Anything that happens in the United States makes it onto the Japanese national morning news. Medicare policy changes were even the lead story one day. Why? It's not like such things have any impact on or are of interest to the general Japanese population, unless it's to illustrate how the Japanese health care system is so much better. That being the case, it should be no surprise that the U.S. presidential race is pretty big news over there. Since it's Super Tuesday, that gets a mention, although it didn't lead. "Super Tuesday" isn't translated, it's just transliterated. The Japanese language doesn't have a "too" sound, so the transliteration is "Supah Choose-day". And so it is. During the story, I catch a subtitle out of the corner of my eye. "Bring it on!" is translated as "[maybe something, but I missed it] kakatte-koi!" Not that I ever wondered, but now I know.
151 words | March 2, 2004 08:05 PM | Lost in translation