Done Need some help with this bubble.

[Arleea]

My husband can't figure out what is being said. Maybe 'cold'?
Thanks for the help!

We assume it's 目が覚めた.

 

[cmertb]

I'm going to speculate that めっさえた＝「めっ！」された=叱られた. But wait for a more authoritative answer. XD

 

[mikkih]

My husband can't figure out what is being said. Maybe 'cold'?
Thanks for the help!

We assume it's 目が覚めた.

めっさ means "very" in a dialecct, but it would not work with + えた.
So... I would go with: 目が冴えた　（めがさえた）　[kotobank link]

 

[Arleea]

Thanks both of you! I think we're going for 目が覚めた then. =)

 

[mikkih]

Thanks both of you! I think we're going for 目が覚めた then. =)

Original JP txt is: めっさえた

冴えた（さえた）　vs 覚めた（さめた）

I would still go with 目が冴えた (めがさえた) based on the original script "さえた", but meaning of 目が冴えた　（めがさえた） and 目が覚めた（めがさめた） are very similar. When you translate, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

 

[Arleea]

Sorry! XD I'm not the translator and they both looked the same asides the one kanji and hirigana. I'll have my husband read your suggestion since he's the translator. Haha... ^^;;

 

[hasunoutena]

I have to agree with cmertb! My first instinct was 覚めた as well, but it's not uncommon for little children to have difficulty pronouncing ra ri ru re ro, so they instead come out as a i u e o, and it's also common to write out this sort of pronunciation to indicate that the child is speaking a sort of baby talk (Mei from Totoro speaks like this if you listen closely). The second panel shows the other character remembering how she, too, was disciplined when she was a child, which wouldn't make sense if the child was saying 目が覚めた.

This is a Japanese gov site about the different types of speech impediments common in Japanese: http://forum.nise.go.jp/kotoba/htdocs/?page_id=63 The top example on this list is "omission of the consonant r".

 

[mikkih]

I have to agree with cmertb! My first instinct was 覚めた as well, but it's not uncommon for little children to have difficulty pronouncing ra ri ru re ro, so they instead come out as a i u e o, and it's also common to write out this sort of pronunciation to indicate that the child is speaking a sort of baby talk (Mei from Totoro speaks like this if you listen closely).

Good point My bad, I was actually seeing the character in the first panel as an older woman, since I've been seeing so many young-looking characters as moms and dads.

 

[cmertb]

So did I guess right in the end?

 

[mikkih]

So did I guess right in the end?

I wish めっ were written in katakana then 100%, but I would go with "I think it is."

I don't like the conversion from さえた to された even in baby talks but I'm not the one writing the script. "That woke me up = I'm so stunned" with 覚/冴 wouldn't be off the topic but　「たくさん怒られたよ。」 makes sense to me.

　(I may be wrong but) you translated Maria Holic before, right? The girl reminded me of the dorm leader somehow.

 

[cmertb]

Well, this could be easy enough to check if we looked at other Shiyo's lines to see if she always has that speech "impediment".

I did translate Maria Holic long ago, when I was just starting out as a translator, but it was only a single volume... Then I realized it's licensed. I'm impressed that you remember! For me, it was so long ago that I didn't even remember there was a dorm leader character.

 

[Arleea]

Thanks for all your input and suggestions!

I asked a few Japanese friends and they replied as follows:

Probably 目が覚めたas in she got so scared she became wild awake

We say "目が冴える（めがさえる)" when we become wide awake.

I'm thinking the "correct" answer won't necessarily make a difference, since I'm thinking the meaning is more or less "I was awake a lot!" due to the context of the manga, where the child has night terrors and wakes up in the middle of the night due to insecurity issues. The father knows this, but also has a history of being beaten on by his elder sister, who was watching the child, so misinterprets "I woke up a lot!" to mean something more like "I was so scared I couldn't sleep!"

Or something.

「めっ！」された seems plausible as well, but don't know why the mangaka wouldn't have just used a young-kid-speech-impediment version of 怒られた or 叱られた if that was what she wanted.

It is a great mystery!

Fudgey-translatey version in the final script: "Yeah. Shio lotta wakey-wakey!"