Not easy to turn it to Japanese…
Sometimes we struggle to comprehend the words that come out of Donald Trump’s mouth, and it seems we’re not the only ones who have difficulty according to Japanese translators.
Japanese is a language noted for its grammatical simplicity, and interpreters are having great difficulty translating Trump’s comments and wild accusations into Japanese.
“He rarely speaks logically, and he only emphasizes one side of things as if it were the absolute truth. There are lots of moments when I suspected his assertions were factually dubious,” professional interpreter and translation professor Chikako Tsuruta told The Japan Times.
“He is so overconfident and yet so logically unconvincing that my interpreter friends and I often joke that if we translated his words as they are, we would end up making ourselves sound stupid.”
But retired interpreter-turned-university professor Kumiko Torikai has a great way of looking at things.
“As an interpreter,” she said, “Your job is to translate the words of a speaker exactly as they are, no matter how heinous and what an outrageous liar you find the speaker to be.
“If Trump is not making sense, you don’t get to make sense, either.”
While we’re here, let’s not forget the time Donald Trump didn’t have his earpiece in while listening to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but decided to nod and pretend he understood anyway.
https://twitter.com/Diane_7A/status/830121826298773504
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