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So, I’ve been working on a translation of a drama series. However, one of the characters is an incorringible punster, and I’m struggling to translate the jokes into English.
In the current episode, the characters are about to draw straws from a tin. The protagonist asks what’s going on, to which this character replies (paraphrased slightly, because I’m translating from Osaka-ben):
くじです。今は五時ですけどね。
The joke, of course, is that くじ meaning “lottery” or “lot” sounds like 九時 meaning “nine o’clock”. Been running through all the synonymns for “lot” in my head to come up with something that sounds like a synonym for “five o’clock”, but I’m coming up blank. Don’t really want to have to resort to a separate translator’s note, so does anyone else have a thought?
I was about to say just leave a translator’s note. Like with that word game you were talking about before, the translators totally mangled it while trying to turn it into English. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.
I’ll have a think of how you might be able to word it, but in the mean time, I’d say leave a note instead.
Hrm, that’s a tricky one. I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind!
Not from the desk of Eihiko. Eihiko's boss took his desk away from him.Like with that word game you were talking about before, the translators totally mangled it while trying to turn it into English. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.
Oh, I know. I don’t like it when people are too liberal with translations. Trouble is, making it a translator’s note means I either wind up having too many words on the screen at the same time, or I force people to go look at a separate document in order to get the joke…
Though I guess “‘Kuji’ meaning ‘lot’ is a homophone for ‘nine o’clock’” isn’t all that many words…
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