one term we can use for "nante" since the meaning practically changes depending on the context of the sentence it's used in. Although the general meaning is still there, a lot of it is similar to filling in the blanks when you try to translate it so it might be best to leave it as an ambiguous term like "as if".
Edit: Right, made a slight typo. It's "??? (Nante)" and not "??? (Nande)".