okay, so I have a polite, usually restrained upper-class female character. she is receiving bad news. her response is something along the lines of "shit", but she's the kind of person who might use a more polite euphemism like "shoot" of she was speaking English

my brief research of Japanese profanity shows that, among other things, Japanese profanity works differently on several levels than English does, much of the time

yeah swearing is not really a thing in japanese

I could have her say "chikusho". I could maybe have her say "saitei," indicating that this is the worst? I could also have her call herself stupid (for not forseeing this), but I don't know if baka, paku, manuke, or something else would be right

(I could also acknowledge that I am writing in English, forget the notion of using a Japanese word, & just say "shit" or "shoot")

(also if it matters, yes this is Momo Yaoyorozu from BNHA)

i mean, yeah if you're writing in english just. don't bother.
secondly, uhhhh yeah honestly the phrasing isn't going to be 1 for 1 in that situation. depending on the exact context, i could imagine several responses Momo would have, and none of them are the above.

a lot of japanese politeness/vulgarity is not in what you say but how you say it. "urusai" means noisy and is basically equivalent to "shut up" but "urusai desu" would be closer to "would you please shut up?", while "ussee" is basically "shut your fucking hole"

so like, not only would you have to choose the appropriate vocabulary, but you'd have to conjugate it to momo's speech patterns

fair

I have a funnier idea for the English anyway

I could imagine her as saying something like yabai (especially since she's in the age range that's a pretty common exclamation), but also if you're writing in english I'd just go with english, yah

Shimatta/shimaimashita, maybe?

okay, went to my dictionary and shimatta is the "oh shoot" version. (and/or I'm trying to conjugate the more polite version wrong. It's been a while since my last Japanese class)

Oh yeah shimatta is probably close
Look just go find a similar situation in the anime and see what she says lol

^

I usually just write in English, even if I hear the Japanese in my head (I watch subbed mostly). I just take into account what the equivalent* would be in English.

i mean for polite japanese people a well-delivered "tsk/tche/hmph" can be equivalent to swearing lol

I have at one point deployed 'very well' with the intended same energy as 'fuck it.'

new chapter of the fic is up if amnesiac dystopian kinky AU BNHA fic appeals to anyone

also, which level of apology should Izuku be using for "I may have just caused a diplomatic incident with a Mad Max warlord?"

definitely doing the dogeza thing

Imagining him bowing his head over and over at the speed of light

Note: 17 year old (I'm-pretty-sure) satire

Japanese Bow

better have a bruise on his forehead by the time he's done or he's not doing it right