NASCAR Trucks race at Pocono. It’s difficult to explain even to many Americans, let alone Japanese and Europeans, the appeal of this quintessentially American cultural phenomenon; too much is lost in translation from one culture to another.
Occasionally people object that kaizen doesn’t mean, as I have often said it does, “virtuous change”. Technically, that’s true, but kaizen doesn’t mean “continuous improvement” either. Both are an attempt to capture the meaning of kaizen within Japanese culture.
Effectively translating words from one language to another can be a challenge, but translating ideas (like kaizen) is often even more difficult. Humor is more difficult yet. In fact, sometimes it’s very difficult even to translate from British English to American English, or from American English in one part of the U.S.A. to American English in another part.
With that in mind, here are a few examples to keep in mind the next time you have trouble understanding what a Japanese word means: