Lost in translation

We recorded Chomatsu's opening lines of the film today in Adrian's makeshift studio at his home.  The lines are off-screen and in Japanese, so Ben arranged a Japanese work colleague to come down and ensure that his pronunciation was correct.  He also got the same person to translate the words from English to Japanese.  The result was a Lost In Translation moment where the Japanese translation seemed much longer than what is said in English.  Ben did a great job and we were told it was better than the guy in Hero, it's good Japanese, but a Japanese person would know it isn't being spoken by someone native to the language. 
My last film had German speaking parts and a previous one had Indonesian, on each occasion the actor didn't know the language and had to be coached.  Seems to be a common thread in my films.  As one actor once said to George Lucas, "You can right it, but can you say it"?