tokyo 2020 olympics

Interpreters make sure nothing gets lost in translation at Olympics

15 Comments
By STEPHEN WADE

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15 Comments
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Ponomarev is the chief interpreter for the Tokyo Games

And he doesn't know how to speak Japanese?!

Can somebody please explain again why we the taxpayers of Japan are paying for this circus?

-15 ( +8 / -23 )

He used the example of the German word “schadenfreude," which means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

Probably a word that should be known by a person literate in the Western cultural tradition.

Describes the feeling particularly when hubristic individuals like the LDP pols are faced with the disintegration of their grand schemes (the pandemic Olympics).

7 ( +11 / -4 )

Dagon got it and Rocket too!

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Apparently, a number of officials and spectators in games like Table Tennis and Badminton were seen to have not been wearing masks.

Are they privileged? Do they understand the interpreters correctly? ..

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Very nice, but some of the interpreters on the ground at the venues are not very good. I’ve felt fortunate I speak Japanese

4 ( +6 / -2 )

He used the example of the German word “schadenfreude," which means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

"This kind of word exists only in German and it would be difficult to express that concept in English. 

Actually, we do have a word in English for that: it’s called schadenfreude. Duh!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

“These are young people and they have their own speak,” he said. "If somebody says ‘the wave are bad, man' — meaning the waves were great.”

Are these young people who arrived in a time machine from the 80s?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

schadenfreude は英語に外来語に成った。

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Most difficult languages seem to be dialects and slang, if you go to Brasil you see more variety of slang than Portugal and much more than USA where Brasil also use some of them, another expressions not easy to understand are the nerds and the internet chat communication and # for me I just ignore.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

DVDs in the Soviet Union?

"His mother got him started with language learning, smuggling DVDs of American films into the old Soviet Union."

They weren't available on the market before late 1996 at the very earliest ('98 in Europe) according to Wikipedia.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

And he doesn't know how to speak Japanese?!

Can somebody please explain again why we the taxpayers of Japan are paying for this circus?

@Rocket Lees

No need. 126 millions native speakers here, free of charge.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

NewgirlintownJuly 31  09:23 pm JST

"This kind of word exists only in German and it would be difficult to express that concept in English. 

Actually, we do have a word in English for that: it’s called schadenfreude. Duh!

Yes, it's a borrowed German word. What the Japanese call a 外来語.

They don't have a word themselves but have a saying with the same/similar meaning;

他人の不幸は蜜の味

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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