Is ダウンアンダー understood by non-Australian Japanese speakers?


Firstly, is "ダウンアンダー" the correct spelling? I think it is, based on the
Japanese Wikipedia articles
[メン・アット・ワーク](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%BB%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF)
and [ツアー・ダウンアンダー
](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%84%E3%82%A2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%80%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC),
but I could be mistaken.

But apart from that, is the average non-Australian Japanese speaker likely to
understand the term, which is used as slang to refer to Australia (even though
there's plenty of other southern hemisphere countries)?




The short answer would be a simple 'No'. Seriously, I do not think that the
word 「ダウンアンダー」 would exist in the vocabulary of more than even 1% of us.

The most common name for your country in Japanese is 「オーストラリア」 by a landslide,
followed by 「[豪州]{ごうしゅう}」. In people's daily conversations, it is 「オーストラリア」
nearly 100% of the time. 「豪州」 is kind of "common" in the printed media because
it is a neat space-saver.

「ダウンアンダー」? One used to hear/see the word when Men At Work were popular (But
that is like 30 years ago!). I suppose we just never registered it as a
household word.

(I have personally used both 「ダウンアンダー」 and "Down Under" a few times in my
conversations with Australians living in Japan, and I seemed to surprise them
each time for even using those words actively as a Japanese person who has
never been to ダウンアンダー. This should probably tell you something about how
uncommon 「ダウンアンダー」 is around here.)




The short answer would be a simple 'No'. Seriously, I do not think that the
word 「ダウンアンダー」 would exist in the vocabulary of more than even 1% of us.

The most common name for your country in Japanese is 「オーストラリア」 by a landslide,
followed by 「[豪州]{ごうしゅう}」. In people's daily conversations, it is 「オーストラリア」
nearly 100% of the time. 「豪州」 is kind of "common" in the printed media because
it is a neat space-saver.

「ダウンアンダー」? One used to hear/see the word when Men At Work were popular (But
that is like 30 years ago!). I suppose we just never registered it as a
household word.

(I have personally used both 「ダウンアンダー」 and "Down Under" a few times in my
conversations with Australians living in Japan, and I seemed to surprise them
each time for even using those words actively as a Japanese person who has
never been to ダウンアンダー. This should probably tell you something about how
uncommon 「ダウンアンダー」 is around here.)

