I was watching a press conference with the shuttle astronauts and a Japanese reporter said something in English like, “I’m going to ask astronaut Soichi Noguchi a question in Japanese for the people in Japan”.
So he did and Soichi Noguchi was answering the question in Japanese and in the middle of it he said in English, “the station” or “the space station”. Then he continued answering in Japanese.
At first I thought maybe there isn’t any word in Japanese for what he said in English, but that’s wrong.
Why would he not say the Japanese word(s) for “the space station”?