It’s totally rad, man: how to speak Olympics

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August 30, 2019

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It’s totally rad, man: how to speak Olympics

Source: AP | 00:02 UTC+8 August 30, 2019 |

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Alexandre Ponomarev is the chief interpreter for next year’s Tokyo’s Olympics. He speaks more than a half dozen languages: Russian, English, Spanish, French, German, Danish and Ukrainian. And he can get by in a handful of others.

But at times, even he needs an interpreter — for instance, when he’s working in Japan.

“I can’t speak all languages, unfortunately,” he said. “I wish I could.”

Next year’s Olympics will be an interpreter’s delight: more than 10,000 athletes representing about 200 nations or territories, many of which also have minority languages that are spoken alongside the national language.

Stepping into the din are 100 interpreters — 40 from Japan and 60 from outside — handling 11 official languages for Tokyo: Japanese, English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese.

It’s a team accustomed to interpreting for presidents, prime ministers and monarchs.

But the Olympics are different and require fluency in the nuances of judo, the ins-and-outs of archery or the vagaries of modern pentathlon. Then mix in the lingo from new Olympic sports like surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing.

“They train. They prepare,” Ponomarev said. “We have glossaries. We have Olympic terminology and we study different sports.”

Even this is not always enough.

Ponomarev said he was bamboozled when a snowboarder at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics responded in English about a performance.

“Oh, totally rad, man. Just so bad,” Ponomarev repeated.

Interpretation? It was a great run.

“The surfers, they have their own speak,” Ponomarev said. “The same goes for snowboarders. That can be challenging. But we certainly found an equivalent.” In Japanese, Arabic, German. Or whatever.

His team includes at least one former Olympian and most have done several Olympics.

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It’s totally rad, man: how to speak Olympics

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