The Former Prostitute Became a Rich Wife - Vol. 5 Ch. 40

[Neushaartje]

Fwiw, I’m Australian. You poms suck at cricket, beer, and pies.

Plus, I’m not here to fuck spiders let alone punch on with you limp wristed chavs.

Calm ya tits and fuck yourselves.
Oi. Oi. Oi.

You didn't answer what I asked though, how you would solve the issue.

I'm not English in any case; I'm Dutch.

 

[StJesuz]

You didn't answer what I asked though, how you would solve the issue.

I'm not English in any case; I'm Dutch.

You set a high bar with the treatment of different Japanese dialects in the translation and it's great. The (cockney?) slang gives this title a distinct feeling from others and sets it apart. The only issue that I could see is that it might be a bit harder to read for someone who is not a fluent speaker of English, but for me I appreciate it. I read these to learn more about Japan so I wouldn't mind extra notes on the end page about localized dialects and especially what stereotypes are connoted by them.

I just read this through complete for the first time and the only place where I was slightly confused was at the part where the tutor was going to ask our MC out on a date. It wasn't quite clear what was implied and how that lead to her thoughts on not needing romantic love. Still this was minor and I think I understand it after a second reading.

Sincere appreciation for the work that goes into translating this series.

 

[AkatsukiKawa]

I am actually liking the slang here. It feels more alive and closer to real people. Admittedly, I don't understand some words as I am not a native English speaker, but Google is a thing. And I can still infer the meaning of the words (purityfag for example) based on how the words are used, which is a natural way of learning a language.

 

[beansbunko]

You didn't answer what I asked though, how you would solve the issue.

I'm not English in any case; I'm Dutch.

may i ask why you chose to interpret tokyo slang as british? I'm not trying to fight you or anything, but the universal use of it for all the characters makes it hard to tell tone and character 😓
Tokyo slang is pretty much as close as you can get to vanilla japanese, so maybe the strong accent would have more an impact as a contrast to polite/high class characters? Eg if just yanki twintail soapgirl's freakout was interpreted as cockney slang it would've been a good way to make clear how much her language changed, i think. Same thing with young MC and her friend when they first started at the soap.
At the moment everyone uses it all the time, so it's a little hard to tell what's going on tone wise sometimes. To be fair, i haven't read the raws so im not totally sure how contrasting the original speech really was.

Source: I'm a native eng speaker who's lived in tokyo for 3+yrs

Thanks for picking this weird series up and translating so quickly!

 

[Neushaartje]

The only issue that I could see is that it might be a bit harder to read for someone who is not a fluent speaker of English

I've actually had comments about this before which I didn't even consider.
Slang is very hard to parse for people who's English isn't great because it's rarely featured in English-language fiction so they have no experience with it.
I've not used anything actually close to cockney in this title but I've used it before. This is fairly mild slangy London English compared to cockney, which almost no one speaks any more, and it's successor, Multicultural London English.

This is the deep end of English slang nowadays.

I do tend to add notes when characters speak in unusual Japanese dialects and how I translated it. But right now all characters are speaking Tokyo Japanese, some simply more slangy than others but it's all clearly Tokyo and I feel I can adequately reflect the register at which they speak in the translation. I only add a note if I feel I couldn't translate something adequately that lends a character identity. If say a character would speak Hokkaido dialect and I'd render it as Scottish, which I tend to do, I'd add a note that the character is actually speaking in Hokkaido dialect.

may i ask why you chose to interpret tokyo slang as british? I'm not trying to fight you or anything, but the universal use of it for all the characters makes it hard to tell tone and character 😓

They are all speaking in British English, slang or not. I've interpreted Tokyo slang as London Slang.
Even Kanzaki, who uses no slang and always speaks in polite, customer-service oriented Japanese, even when speaking to his subordinate prostitutes uses British English, as in uses the past-perfect, uses “shall” over “will” to indicate determination, and favors using the accusative-and-infinitive over a subordinate clause and other markers of British English, but does not speak in slang.

Interpreting Tokyo slang as London slang seems easy: Tokyo is the capital, and so is London. London Slang is the most neutral form of slang, as is Tokyo slang, the default slang English writing uses opposed to say Liverpool slang.

As to why I chose to use British English as a base: I speak it better and it has more of a wealth of dialects to draw from as it's where English originated. In other places English migrated to there are less dialects and I don't really speak them. I tend to render Kansai-dialect to Cockney which I feel is inadequate because it's spoken at the same place as London English and I should probably be using Liverpool English for Kansai dialect, but I don't really speak that well enough to render it in a recognizable way though I've been watching some tapes of it to try to gain more of a feel so that I can use it in the future.

I could also use local Boston or New York dialect for that, but I don't even know where to start.

At the moment everyone uses it all the time, so it's a little hard to tell what's going on tone wise sometimes. To be fair, i haven't read the raws so im not totally sure how contrasting the original speech really was.[
Source: I'm a native eng speaker who's lived in tokyo for 3+yrs

By no means. I don't think Honoka has ever used “innit” because the character never uses “じゃん”, the same for An and certainly Kanzaki, as well as Sayuri. These characters speak relatively formal Japanese which is reflected in the translation. Kakeru, Misaki, Reika and many of the university students speak far more slangy Japanese and the translation reflects that.

Kanzaki and even Honoka don't end their sentences on “てさ” or “じゃん”; they don't use “マジ” as an intensifier and other similar things. Honoka will of course happily engage in particle dropping but Kanzaki goes further and won't even do that and is even quite fond of using honorrific verbs for his prostitutes and humble verbs for himself. Sora's biological father goes even further and will happily end sentences on “〜じゃねえ” and other such things. The reason Honoka has, unlike Reika or some of the other students has never said “innit” nor used “proper” as an intensifier is because Honoka isn't ending sentences on “じゃん” nor saying such things as “まじ最低”. I've seen Honoka use “すごい最低” or something similar once and translated it as “super horrible” but usually the character would simply say “すごく最低” and I would use “incredibly horrible”.

 

[azudai96]

You didn't answer what I asked though, how you would solve the issue.

I'm not English in any case; I'm Dutch.

by inferring a “native” English accent instead of going full cockney. Just leave what isn’t broken unlike your concept of associating a disastrous way of speaking and mashing it with one of the trickiest languages cobbled together.

I am of English descent, born and raised in Australia, and before the spicy cough I spent a few years living and working in different parts of Japan, mainly fukuoka, saga, saitama and aichi. It’s really beautiful if you manage to get there but to have such a shit accent applied in this case really does grind my gears.

Look, fair suck of the sav, I appreciate you translating this and for whatever series you also do I also thank you.

 

[Neushaartje]

by inferring a “native” English accent instead of going full cockney. Just leave what isn’t broken unlike your concept of associating a disastrous way of speaking and mashing it with one of the trickiest languages cobbled together.

Cockney speakers are native speakers as well, and I never used cockney, nor do I transcribe accents in this title.

I am of English descent, born and raised in Australia, and before the spicy cough I spent a few years living and working in different parts of Japan, mainly fukuoka, saga, saitama and aichi. It’s really beautiful if you manage to get there but to have such a shit accent applied in this case really does grind my gears.

There is no “accent” applied anywhere.

You didn't really answer in any case, what would you do? Would you just render it in textbook Japanese and throw away all the distinctions in how the characters speak? Because they all have very distinct speech patterns in how they come across, so how would you render those differences, or would you simply not?

 

[beansbunko]

...

Ok, i see where you're coming from
It's definitely the first time I've seen a translation use super british/london slang so i think it can be a little jarring sometimes for some people. I'm also australian like the other poster, so there a lot of aspects of australian slang that are rooted in british slang, so it can feel a little strange sometimes haha

Just as a quick note though, british english speakers don't often use "man" (as in "aw man") as well as "mate". "Man" is mostly American leaning, but usually if someone says "mate" a lot they won't use "man" and vice versa (I hope that makes sense 😳)

Also you only used it a couple times, but "you hear" is very, VERY American, typically deep southern USA.

Again thanks for translating this weird series! If you didn't do it i don't think anyone would!

 

[Vikingix]

So is it just me or dae think his mom is that Princess Ruri one, right?

That's definitely the vibes given. Everything connects.

• The mother is gentle, and has an aura similar to the one of Honoka, while they have already been compared before.
• She created a company, we don't see her face.
• And that phony twist would suits so much with the manga...

Concerning the slang argument, tbh I personnally don't like it, but well, the translator had a choice to do, and I respect that.