Just watched the news (aka the 24 hour Ohtani News Network) where they were showing Ohtani Shohei’s press conference. It was surreal the way they showed it. It went like this:
Ohtani: States a sentence in Japanese
Interpreter (new guy, obviously not Mizuhara): translates Ohtani’s statement into English
A few seconds into the interpreter’s translation: his voice is muted and the voice of a woman interpreter starts translating what what the interpreter is saying into Japanese. This is despite the fact that *we just heard Ohtani’s original statement in Japanese*.
The whole thing was so ridiculous I had trouble believing my ears. Props to Ohtani’s new interpreter though, who is probably going to be the most scrutinized interpreter in the history of international sports… or at least second to Mizuhara himself.
by derioderio
17 comments
Japanese media is low level.
Will Ireton, the Dodgers’ Performance Operations Manager, originally joined the team as Kenta Maeda’s interpreter. He’ll be the interpreter for Ohtani for the time being and will be his and Yamamoto’s interpreter during games. He’s a very popular member of the team’s staff.
Oh yeah I hate it when Japanese networks do that.
They do the same thing with other foreign languages depending on the broadcast. Like they will have a cultural topic, with Japanese subtitles on screen, and instead of letting us hear the foreign language in tandem with the subtitles, they will poorly mute the speaker and dub over it with Japanese that is different from the Japanese Subtitles.
It is awful, and it sounds like the same situation for Ohtani. Most likely it was footage for an international broadcast. But aired for a Japanese Audience…
Anything to pad out those 2-3 hours of 3 “news” stories on repeat for the given day.
The ridiculousness of translation and interpretation in Japan knows no bounds.
I now refuse to do any translating work from Japanese to English at my company, because 99% of the time, my final English version will be checked one last time by a Japanese person *who cannot understand English* and they will add/delete things and generally butcher the whole thing.
It is said that in the 1800s when Japan became open once again the only foreign language interpreters in Japan were Japanese Dutch speakers as the only contact was with the Dutch who were allowed to trade via Nagasaki.
So initially an English speaker wanting to communicate with a Japanese speaker employed a Japanese/Dutch translator and a Dutch/English translator.
This allegedly gave rise to the phrase “Double Dutch” meaning “gibberish”.
At least he’s got a decent haircut.
Most stations automatically translate what the English interpreter is saying giving the audience a chance to see how closely it matches the original.
I was just commenting on this to my husband this morning. Utterly ridiculous. And they had Japanese subtitles over the both of them (at least for the replays).
I saw that! I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it was nuts.
As an aspiring interpreter, it was really educational to watch him work. While I think he was maybe a little inexperienced (armchair interpreting’s always easier since you can’t rewind IRL) I’m also aware he’s been suddenly thrust into the global spotlight. I wonder why he didn’t seem to have looked at Ohtani’s memo beforehand? Surely would’ve helped a great deal…
Sadly not quite as good as the usual guy. I wonder what he’s up to these days? Oh well
The translation was pretty bad. And yet the guy is getting props. Hilarious shit as ever.
I Feel Coke!
While it’s typically stupid, part of the story here is that Ohtani’s interpreter might have given Ohtani some misleading interpretations, so in this case some of the Japanese public might be curious as to how closely his interpretation is to what Ohtani said.
[Reminded me of this lol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_cihQwG90A)
I think maybe that was the point, to scrutinize his new interpreter. And to see what kind of translate information was getting out to the English speaking world.
The TV station got to justify the salary for their own in-house interpreter after all. /s
Man don’t be a hater. Just let em get paid.