July 11, 2013

Tonan no Tsubasa (38)

Despite anata being shoehorned into the role, Japanese doesn't really have a neutral, second-person pronoun equivalent to the English "you," relying instead on names (plus the requisite honorifics) and titles.

Wives refer to their husbands as anata (often translated as "dear") while husbands refer to their wives as o-mae. Shushou is pointing out that when Gankyuu refers to the haku as o-mae, it sounds more intimate than a name.

At the end of this chapter, Shushou describes how to get around a 100 percent inheritance tax by setting up a living trust and spending it down to zero.

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Comments
# posted by Anonymous JP
7/11/2013 5:56 PM   
pg 346 "But with his mind was focused on the more important task of flight, he didn’t answer." the 'was' seems out of place.

I love chapters like this that really get into how the world works.
# posted by Blogger Eugene
7/12/2013 11:33 AM   
Fixed. Thanks.
# posted by Blogger jhayek
7/12/2013 12:55 PM   
"They could ask for no land of their own or children." Supposed to be "for their children?"

Thanks for doing the work of translating this!
# posted by Blogger Eugene
7/12/2013 1:29 PM   
A better translation is: "They could hope for no land or children of their own," meaning they couldn't petition the riboku. See Rakushun's explanation here.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous
7/15/2013 9:55 PM   
Thank you very much for translating this.

Found this by random chance and I'm already a big fan of the 12 kingdoms.

Hopefully it becomes translated officially, so that I can buy the hardcover, but until such time, I will be waiting in anticipation for any new releases you do.