As may have been the case in America, Japan was never fully prepared for the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Media coverage of Donald Trump, his rhetoric, and his policies had been far from in depth, with his cameo in Home Alone 2 being his outstanding reference point. Now Japanese media is trying to get up to speed and relay the world of President Trump to the people, but there is one blind spot they have been ill-prepared to cover: his Twitter account.

Fortunately, one brave 17-year-old high school student by the alias K・T-san is boldly wading into the deep waters of Donald Trump's very busy Twitter account, setting up a Twitter account that translates all of President Trump's into Japanese. As you can imagine, translating not just the language, but the nuance with which President Trump tweets is a heavy workload.

He even made a list of vocab English-learners need to know when looking at Trump's Twitter

K・T-san says he started the translation account as a method of bolstering his English abilities for university entrance exams, and also told Buzzfeed Japan that he wanted to help Japanese people who want to know more about President Trump, but lack the English ability to learn more beyond news headlines. When K・T-san encounters trickier translations and nuances, he consults with an American student friend and his father.

K・T-san says he's learned many new expressions from the project, but in order to fully translate the attitude and frank language with which President Trump tweets, he's been selective of the terms he uses. Japanese pronouns in particular are varied, and the way with which you regard the person you are speaking to determines which one you use. In this Tweet, Trump is not speaking very fondly of celebrities and protesters, so K・T-san uses the impolite "yatsura" for the word "they" instead of a politer "karera.

And of course explaining typos is necessary sometimes.

The phenomenon of "fake news" is also addressed, and surely a must-know term in today's political news lexicon.

K・T-san's motto is "Faithful to English, but sounding like Japanese", and from browsing his Tweets, it's evident that he has gone out of the way to localize things in a manner that convey the nuance of the original English in a way that resonates with Japanese people. Hoping to study international economics and polish his English, K・T-san will continue to translate President Trump's tweets, and may even provide more insight than typical Japanese news programs. Those studying Japanese (and Trump) may want to become one of his 80,000 followers on Twitter.


By - grape Japan editorial staff.