Lost in Translation: A Japanese Visitor in the USA

The Idiomatic Adventure of Hiroshi Tanaka

Hiroshi Tanaka was a young tourist from Japan, visiting the USA for the first time. With his suitcase packed with excitement and his heart full of dreams, he landed in New York City, ready to experience the vibrant culture. Hiroshi, fluent in English, was confident in his ability to communicate. But as soon as he arrived, he began to notice something strange: the locals weren’t speaking English the way he had learned it in school.

On his first morning, Hiroshi decided to try a café in Manhattan. He walked up to the counter with his best American smile, ready to order.

"Good morning! I’ll have a coffee, please."

The barista, a young woman with colorful tattoos, smiled brightly and said, “Sure, hon. Do you want that ‘to go,’ or are you gonna sit and ‘chew the fat’ with someone?”

Hiroshi blinked. He had no idea what that meant. Chew the fat? What kind of coffee was that?

“Uh, no thank you,” he stammered. “Just, um, coffee…to go?”

The barista gave him a strange look but handed him the coffee, saying, “Alright, ‘take the bull by the horns,’ then, huh?”

Hiroshi nodded, trying his best to look confident. Take the bull by the horns? What was going on? Was it a special New York coffee? Should he be worried about bulls now?

As he walked out, Hiroshi could hear a couple of people laughing nearby. He figured it was just a typical New York moment.

Later that day, Hiroshi wandered into a famous bookstore, hoping to find something to help him with this odd new world of English. He’d been hearing strange phrases everywhere—people were talking about “kicking the bucket,” “raining cats and dogs,” and even “going the extra mile.” What did all these animals have to do with anything? he wondered.

He approached a friendly-looking sales associate, who was restocking books on a shelf. Hiroshi decided to ask.

“Excuse me,” he began. “Could you help me? I’m confused. People keep saying strange things, like ‘chew the fat,’ ‘kick the bucket,’ and ‘rain cats and dogs.’”

The sales associate chuckled and said, “Ah, you're talking about idioms! They can be tricky, huh?”

“Idioms?” Hiroshi repeated. He’d never heard that term in school.

The sales associate smiled knowingly. “Yeah, idioms are phrases that don’t mean what the words literally say. Like ‘kick the bucket’ doesn’t mean someone is really kicking a bucket. It means someone has passed away.”

Hiroshi’s face went pale. “So, someone might say that… to me… and I think they’re talking about a bucket?” he asked nervously.

The sales associate laughed. “Exactly! It’s funny, right?”

Feeling a bit overwhelmed but also intrigued, Hiroshi asked, “Is there a book I can buy to understand these… idioms?”

The sales associate led him to the “Language & Reference” section. “Here you go,” they said, handing him a hardcover book titled The Complete Idiom Dictionary.

Hiroshi took the book and flipped through the pages, his eyes widening as he read through some of the bizarre idioms. “Bite the bullet,” “a piece of cake,” “break a leg.” He was both amused and terrified.

He turned to the sales associate again. “How do you… how do you live like this? How do you know when someone is being literal and when they’re not?”

The associate shrugged, “You get used to it. You’ll learn to tell by context. And trust me, you’ll start using them too! Before you know it, you’ll be saying ‘shoot the breeze’ like a pro.”

Hiroshi couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. He thanked the associate, purchased the book, and left the store with a sense of relief. He now had a secret weapon to decode the strange language around him.

Over the next few days, Hiroshi found himself more and more intrigued by American idioms. He began practicing them, cautiously using them in conversations. At the park, he said to a stranger, “I’m just trying to keep my nose to the grindstone!” The man looked at him with a puzzled expression but nodded and replied, “That’s the spirit!”

Soon enough, Hiroshi started incorporating idioms into his daily life, enjoying the confusion and laughter they often caused. One evening, while dining at a restaurant, the waiter said, “I hope you’re ready to ‘dig in!’”

Hiroshi grinned and replied, “Oh, I’m ready to ‘eat my heart out!’”

The waiter blinked but smiled, thinking, Well, that’s one way to order dinner.

In the end, Hiroshi became a master of idioms. He even started making up his own—though no one could understand them, they certainly made for some interesting conversations. And whenever he was stumped, he’d flip open his trusty idiom dictionary.

Hiroshi’s journey through the USA wasn’t just about sightseeing; it was a crash course in American expressions, and with each idiom he learned, his adventure became a little bit more colorful, and a whole lot more confusing.

But hey, at least he didn’t “kick the bucket” along the way.