After a little more research and a little more thinking about it, I've adjusted to the idea that if you encounter a Japanese person speaking English, they are probably quite skilled. The Japanese who are awkward or uncomfortable in English avoid it whenever they can.
The things that will stick out, then, to an English ear, is that the speech is very bookish. That, and the pronunciation is strange. But I decided long ago that reflecting a Japanese accent in spelling was not going to happen in this book.
So I just reworked some of Hanae's conversations, and it works for her to have grammatically correct but stilted and awkward. Besides, she is a Senior Room Maid at a fancy ryokan and speaking formally works for the position.
It is, alas, another version of the Funny Foreigner speak. I already played the card of the Romance languages and their gendered nouns and their difficulty with articles. I tried to throw in some Germanic grammar, at least verb placement (difficult to reflect in English without it sounding really awkward.) I have no idea what I'm going to do when I have a whole book full of French speakers to deal with.
It's funny, but the most stereotypical speaker in the current book is Penny's friend in Boston, who is a self-admitted otaku, even weaboo. She's the only person in the book so far to say "chan."
No comments:
Post a Comment