What caught my eye is the line “served with ご一緒に 配,” meant to be read as part of “Beef in BBQ sauce… served with Pepsi…”. The Chinese 配 (pèi) is fine here, meaning “with,” but the Japanese “ご一緒に” (goissho-ni) seemed awkward to me.

The issue is that this adverbial meaning “together” normally comes after the “what it’s with” in an order like (1) (glossed in (2)):

1
2

A B-と       ご一緒に
A B-and/with together

In other words, where English and Chinese both would say “A with B”, it is most natural in Japanese to say the equivalent of “A B with (together)”.¹ This is the reason why it seems unnatural to have anything between the “Beef in BBQ sauce…” line and “Pepsi…” line.

Looking at the rest of the menu, it’s clear that this isn’t a case where a native speaker wasn’t involved with the writing of the menu—the rest of the Japanese is perfect. The Japanese modifier was inserted there just for the sake of parallel design, to the detriment of the text’s naturalness. When have you seen design conflict with the structure of your language?

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• 回収 may take things away from others when collecting while 収集 does not have that implication.
• Things that you 回収 may have been previously distributed by the actor themself while 収集 does not have that implication.¹

Not content with armchair theorizing, however, I decided to take advantage of one of the largest corpora in the world: Google.² To test my hypothesis, I chose two “objects of collection”, one you can take away (and often is distributed first) and one you can’t take away: アンケート (ankēto “survey,” from the French enquête) and 意見 (iken “opinion”). I then took the four resulting collocations³ on Google in quotes (“•”) and recorded how many hits there were.

A better way to organize this data is as follows:

This data clearly supports the hypothesis I laid out above: アンケート, which can be taken away from people and is often distributed first, occurs much more likely with 回収 than 収集. 意見, on the other hand, which crucially cannot be taken away when collected, occurs much more likely with 収集 than 回収.

While this one example doesn’t prove anything in and of itself, it does help clarify with data a nuance between two near synonyms. While my hypothesis was borne out here, native speaker intuitions on word nuances and distinctions can be unreliable.⁴ This type of quick test can be very helpful for language learners and instructors alike.

Languages very often have words which vary in very subtle ways. Just this Tuesday I went to a Tokyo Language Exchange Meetup, a great meetup which brought together various language learners and enthusiasts. A hot topic that night was words with very similar meanings—near synonyms. A few English learners were lamenting sets of words like {see, view, watch} and how difficult they are to learn. I myself have had the same experience studying Mandarin.

I noted that these difficulties in offering contrasting definitions often are due to the fact that word meanings are not just “what the word points to” but also the implication of “what it relates to”.⁵ For example, “unborn baby” and “fetus” may point to the same thing, but are used in different contexts, in contrast to different other terms, for differing effect. Similarly “Death Tax” and “Estate Tax.” “Kneel” and “genuflect.”⁶

The concept of word meanings being “what it points to” and “what it relates to” also helps explain why certain words are difficult to translate. Fillmore uses the Japanese example of ぬるい (nurui) which is the de facto translation of “lukewarm.” However, some Japanese speakers will only use ぬるい in contrast with “hot,” i.e., hot tea can become ぬるい over time but ice water does not become ぬるい. In contrast, English “lukewarm” can be used to describe things that are initially or prototypically hot or cold. “What the words point to” in this case is the same but “what it relates to” or, here, “what it contrasts with” is different, making it an imperfect (though very close) translation.

Every language has near synonyms which vary slightly in nuance but this nuance or “feeling” is borne out objectively in data. Looking at what words certain terms relate to in real usage is often the key to getting a richer understanding of vocabulary.

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I’ve been a fan of the SNL Digital Shorts since Lazy Sunday, but this is absolutely something else. It’s a brilliant piece of cross-cultural parody. Many on the associated Hulu page had some questions, however, so I decided to write up a little explanation of what’s actually going on in this short, and why I love it so.¹

The Digital Short begins with the Japanese version of the intro sequence, including a shrine, a 700 series bullet train, and the Scranton city sign now showing Amagasaki (尼崎市), a similarly industrial city near Osaka. Dwight shredding paper with Japanese text and Jim eating noodles are nice touches. All the names, in case you were wondering, are possible Japanese names (modulo Jim’s actor’s name being in katakana, and thus exclusively foreign). After Michael Scott with extra black hair readjusts his lucky cat (manekineko, 招き猫), we get to the brilliant title card.

As Japanese lacks definite and indefinite articles, the word “The” is replaced with 「その」 sono, the demonstrative ‘that’, making the title literally “That Office.” Lacking a straightforward replacement for “The,” however, I feel that this is a very cute artifact of overly-faithful translation.

The short itself runs through the Japanese versions of a few key scenes from the first episode of The Office. In the first, Pam is answering the phone and Michael interrupts her in his signature way, repeating her name (or, the Japanese equivalent of “Pam”, pamu パム) and then dropping -san, a personal name suffix—the equivalent of Mister or Miss—and smiling into the camera, content with his own cleverness. Pam says something indiscernible to Michael, referring to him as Tanaka-san (the “Mr. Smith” of Japan—even though his name plate accurately said “Michael Scott” マイケル・スコット), to which Michael mumbles 「そういうことです」, a phrase meaning “and that’s that,” or “and that is the case.” My guess is that this was the attempted translation of “that’s what she said.”

Michael then goes on to say 「日本で一番面白いボスです」 (nihon-de ichiban omoshiroi bosu desu, ‘[I am] the most interesting (=funniest) boss in Japan’). Steve Carell’s snicker halfway through that line, in response to his trying really hard at producing it, is very cute. The mug itself says 「世界中で一番面白い社長」(“world’s funniest company president”). This reminds me of my dad when he speaks Japanese, in the best way possible. ^^

Next is of course the jello scene. Dwight picks up the phone with the phone-appropriate 「もしもし」 (moshimoshi) and Jim asks where the stapler is. Dwight yells back 「バカ！」 (baka, ‘stupid!’) and Pam laughs, though in the stereotypical Japanese female’s high pitch manner, appropriately covering her mouth (though Pam also actually does this in the original). Michael walks in and they all apologize, 「ごめんなさい」 gomennasai. Although the bowing is a bit excessive in a classical SNL parody way, the traditionally hierarchical status quo of Japanese offices is very succinctly reflected here.

The next scene is also from the first episode of The Office, where Michael introduces himself, 「僕は君たちのリージョナル・マネージャ」 (boku-wa kimitachi-no regional manager, ‘I am your Regional Manager’). Dwight states that he is the “Assistant Regional Manager” (アシスタント・リージョナル・マネージャ) and then is corrected, 「リージョナル・マネージャのアシスタントです」 (regional manager-no assistant desu, ‘[you are] Assistant to the Regional Manager’). It’s very cool to see how this back and forth translates beautifully, and to see these actors execute it with the right timing and effect in a foreign language. Michael asks 「どうしてここにいるのだ」 (doushite koko-ni irunoda, ‘why are [you] here?’) and leads them in the radio exercises (ラジオ体操), saying 「じゃ、ラジオ体操をしましょう」 (jya, rajio taisou-wo shimashou, ‘well then, let’s do the radio exercises’).

Here’s another beautiful cultural point. These “radio exercises” are real, as every Mori no Ike villager knows, broadcasted over public radio and TV every morning, and are often done en masse at schools and some businesses. Pam’s then notes 「田中さんはみんなの健康を心配しています」 (Tanaka-san-wa minna-no kenkou-wo shinpai-shite-imasu, ‘Mr. Tanaka (=Michael) is concerned for everyone’s health’) in a conference-room reflection, and we see Stanley doing the crossword again.

After hurting his shoulder and cooling it with some oolong tea—the same bottle that was on Pam’s counter in the first scene—Michael reflects:

「今日はいい日でした。」 (kyou-ha ii hi deshita, ‘Today was a good day.’)
「いい仕事をした。」 (ii shigoto-wo shita, ‘[I] did good work.’)
「そう思う…かな？ はいはいはい！」 (sou omou… kana? hai hai hai!, ‘I think this way…? Yes yes yes!’)

The last line there is beautifully translated, capturing the essence of Michael in Japanese. As Japanese is a verb-final language, you literally say “blah blah blah I think” to mean “I think blah blah blah”, which may help explain the last phrase, 「そう思う」. Finally, the 「かな」 thrown in at the end turns the entire sentence, which was declarative up till then, into a question, which the bobble-head then answers. Brilliant!

In the final scene, Michael’s singing karaoke and Dwight yells 「かんぱい！」 (kanpai!, ‘bottoms up!’). The final credits list Sarah Sawyer and Hanna(h) Sawyer as producers… I wonder if they were actually involved with this Short or if they are also made up as well.

The details in the Short are great: the little Hello Kitties and origami, orchid plant on the reception desk (Japanese love orchids—or wait, maybe that’s just my grandfather), and all the copy paper that had 「コピー用紙」 (kopii-youshi, ‘copy paper’) pasted on. There’s a bonsai tree on Jim’s desk and his spoon is replaced with chopsticks.

If you want to get picky, of course, there are many rough edges… the incorrect use of 「ステープラー」 (how you would say “stapler” in Japanese) in lieu of 「ホッチキス」,² some text being poorly typeset, etc. But overall, this SNL Digital Short was obviously written by someone with a solid (albeit stereotypical) understanding of Japanese culture and strong intermediate Japanese skills. If the goal was simply only to play off of Japanese stereotypes, accurate Japanese wouldn’t have even been necessary, and so I really appreciate the effort that went into this. In addition, Steve Carell et al’s delivery in a language they don’t speak, in my opinion, is commendable.

“It’s funny because it’s racist,” in the best way possible. Bravo!

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