＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
１．Mistranslation” on Osaka Metro’s official website
On March 18, 2019, the “Osaka Metro Official Website” announced that it would cease publication for the time being due to “mistranslations” on its foreign language pages.
Speaking of “Osaka Metro,” it is still fresh in our minds that the “Station Renewal Plan” announced last December was criticized as being in bad taste, but it is yet another blunder.
It was pointed out on the Internet that “Sakaisuji line” was translated as “Sakai Muscle line” (Sakai muscular line), “third car” as “Eyes3”, “Tengachaya” as “World Teahouse”, and so on. The reason for this is that the mistranslations were made by Microsoft’s “automatic translation software” and published as they were without proofreading or reconfirmation. It seems that the day when “automatic translation software” becomes usable is still a long way off. More and more improvement in the accuracy of the software is needed.
In my blog, too, there may be places where the kanji characters have been converted incorrectly due to “misconversions” on my computer. I do my best to review my blog, but I tend to read my own writing as if it were correct, so it is possible that I may have overlooked something.
２．It also “ruins” the spirit of “Omotenashi.”
In the case of Osaka Metro, as a public transportation facility, they have created a foreign-language website in four languages (English, Chinese, Korean, and Thai) in the spirit of “hospitality” in response to the recent increase in inbound traffic. However, if foreign people do not understand the meaning or misunderstand it, it is of no use to them at all.
If “Omotenashi” were translated into a foreign language as “There is no front side.,” it would be “spoiled. However, the original meaning of “Omotenashi” comes from “to accomplish with things” and refers to “treatment and treatment of customers,” but it also means “without front and back” (to greet customers with a heart without front and back), so it is not completely wrong, but it does not convey the correct meaning. I think it does not convey the correct meaning.
Such “mistranslations” do not seem to be limited to “Osaka Metro. At one temple, there was a warning sign that read, “Do not come up from here,” but the Chinese translation read, “Do not be nervous”. Chinese people who see this may go up with their shoes on without any ill intentions.
Since it is a temple, I think the Japanese language avoids direct words like “no entry” and uses polite expressions, but I think the reason is that the temple did not communicate the situation and nuance of the warning sign when they asked for the translation into foreign languages.
３．Translation should be done by a professional company and proofread and reconfirmed by someone who is fluent in both languages.
To prevent such “mistranslations,” it is important to properly convey the nuances of the labeling (“proper noun,” “prohibited,” “warning,” etc.), and it is absolutely necessary to ask a translation specialist to proofread and reconfirm the translation by someone fluent in both languages. Otherwise, the above-mentioned “mistranslations” and “rare translations” will continue to appear, making the story “laughable.
As an aside, when I was in junior high school, my English teacher shared the following experience with me.
When the teacher went to see an exhibition introducing Japanese culture, there was an explanation that “the staple food of the Japanese is rice”.
However, the English sentence was “The staple food of the Japanese is lice”.
Incidentally, “lice” is the plural form of “louse.
The teacher immediately showed his “English Teacher’s Certificate” to the person in charge and reminded him to correct it to “rice” as soon as possible.
If the foreigner who saw this had believed it without reconfirming it with the person in charge, he or she might have thought, “What a horrifying people the Japanese are, and what an unsanitary country they live in.