Saturday, October 10, 2009

News headline

I was at the airport today. I came very early by taxi to drop someone off, and had to wait for a long time to get the first train back. So I hung around the newsstand, which was just opening up, and noticed they had a copy of the Morning Sun Newspaper, or as the Japanese call it, 朝日新聞 (あさひ しんぶん). So I bought one, hoping to impress people around me by pretending to read it. I couldn't, of course, but I did recognize a kanji here and there.
The main headline on the front page (which was at the back, since they flip pages from right to left), says the following:
オバマ氏ノーベル平和賞
I definitely needed help with this one, but if you fill in ノーベル平和賞 in the dictionary, you get one result.
Also, with my limited kanji knowledge, I could read this sentence without having to consult a dictionary:
父はケニア人、母は白人米国人。
父 is father, 母 is mother, 白 means white, 米国 we just learned. So "His father is a Kenyan, his mother a white American." Note the following interesting facts:
  • That sentence contains no verb, even though it's not a headline.
  • The newspaper apparently finds it necessary and important to tell Japanese readers this fact about Obama.

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