The NA SNES translation did suck. So no worries there, unless of course your mother has an ogrish one...

Well, I'd suggest the PlayStation version, since that has a more accurate translation than the fan translation (if it's J2e anyway), they did take some artistic liberties so it isn't 100% accurate. The only loading times on Chronicles are from saving and loading your memory card when you start the game, so if you use the Memo save properly you can get around that while only having to properly save at the end of your sessions. The loading times never bothered me. Now, if you want bad loading times, try playing Chrono Trigger on Chronicles...

The Gameboy Advance version is also an option, although the Gameboy Advance isn't really a console, I guess. But it has a revised Chronicles script (meaning nothing is lost in translation, really), with proper titles to things (yes!) besides the characters' names which were taken from their NA localized names because everyone would flip out and riot otherwise.