I wondered how well this would go over when I wrote it. Most of the feedback I
have recieved about this conversation has been quite positive, which surprised
me. I knew that it might well be sore point.
The Nabiki I've created for Comes the Cold Dragon is an exaggeration of an
exaggeration. Several have complained that the Nabiki I am using falls more in
line with "Fanfic convention" rather than the manga. Well, she does, but then I
don't have a problem with the Nabiki of the "Fanfic convention." The Nabiki in
the manga does organize betting pools and does go to great deal of trouble to
sell pictures of Ranma and Akane and _is_ more than a little fond of money and
has chutzpah to run major scams. So I don't believe the "convention" Nabiki to
be that much of a stretch. Those that claim there is little evidence in the
manga for the "convention" Nabiki are not looking at all the evidence and are
not leaving authors room for artistic license.
As for this particular part of _Comes the Cold Dragon_, I am pushing the
envelope rather hard. I was faced with the three choices:
1) Have Nab's speak nearly perfect English. This was my choice of preference.
Others found it objectionable for good reasons, some of which you named.
2) Try to construct in print a Japanese accent for her that seemed realistic,
complete with grammatical mistakes. I wasn't up to this and Nabiki would have
come across like a Hollywood stereotype. There are some Japanese Americans
living in my area, but they speak neither Japanese nor English. They speak
Texican, just like I do. So I have little experience in dealing with Japanese
accents.
3) Do what I did, which was have Nabiki move all of her verbs to the end of her
sentences while speaking English, while also dropping all but the most
necessary English particles. As you noticed, I chose this third option.
Japanese sentences always end with a verb. Yoda, if you will notice, moves
both subject and verb to the end of a sentence and makes proper use of the
English particles.
For instance: Yoda would say, "Two Saotomes I know.
Nabiki would say: "I two Saotome know."
Japanese does not have plural forms for its nouns.
Mr. Lucas draws heavily from Japanese culture, let us make no mistake about it.
While I admire his work a great deal, he has no patent on drawing from legend
and foreign culture. I do not know of a single great storyteller that does NOT
do this.
By the time this converstation takes place in the story, privacy is not an
option for Nabiki and Cologne. It is a necessity. Nabiki had a different
purpose for this conversation than Cologne. She did not arrive at the
Nekohanten with the intention of negotiating, but simply to get a single
message across: Killing Akane will not serve the Joketsuzoku ends, because the
marriage agreement is between the clans, not just the two families. And yes, I
do know that this is out of canon, but it is only mildly out of canon.
Cologne, on the other hand, does want to negotiate, but is not in a position to
do so just yet. All she does is make sure that Tendo-ke knows she is open to
negotiations and will be prepared to do so within a fortnight.
So I think I have to agree with you that Nabiki would never take on an older,
much more experienced opponent on grounds of that opponent's choosing, but that
is not what she had in mind during this visit. And if you will notice, she
refrains from doing so even though sorely tempted to try. She wanted to tell
Cologne that the nuptials were not on the table for discussion, but wisely
chose not to.
As for it being necessary to re-read what Nabiki said, how many foreign people
have you dealt with? Did you not have to ask them to repeat their statements
and queries?
If I receive numerous complaints about this passage, I will consider re-writing
it. I was tempted to leave it as I originally wrote it and explain Nabiki's
command of English in another way and could still do so, but this runs the risk
of becoming a spoiler.
Thank you for taking the time and trouble to write on this issue Jourdan. Let
me also add that if there are others that find this part of the story
unforgiveably flawed, you should drop me a line and say so. I have no other way
of telling what works in the story what does not.
Regards,
Don Granberry.
Jourdan Bickham wrote:
This was yet another great installment of "Comes the Cold Dragon."
After reading it through I noticed a few things...
Most importantly Nabiki's English. It's horrible. And I'm sorry to say
that it sounds more like Master Yoda than a Japanese highschool student
trying to speak English (which MOST can't unless they've lived abroad for a
little while). The Japanese grammatical structure may be somewhat backwards
compared to English, however...nobody actually tries to speak English by
using Japanese syntax. Rather they miss the obvious "R" and "L" plus "V"
and "B" difference... "TH" sounds like "S" and unlike American English they
sound...staccato. Regular missing or unneeded gramatical elements are
articles, incorrect number/gender, plural/singular...to say the least.
Given that. Privacy is nice, but when it's so important, and having a
complete understanding and ability to negotiate and possibly leverage
someone...Nabiki would not choose to speak to Cologne in English, where
Cologne has the obvious advantage. She'd be able to hold better control of
the situation in Japanese.
I'd hate to say it, but. Most kids are not going to try and use English
like Nabiki did in this chapter. Even today most class time is spent on
learning grammar and translation, there is some speaking practice with a
native speaker, who may and may not be a trained professional. As I
understand the texts are too simple (I haven't taught so I can't say for
sure), and culturally...especially high school girls would not want to be
noticed for something like that... being the nail that sticks out (gets
hammered down).
So, if you decide to still have Nabiki use English, particularly to this
extent, that's fine...I can accept the possiblity (though it seems to be
more of a fanfic cannon). However, you've got to re-word her speech, in
parts I had to re-read it a couple times to get what she was trying to say,
and it still sounded like Yoda.
J
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