One a Day
Ad Text in Japanese:
「きょうも、健康日和」
「毎日一本」
Looks easy! Looks can be deceiving.
「きょうも、健康日和」
I had no idea what 「日和」was before I looked it up. It is pronounced 「ひより」.
It can be used in sentences like, 「今日は遠足日和」 which would mean roughly, “today is fine weather for an field trip”. Or, 「ハイキング日和」”a nice day for hiking”. Note, in these examples it is pronounced 「びより」.
If you say 「健康日和」to a Japanese person, they will probably tell you that they don’t use 日和 in that way. What it seems they’re trying to say is, 「これを飲んだら今日も一日健康だ」like, if you drink this, you’ll have another healthy day today. It’s a stretch though! I thought it might mean “today is a nice day to be healthy”, but my Japanese friend says that’s not really what it is getting at.
「毎日一本」
Nothing tricky here, but we must recognize that the counter for “bottles” or most things you drink, is 「本」。As in 一本（いっぽん）、二本（にほん）、三本（さんぼん）。 So, this means literally, “everyday one bottle”, or naturally, “one bottle a day”.
Personally, I think that bottle of yogurt milk type stuff in the middle, ヤクルト is great. Though, I never buy it. It’s strange to have to pay for something so tiny!
Also, I refer to that drink as 「ヤクルト」, but Yakult is just the name of the company. I wonder if that drink in the middle has a separate name?
Happy drinking!
- Harvey
Posted: July 2nd, 2007 under Poster Ad.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from Zina
Time: July 3, 2007, 1:40 pm
I remember when the Yakult lady would come by the office selling this stuff. By that time the people in the office knew I liked the vitamin drinks (bottle on right). They would usually buy me a bottle or have a few in the fridge for me when I would come in. They taste medicine-y but I like that challenge in the drink. I miss getting them now.
I totally agree with the 毎日一本. I was pretty much in the best shape of my life when drinking those and riding a bike everyday.
Comment from Michael
Time: July 5, 2007, 2:51 pm
Seems to me that 健康日和 is meant to be evocative of 健康天気, as in 健康天気予報. You’ve probably seen these reports that examine the effects of the weather on health, pointing out potential problems for people with hay fever, arthritis, sensitivity to heat stroke, susceptibility to influenza and so on. 健康天気 is the ideal that allergy sufferers and others who follow the reports are hoping for.
So in my mind, 「きょうも、健康日和」 sounds like the delivery of that desired good health forecast. The ad seems to imply that if you have a bottle daily, it will strengthen your constitution so much that every day will be a healthy weather day for you.
And there’s a nuance here which I think explains the choice of 日和 rather than 天気. 日和 can also refer to a result or outcome of something, so it does double duty as both a metaphor and a literal promise of healthy results.
Comment from harvey
Time: July 8, 2007, 12:12 am
Hey Michael I like your idea on 健康日和。 Weather forecast says, good health. That would explain the image of the bottles in the sky as well.
Great!
Funny that it took me so long to catch that though… I wonder why my Japanese friend didn’t think of that straight off. Has anyone else give this ad more thought? Any findings?
Comment from Michael
Time: July 8, 2007, 2:54 am
Haven’t run it by anyone else, so I may be completely off. But being someone who looks for those forecasts myself, that’s the first thing I thought of, especially with the visual and the きょうも delivery. Sounds like I need to drink more Yakult, so I can write my own forecast for each day! ^_^
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