A listener from Texas heard an NPR report from Asia in which an interpreter translated a speaker’s words into English as “a whole new ball game.” He wants to know if that’s a literal translation from an Asian language, and if so, is it a reference to baseball or some other sport? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Whole New Ball Game”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Gary White. I’m calling from League City, Texas.
Hello, Gary. What’s going on?
Well, recently my wife and I were listening to an NPR newscast, and the reporter was presenting the words of an Asian speaker through a translator. The Asian speaker apparently had experienced some unanticipated event which prompted him to make a statement that the translator translated as, that makes it a whole new ballgame.
And my wife and I, we understood the phrase to mean you say that when something’s happened and it causes the parties involved to rethink their strategy. But we were thinking that the phrase, when it refers to a ball game, that it was referring to baseball and that it was a uniquely American phrase. So when we heard this translation from an Asian speaker, it made us wonder about our assumptions. We wondered whether the phrase did evolve in America and is baseball the ball game they’re talking about?
So your question is, is it possible that the expression a whole new ballgame actually comes to us from an Asian language?
Yes, from some other culture. And if it did, what kind of ballgame were they talking about?
Right.
Gary, I’m not familiar with Asian languages. I’m not sufficiently familiar with Asian languages to give you an answer about whether that was translated literally. But I’m betting I would be willing to put money on the idea that that is simply a translation that’s translated into good idiomatic English, that it had nothing to do with a ball game.
Okay. That’s my guess. How about you, Grant?
So whether they were speaking Chinese or Japanese, you’re saying that there was some other idiom that we don’t know in that other language, and the translator, knowing that the American audiences would prefer to have it in their own kind of expression, chose to translate the whole expression as a whole new ballgame, right?
Yes, exactly. So the phrase itself is uniquely American, but it does have counterparts in other cultures. I know that there are equivalent expressions in other languages, like in Spanish, for example. Instead of saying, oh, that’s a whole new ballgame, a whole other ballgame, you might say, es otro cantar. It’s an entirely different song, which I love. It’s another singing. And in French, I think there’s an expression that translates as, that’s another pair of sleeves.
Okay, well that’s interesting.
Yeah.
Because that’s how translators work. They don’t translate word for word. They translate meaning for meaning.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I would love if we heard from speakers of Asian languages to know what that expression would literally translate as.
Yeah.
Okay, well y’all have been a great help. I sure appreciate it.
All right, Gary. Thank you for your call, Gary. Thank you for your time, sir.
All right, thanks.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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