So, I’ve been working on a translation of an 朝ドラ series. I have, to be fair, gotten stalled for a long while, and it’s time I finally got back to it.
However, I need some help translating a pun into English. Basically, this character has a habit of looking at some random object in his surroundings and making a pun on it. So far I’ve been able to get by with a close approximation or a minimal translation note, but I can’t for the life of me think of how to represent this one in English.
The line is:
[君は]これみたいに、じっくり煮込まれたや…いえ…見込まれたや。
I’ve added the topic for clarity. The item he’s referring to is the dish he’s eating, which appears to be some kind of udon. I’ll hold off on giving my take on a literal translation so as to avoid possibly putting people on the wrong train of thought.
So basically, how do I translate both the meaning and the punnishness into English?
Hah. The context is basically half the plot of the series.
Basically the main character came to Osaka to discover the job she’d come for no longer existed. When she had nothing, she happened to bump into some she knew, who happened to be the owner of a small katsuobushi factory, and he gave her a job, despite her lack of experience. Later, after many shenannigans, she wound up buying her grandmother’s old okonimiyaki restaurant, and is now running it. The factory manager wants her to quit working at the factory so that she can focus on the restaurant, but out of some sense of needing to repay the owners kindness (plus possibly a bit of just plain enjoying the work), she doesn’t want to.
In this scene, the factory foreman, who is the one delivering the line, is trying to convince her to at least stop for her lunch break. The immediately preceding lines are
Her: こっちがうちを拾ってくれたけ、お店開いてたんじゃも、ちゃんと恩返しせんと。 (it’s Hiroshima dialect)
Him: あんた拾われなちゃう。 (Osaka dialect… and I’m not too sure of that line, because he slurs a lot)
Him: これみたいに、じっくり煮込まれたや…いえ…見込まれたや。
You’re probably looking for someone else’s help because I feel like I’m mostly guessing here, but it’s kind of fun. I suppose you understand it better than I do, so I wonder if I got what you got:
Her: こっちがうちを拾ってくれたけ、お店開いてたんじゃも、ちゃんと恩返しせんと。
I have no idea about Hiroshima dialect… but “I’ll pick up here; the shop isn’t open yet, and I want to repay Mr./Ms. X properly.”?
Him: あんた拾われなちゃう
“You don’t have to.”
Him: これみたいに、じっくり煮込まれたや…いえ…見込まれたや
literal-ish: “Just like this [soup], you’re thoroughly cooked…no, you’re needed.”
How’s this for punny? “Just like this [soup], you’re well boiled…I mean, you keep things well-oiled.”
Ohhhh, that pun is just painful. Which pretty much describes all of his puns…
This morning I managed to come up with “Like this udon, you’ve u-won them over” but I rather like yours better. Painful as it is.
My take on the full translation, if it helps further:
Yours is pretty close to how I saw it, just with some small issues regarding Hiroshima dialect. The copula だ becomes じゃ, so it’s not “the shop isn’t open yet” but “I’ve opened the shop too”.
Her: Because this place picked me up [i.e. off the street, when I had nothing], and now I’ve opened up the shop too, I have to repay their kindness.
Him: You weren’t just “picked up”.
Him: You’re like this dish, thoroughly cooked together… they’ve come to count on you.
But yeah, rendering that as a pun was throwing me.
