The English commentators- views

[junsan 159]

Would be interesting to see Kakuryu do a one-off commentary gig in English ... but alas our chap is far from the most charismatic speaker. If only gabby ex-Kisenosato could improve his English and join Murray someday!

Edited June 17, 2021 by junsan
typo

[Kintamayama 43,577]

The Japanese side is the original, and as such, leads the way. The English side tend to try and keep up. The Japanese side has reporters in the dressing rooms who report stuff immediately after the bouts. Comments by the rikishi on their win or loss, how bad an injury is if at all, all the interviews which are definitely not translated well due to the immediate way they are done. Believe it or not, the guys do sometimes say meaningful stuff. Of course, anecdotes and stories from the past, sometimes regarding the commentators own past, Araiso is very good, explaining the grips etc. Shibatayama is quite entertaining as well. The king is Kitanofuji of course, the prince being Mainoumi and their banter is usually great.. All in all, a different ball game, because they are three and are the source.

Edited June 17, 2021 by Kintamayama

[rhyen 1,775]

4 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

One thing that the English side definitely cannot match through no fault of their own - because the Japanese commentators have a wider team (usually at least 3 people - NHK booth + oyakata + black box) and include oyakata, they seem to be able to arrange for relevant oyakata to be present during specials like intai announcements, which brings a much more personal touch to the proceedings. One of the most recent examples was Kakuryu's retirement, where Tatsutagawa-oyakata (ex-Homasho) was the mukojomen commentator for the day when the intai recap was shown, including the yusho parade where Homasho was bearing the flag for Kakuryu.

The best that the English side can do is to give a translation after the fact - and they usually do do so - but it's not usually in sync or in time with the retrospective and usually gets truncated because of the delay.

Otherwise, the fact that there are more people also means the burden doesn't fall on one person alone to fill airtime, which the English commentators do to varying degrees of effectiveness. Then of course there's Kitanofuji + Mainoumi which might as well be a chat show on its own. That said, some of the oyakata can really be dead wood. By and large it feels like it's gotten better over the very short time I've been following the Japanese broadcast, but my listening comprehension is bad enough that I can't really tell.

Abema is a whole different kettle of fish altogether. They benefit from generally better visuals and having freakin' Wakanohana. Back when they were still allowed to do the instant action replays with the sumo reenactor, that was a massive draw away from NHK's feed because it allowed a chump like me to actually see what Wakanohana was saying.

P.S. - is the mukojomen commentator the one usually in the black box, or is that actually a fourth commentator on the Japanese broadcast team?

Yes, the mukojomen commentator has been moved into the black box. 

[rhyen 1,775]

4 hours ago, junsan said:

Would be interesting to see Kakuryu do a one-off commentary gig in English ... but alas our chap is far from the most charismatic speaker. If only gabby ex-Kisenosato could improve his English and join Murray someday!

Impossible, the English team is based in the office in shinjuku. The Japanese team is on site, hence they can get ahold of the oyakatas. 
 

you can try asking the YouTube team to do a few English jabs via social media. 

[Marcus33 10]

2 hours ago, Kintamayama said:

The Japanese side is the original, and as such, leads the way. The English side tend to try and keep up. The Japanese side has reporters in the dressing rooms who report stuff immediately after the bouts. Comments by the rikishi on their win or loss, how bad an injury is if at all, all the interviews which are definitely not translated well due to the immediate way they are done. Believe it or not, the guys do sometimes say meaningful stuff. Of course, anecdotes and stories from the past, sometimes regarding the commentators own past, Araiso is very good, explaining the grips etc. Shibatayama is quite entertaining as well. The king is Kitanofuji of course, the prince being Mainoumi and their banter is usually great.. All in all, a different ball game, because they are three and are the source.

It would be wonderful if we could get all that in English, I just don't see myself learning Japanese anytime soon. Perhaps the Japanese feed with subtitles? It doesn't seem that insurmountable.

[Tsuchinoninjin 1,201]

2 hours ago, rhyen said:

Impossible, the English team is based in the office in shinjuku. The Japanese team is on site, hence they can get ahold of the oyakatas. 
 

you can try asking the YouTube team to do a few English jabs via social media. 

They just commentate through a feed? Dang that sucks for them.

 

29 minutes ago, Marcus33 said:

It would be wonderful if we could get all that in English, I just don't see myself learning Japanese anytime soon. Perhaps the Japanese feed with subtitles? It doesn't seem that insurmountable.

A lot of stuff is lost in a literal translation, and making a meaningful translation succinctly takes a long time. Google might have some auto translation but sumo can cause machine translation to choke pretty bad with all the terminology and weird names.

And most of the convos are cut from the digests, so just imagine the play by play is typically 'Ahhhh he pulled when he shouldn't have!' and the color is 'Yeah, he didn't do his sumo there...'

Edited June 18, 2021 by Tsuchinoninjin

[Marcus33 10]

2 hours ago, Tsuchinoninjin said:

They just commentate through a feed? Dang that sucks for them.

 

A lot of stuff is lost in a literal translation, and making a meaningful translation succinctly takes a long time. Google might have some auto translation but sumo can cause machine translation to choke pretty bad with all the terminology and weird names.

And most of the convos are cut from the digests, so just imagine the play by play is typically 'Ahhhh he pulled when he shouldn't have!' and the color is 'Yeah, he didn't do his sumo there...'

Simultaneous (human) translators can be very good, although I suppose finding one that is conversant in Sumo might be a bridge too far.

[Morning 72]

They are also very expensive and you'd need more than one because it's a very strenuous activity so they'd switch about every thirty minutes.

And, yeah, automatic systems are far off from being up to more than shoddy and you have the same problem of finding one conversant in Sumo.

[Kaninoyama 1,607]

7 hours ago, Marcus33 said:

It would be wonderful if we could get all that in English, I just don't see myself learning Japanese anytime soon. Perhaps the Japanese feed with subtitles? It doesn't seem that insurmountable.

As others have said, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with speed of commentary as it happens except by all but elite simultaneous interpretors, who are usually busy doing slightly more important things like interpreting head-of-state meetings and the like. NHK does actually generate English subtitles during the broadcast, but they are usually about 2-3 minutes delayed and I'm not sure if they are done by machine or human, but are essentially useless in any case. 

[Kaninoyama 1,607]

13 hours ago, junsan said:

Would be interesting to see Kakuryu do a one-off commentary gig in English ... but alas our chap is far from the most charismatic speaker. If only gabby ex-Kisenosato could improve his English and join Murray someday!

Naruto Oyakata might be another option, though I don't know to what extent he speaks English if at all. He does occasionally appear as a guest commentator on the Japanese side and does a respectable, if somewhat stilted, job. 

[sumojoann 1,251]

14 hours ago, junsan said:

Would be interesting to see Kakuryu do a one-off commentary gig in English ... but alas our chap is far from the most charismatic speaker.

As far as I know, Kakuryu speaks virtually no English.  I heard him speak a few sentences in English quite a while back but it sounded like he memorized it phonetically, just like I did when I learned a few phrases in Mongolian so I could speak to Hakuho when I met him.  If Kakuryu has taken English classes or had a tutor since then, of course,  he would have improved noticeably.

[Tigerboy1966 1,287]

In defense of all the teams I'd just like to point out that sumo presents very specific and unusual challenges for the commentators . The maku'uchi broadcast spans two hours but will have less than ten minutes of live action (which tends to be self-explanatory). That's a lot of time to fill.

[RabidJohn 1,564]

16 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

... are the Japanese commentators any better? 

This has been answered by members better qualified than me to answer, but occasionally they'll have an oyakata who seems incapable of saying much more than "Hai" and "So desu ne"...

[Jakusotsu 5,500]

48 minutes ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

In defense of all the teams I'd just like to point out that sumo presents very specific and unusual challenges for the commentators . The maku'uchi broadcast spans two hours but will have less than ten minutes of live action (which tends to be self-explanatory). That's a lot of time to fill. 

So, it's a lot like baseball.

[Tigerboy1966 1,287]

4 hours ago, Jakusotsu said:

5 hours ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

In defense of all the teams I'd just like to point out that sumo presents very specific and unusual challenges for the commentators . The maku'uchi broadcast spans two hours but will have less than ten minutes of live action (which tends to be self-explanatory). That's a lot of time to fill. 

So, it's a lot like baseball.

And cricket.

[Seiyashi 4,059]

17 minutes ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

And cricket.

Actually, might be worse than cricket - if cricket only lasts for 2-5 days, sumo goes on for 15!

[Tigerboy1966 1,287]

2 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

3 hours ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

And cricket.

Actually, might be worse than cricket - if cricket only lasts for 2-5 days, sumo goes on for 15!

Ah, but in sumo there is always a winner. In cricket you can play all day for five days and end up with a draw. That's why cricket commentators have traditionally spent much of their time reminiscing, ribbing each other and eating cake. Would love to have heard Brian Johnston and Henry Blofeld commentating on sumo.

[Kintamayama 43,577]

13 hours ago, Kaninoyama said:

Naruto Oyakata might be another option, though I don't know to what extent he speaks English if at all

No English worth mentioning. 

[Seiyashi 4,059]

8 hours ago, Kintamayama said:

22 hours ago, Kaninoyama said:

Naruto Oyakata might be another option, though I don't know to what extent he speaks English if at all

No English worth mentioning. 

Does that make Musashigawa (ex-Musashimaru) the only oyakata with any decent command of English in the entire NSK?

[Katooshu 2,957]

I believe that Ishiura speaks English, maybe he could give it a try once he retires.

[Eikokurai 3,430]

1 hour ago, Katooshu said:

I believe that Ishiura speaks English, maybe he could give it a try once he retires.

I’m sure he’d be excellent at sidestepping awkward questions that come his way.

[Kujo 115]

14 minutes ago, Eikokurai said:

I’m sure he’d be excellent at sidestepping awkward questions that come his way.

Are you saying he never met a henka he didn't like?    

[since_94 649]

1 hour ago, Eikokurai said:

I’m sure he’d be excellent at sidestepping awkward questions that come his way.

Ba-dum-tish!

[ryafuji 802]

7 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

Does that make Musashigawa (ex-Musashimaru) the only oyakata with any decent command of English in the entire NSK?

I believe Minezaki speaks English due to his frequent trips to Hawaii. 

[Yamanashi 3,518]

1 hour ago, ryafuji said:

I believe Minezaki speaks English due to his frequent trips to Hawaii. 

Good, but do you think there's a sufficient audience among parking valets and concierges?