Rachael (little_rachael) wrote in linguaphiles,
Rachael
little_rachael
linguaphiles

Translation: Help with an expression in Japanese

I'm translating some manga for someone, and I'm confused by an expression that a character uses. Here's the conversation leading up to and including the expression.

Kairi: No, it's all right. I never told Sagiri when I was coming.

Gremio: Oh, really? Young Master was saying, "Kairi's coming over today, so I'll be back soon."

Kairi: Ehh!?

Gremio: He hasn't changed. 昔からこういうカンは良い方でしたが

I know that the first part means, in this context, "always" as in "He's always been..." (lit. "from a long time ago") こういう means "this kind of," but here's where it gets confusing. カン is written in katakana, and those two characters can mean so many different things. The ones that make the most sense in context are 間 (interval) or 感 (feeling). Then, to complicate matters, I'm not sure if 方 is supposed to be pronounced to mean "direction" or "person."

Now do you see why I'm finding this difficult? It seems really ambiguous. I'm probably just going to have to guess on this one. It's not like I'm getting paid or anything. But my sense of pride as a (non-professional) translator means I have to try.

EDIT: Solved! I had overlooked the fact that 感 can also be translated as "intuition." So he's saying, "He was always good at sensing things like that."
Tags: japanese
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