Double checking some phrases (Japanese, Hebrew, Spanish)

May 26, 2012 17:50



I've been developing a story in which a character who is supernaturally omnilingual occasionally uses phrases in other languages with characters who are multilingual. I've been trying to avoid "translation convention" as much as possible. I've got a few notes jotted down that I wanted to double check before using them (I only wrote down transliterations, because that's what I intended to use):

In Japanese: A man calls another man "manipulative", fully desiring to express his contempt. I was given the phrase "Kisama seitai yarou" on a forum. The giver claimed to be a native speaker, but I don't know them, and checking each word individually revealed it was word-for-word what I'd given as a suggested translation (i.e. "You" "manipulative" "bastard"). So I felt like I should check.
Looking around on my own, I found the possible alternative "Kisama zankoku yarou" (using "cruel" instead of "manipulative", and cobbled together out of a dictionary, so possibly very bad).

Either meaning, or any similar phrase would work just as well for me, I just want it to be conversationally correct.

In Modern Hebrew: Would "Slicha." be an appropriate usage for a man asking a woman for forgiveness of a wrong?

In Spanish: I have a character (Latino American, East Coast, if it matters) calling another man "kid" in a way meant to be condescending. I currently have the word "chico", but is there a term that is more condescending?

Thank you for your help.

hebrew, japanese, spanish, phrases

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