THERE were red faces among the official Japanese delegation at the recently-ended annual World Economic Forum held at the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

In a speech at the forum which he delivered in Japanese, Prime Minister Taro Aso mangled the pronunciation of three words, to the horror of his officials but to the delight of the Japanese media covering him.

The word "kiban" (which means "base") came out as "kihan". "Ketsuzen" (resolute) was turned into "kenzen" while "genchi" (local) was totally unrecognisable as Mr Aso declared it to be "kanka".

Mr Aso committed another faux pas when talking to the press, referring to ex-British premier Tony Blair as "Tony Brown", apparently mixing up the latter’s name with the present British leader Gordon Brown with whom Mr Aso met earlier in the day.

Source: AFP

Last year, Mr Aso was roundly criticised for mispronouncing many words in his remarks in parliament and in public, after which he took great care not to do so again.

His verbal slip-ups at Davos were his first for this year and also the first to be committed outside Japan.

Some reports suggested that the Japanese must have been fatigued, having to speak after a very long flight to the other side of the world. But one cheeky report said the Japanese leader probably felt he could lower his guard as he was speaking only to foreigners!

Mr Aso’s struggle with the Japanese language seems also to have infected some of his Cabinet members as well.

Last week, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa made no less than 26 errors when delivering a policy speech in parliament on Jan 28. He was reading straight from a text.

The word "kachu" (controversy) came out as "uzuchu", and "sainyu" (revenue) became saishutsu" (expenditure) several times. Mr Nakagawa even got several figures wrong.

Upon learning about Mr Nakagawa’s verbal blunders, my immediate reaction was that perhaps the minister was under the influence again, as he was frequently reported in the past to be very fond of the bottle.

But officials said emphatically that the minister had a cold and was feeling unwell.

Nevertheless, Mr Nakagawa minister is now liable to come under attack by the opposition for the numerous errors in his delivery. He had failed to correct himself on the fly and his officials had later to request that the parliamentary record of his speech be cleaned up.

Incidentally, Mr Nakagawa is a graduate of the law department of Tokyo University, the nation’s most prestigious college, and often cited as a potential future prime minister.

Thanks to Mr Aso, and now maybe also to Mr Nakagawa, the Number One book on Japan’s best-sellers’ list is a tome dealing with Japanese words that are difficult to read.

"Kachu", which Mr Nakagawa mispronounced, is not listed in the book.

But perhaps I should get hold of the book soon, to avoid being caught flat-footed myself.