Translation in Lost

How many cities in the U.S. (or anywhere in the world) have the word "City" in their name? Not many, as far as I know. Or at least, not many well-known ones.

There's New York City, of course. And there's also Carson City, Iowa City, Jefferson City, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Salt Lake City, for example. (The only one of those that popped into my head right away was Kansas City. The rest I found with a little help from Google.)

And what about locales with the words "Town" or "Village" in them? I suppose there might be a few of those in the U.S., too, but I can't think of any offhand.

Here in Japan, however, it seems that just about every community is categorized as either a city, town, or village. That fact is quite noticeable as soon as you reach the border of a community, since there will inevitably be a sign in both Japanese and English (at least along the bigger roads) announcing where you are: "Nobeoka City," "Tsuno Town," and "Shiiba Village," for instance.

It seems that whoever was in charge of translating the signs into English must have thought that you have to also translate the kanji that indicates whether the place is a town, city, or village. But that is generally incorrect, except in cases such as New York City, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City, for instance, when the "City" in the name helps to distinguish the city from the state. (Here in Japan, many prefectural capitals have the same name as the prefecture. Locally, for example, we have Miyazaki City, Miyazaki and Nagasaki City, Nagasaki, just to name two.)

Unfortunately, the result is that most people include the word "City," "Town," or "Village" when they tell you where they are from. So here at school, I'm doing my best to eradicate that movement from the language. Whenever a student tells me "I'm from ______ City/Town/Village," I tell them to leave off the "City/Town/Village." And whenever they write the same thing, I cross out the "suffix." That's just one of the one-man crusades I'm on over here.

At least the town of Hinokage got it right. But that's a rarity. And don't ask me if the Korean is correct.

A similar goof-up is how the Japanese translate teachers' names into English. In Japanese, teachers are called "______ sensei," which in English is the equivalent of "Mr./Ms./Mrs. ______." But somehow, someone had the brilliant idea of saying "______ Teacher" instead and that seems to have stuck with everyone over here. So I'm also on a crusade to put an end to that practice, too.

Oh, and here's another great screw-up that is probably my favorite: For whatever reason, something as simple as "Pardon me?" as in the case of, "Could you please repeat that?" has yet to establish a firm foothold in the vocabulary of Japanese students who are learning English.

I'd like to give you three guesses as to what they say instead, but you'll never come up with it. See, what they say most of the time is: "One more, please." And the kicker is, they almost always hold up one finger while saying that.

One time, when I tried to explain to a class why "One more, please." was wrong, I said the following:

If someone just said something and you'd like them to repeat it, "Pardon me?" is a great way to get that point across. And if someone just gave you a chocolate donut and it tasted really good, that's when you want to say, "One more, please."