Saturday, March 30, 2024

'Nickelodeon' Is Latin for 'I Don't Care About God'? - Snopes.com - Translation

Claim:

The word "Nickelodeon" means "I don't care about God" in Latin.

In March 2024, a meme went viral on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that "Nickelodeon" is the Latin translation of the English phrase, "I don't care about God." The image was also shared on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. "Use Google translate and see for yourself," one Instagram post with the image read. 

The rumor spread in the aftermath of the premiere of "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," a "docu-series that uncovers the toxic culture behind some of the most iconic children's shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s." As The Guardian review of the documentary informed, the "'in plain sight'" moments in the series are clips from Nickelodeon shows that "repeatedly featured underage performers in bikinis or leotards, or having jets of water or thin stripes of goo squirted into their faces."

(X user @AnimeBibleVerse)

We found that the same rumor was spread in 2023 via TikTok and Instagram posts linking it to Illuminati conspiracy theories.

Snopes found that "Nickelodeon" is not, in fact, a genuine Latin translation of the phrase "I don't care about God." We have rated the claim as "False."

To begin with, whoever created the viral image broke up the name "Nickelodeon" into arbitrary segments divided by spaces, so that Google Translate would interpret it as a phrase instead of a single word. When we performed our own Google Translate search of "nic kelo deo" on March 29, 2024, the English translation in fact read "I don't care about God." However, when we clicked on the English translation of the phrase, Google Translate indicated that in Latin it would be rather "Non curat de Deo." 

(Google Translate Screenshots)

We tried looking up different variations of the alleged Latin sentence via Google Translate website. For instance, when we entered "nic kelo deo n" (including an extra "n" at the end), the translation into English remained unchanged as "nic kelo deo n." Furthermore, translating the phrase "I don't care about God" from English into Latin showed the result "Non curat de Deo."

(Google Translate)

What's more, when we searched for "nic" and "kelo," Google Translate the results read "nothing" and "kelo." However, Online Latin Dictionary did not show any results when we searched for "nic" or "kelo." 

(https://ift.tt/QzWgDhG)

We have reached out to Google for a comment on the matter and will update the article if/when we receive a response.

Etymonline, an online etymology dictionary, explained that the word "Nickelodeon" derived from a combination of the word "nickel," a five-cent coin, and the Greek word "odeion," meaning a music hall. 

1888 as the name of a theater in Boston; by 1909 as "a motion picture theater," from nickel "five-cent coin" (the cost to view one) + -odeon, as in Melodeon (1840) "music hall," ultimately from Greek oideion "building for musical performances" (see odeon). Meaning "nickel jukebox" is first attested 1938.

In December 2022, we debunked a similar false rumor, claiming that "Balenciaga" was Latin for "Baal is king."

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Friday, March 29, 2024

Announcing The 2024 Pen America Translation Grant Winners: PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants & Pen Grant For ... - PEN America - Translation

PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($4,000)

The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants promote the publication and reception of translated world literature into English. Established by a gift from Priscilla and Michael Henry Heim in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations appearing in English, the fund has supported more than 200 projects.

For the 2024 cycle, the judges reviewed applications from a wide array of languages of origin, genres, and time periods. Selected from this vast field of applicants are 10 projects, including Persian, Taiwanese Mandarin, Malayalam, Korean, Yiddish, Kiswahili, Spanish, Bulgarian, Mandarin, and French.

Judges: Nicholas Glastonbury (Chair), Jenny Bhatt, Aaron Coleman, Edwige-Renée Dro, Lisa Hoffman-Kuroda, Kira Josefsson, Lina Mounzer, Ena Selimović, Declan Spring, Alex Valente


A Book in Ruins by Aboutorab Khosravi, translated from the Persian by Nayereh Doosti

From the judges’ citation: A Book in Ruins, a short-story collection by award-winning Iranian author Aboutorab Khosravi, blurs the boundaries of time and convention. While Khosravi’s characters, themes, and settings are inspired by classical Persian writing and mythology, his surrealism is rooted in Iran’s present day. While Khosravi’s sporadic writing practice delayed his becoming nationally recognized, he went on to sweep almost all of the major Iranian literary awards. At such a critical moment in the history of resistance by the Iranian people, this book humanizes Iranian culture. Nayereh Doosti’s translation brilliantly captures Khosravi’s clarity, simplicity, and emotional depth.


A Time No More by Chiang-Sheng Kuo, translated from the Taiwanese Mandarin by Jack Hargreaves

From the judges’ citation: Set in the nostalgic shadowscape of Melody, a gay bar in Taipei, A Time No More charts the lives of three men across generational and class divides as they come to terms with their sexualities. Chiang-Sheng Kuo situates these polyphonic stories between the end of martial law and the legalization of gay marriage in Taiwan, mapping queer intimacies against the backdrop of economic and political upheaval. Already acclaimed across the Sinophone world, A Time No More tacks between intensely local experiences of social transformation and universal themes of memory and unknowing, love and solitude, and regret and reconciliation. Jack Hargreaves’ nimble translation skillfully renders Kuo’s ludic wordplay and queer registers, conjuring up a profoundly unique narrative voice as hauntingly melancholic as it is acerbically campy.


Alingam by S. Girish Kumar, translated from the Malayalam by Vrinda Varma

From the judges’ citation: Ochira Velukkutty (1905–1954) was a unique dramatist in the early days of Malayalam theater in Kerala, India. He played the female heroine role in the groundbreaking work Karuna over 7,000 times in a seven-year period. Kerala was undergoing radical and revolutionary social reform at the time, particularly in its cultural scene. Alingam is a fictionalized biography that provides a rare perspective on gender, class, caste, and religious conflicts and reveals fascinating historical insights into the evolving folkloric and dramatic traditions of 1930s Malayalam theater. A thoroughly researched debut novel by award-winning writer and professor Dr. S. Girish Kumar, it was shortlisted for the 2018 D.C. Literary Prize. Dr. Vrinda Varma has translated this richly textured historical fiction with careful attention to subtle details, bringing Velukkutty’s distinct voice and attitude to glorious life in the English.


But You Weren’t There: Notes from the Dig by Heo Su-gyeong, translated from the Korean by Soje

From the judges’ citation: Working as an archaeologist in Baghdad during the US invasion of Iraq, the late poet Heo Su-gyeong ruminates in this collection of essays on existence and remembrance, mortality and immortality, writing and literacy, and life and death. But You Weren’t There: Notes from the Dig sprawls across space and time–from Baghdad to Jinju, Münster to Gwangju, Normandy to Busan, probing histories of state violence, empire, and diaspora with startling originality and lyricism. Soje’s delicately wrought translation adeptly renders the linguistic strata and powerful quietude of Heo’s poetic voice.


Partizanke: Poems from the Jewish Resistance by Rikle Glezer, translated from the Yiddish by Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice

From the judges’ citation: When she was just eighteen years old, Rikle Glezer (19242006) leapt off the train from the Vilna ghetto bound for death at Ponary. Joining the resistance in the forests outside the city, she took up pen and pistol against the fascists, chronicling her life as a partisan through poetry. Partizanke: Poems from the Jewish Resistance traces her own courageous life’s story and the larger sweep of history, crucially reminding us that a subjugated people will always rise up against their oppressor. Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice brilliantly employ a range of formal interventions to bring Glezer’s Yiddish into English with great verve and dignity.


Swallower of Secrets by Ali Hilal Ali, translated from the Kiswahili by Meg Arenberg

From the judges’ citation: Ali Hilal Ali’s novel Swallower of Secrets bustles with compassion for the complexity and messiness of life. Questions of friendship, kinship, and community brush up against explorations of ambition, trauma, and how cultures survive across generations. Hilal Ali’s meditations on what it means to leave one’s home or stay as it changes will resonate with readers interested not only in the local and global aftereffects of migration but also all those curious about the ways people and places weather an ever-evolving modern world. Meg Arenberg’s deft translation limns nuanced portrayals of characters in this fictional yet vividly real East African city. Her prose embraces poetry, unlocking the lyric possibilities within descriptions of landscapes, of passing generations, of expressions on human faces. Swallower of Secrets keeps curiosity and magical realism close by, inviting readers to wonder their way into the universal struggles of people finding their way through life in a city on the brink.


The Eve of Man by René Marqués, translated from the Spanish by Sabrina Ramos Rubén and Verónica Dávila De Jesús

From the judges’ citation: Sabrina Ramos Rubén and Verónica Dávila De Jesús’s translation of The Eve of Man, by Puerto Rican novelist René Marqués, is an existential Caribbean bildungsroman about a child from the mountainous heartland of Puerto Rico who flees to Carrizal, a sugarcane plantation located in the northern coast. There, he grapples with the gut-wrenching truth of his parentage, his relationship with the land, and the political climate of the times as he comes into adulthood. First published in Puerto Rico during the late 1950s, The Eve of Man went on to win the Ibero-American Novel Award from the William Faulkner Foundation in 1962. Now, thanks to Rubén and De Jesús’s expert translation, an overlooked classic from a still under-translated region of Latin America is available to us in English for the first time.


The Other Dream by Vladimir Hristov Poleganov, translated from the Bulgarian by Zlatomira Terzieva

From the judges’ citation: In his novel, The Other Dream, Vladimir Hristov Poleganov unravels the repercussions of a wrongly dialed number, a story that earned him the 2017 Helikon Award for Book of the Year in Bulgaria. The narrative impressively delves into such complicated themes as identity, technological encroachment, memory, desire, and capital-R Reality. Translator Zlatomira Terzieva’s prose conveys an eerie sense of suffocation, a glut of words conjuring the world of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled. Terzieva immerses the palpable immediacy and fragility of this sci-fi universe in English.


The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from the Mandarin by Dong Li

From the judges’ citation: The Ruins spans thirty years of poetry written by Ye Hui, one of China’s most distinguished contemporary poets. Comparable to the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and the paintings of Agnes Martin, Ye Hui’s work weaves Chinese metaphysics into real-life snapshots and creates compelling collages of contemporary myths and mysteries. Dong Li’s translations beautifully convey Ye Hui’s poetry of solace and revelation into English.


The Russian Testament by Shumona Sinha, translated from the French by Subhashree Beeman

From the judges’ citation: Following the unexpectedly intertwined lives of a young Bengali woman in India and an elderly Jewish woman in Russia, Shumona Sinha’s novel The Russian Testament is an homage to the power of literature and translation. Shunned by her mother and her peers in Calcutta, Tania finds solace in the Bengali translations of Russian literature. Seeking out the fate of a publisher, she makes her way to Adel, who lives in a nursing home in St. Petersburg. In their encounters with one another, the two women become like mirrors to one another, offering up an expertly woven portrait of the interconnectedness of political oppression and familial oppression. Based on the true story of Russian publisher Lev Klyachko and his daughter Adel, as well as on Sinha’s own love for Russian literature, The Russian Testament attests to the capacity of literature to offer solace, resilience, and dialogue across difference. Sinha’s meticulously detailed and atmospheric prose shines in Subhashree Beeman’s nimble translation.

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Announcing The 2024 Pen America Translation Grant Winners: PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants & Pen Grant For ... - PEN America - Translation

PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants ($4,000)

The PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants promote the publication and reception of translated world literature into English. Established by a gift from Priscilla and Michael Henry Heim in response to the dismayingly low number of literary translations appearing in English, the fund has supported more than 200 projects.

For the 2024 cycle, the judges reviewed applications from a wide array of languages of origin, genres, and time periods. Selected from this vast field of applicants are 10 projects, including Persian, Taiwanese Mandarin, Malayalam, Korean, Yiddish, Kiswahili, Spanish, Bulgarian, Mandarin, and French.

Judges: Nicholas Glastonbury (Chair), Jenny Bhatt, Aaron Coleman, Edwige-Renée Dro, Lisa Hoffman-Kuroda, Kira Josefsson, Lina Mounzer, Ena Selimović, Declan Spring, Alex Valente


A Book in Ruins by Aboutorab Khosravi, translated from the Persian by Nayereh Doosti

From the judges’ citation: A Book in Ruins, a short-story collection by award-winning Iranian author Aboutorab Khosravi, blurs the boundaries of time and convention. While Khosravi’s characters, themes, and settings are inspired by classical Persian writing and mythology, his surrealism is rooted in Iran’s present day. While Khosravi’s sporadic writing practice delayed his becoming nationally recognized, he went on to sweep almost all of the major Iranian literary awards. At such a critical moment in the history of resistance by the Iranian people, this book humanizes Iranian culture. Nayereh Doosti’s translation brilliantly captures Khosravi’s clarity, simplicity, and emotional depth.


A Time No More by Chiang-Sheng Kuo, translated from the Taiwanese Mandarin by Jack Hargreaves

From the judges’ citation: Set in the nostalgic shadowscape of Melody, a gay bar in Taipei, A Time No More charts the lives of three men across generational and class divides as they come to terms with their sexualities. Chiang-Sheng Kuo situates these polyphonic stories between the end of martial law and the legalization of gay marriage in Taiwan, mapping queer intimacies against the backdrop of economic and political upheaval. Already acclaimed across the Sinophone world, A Time No More tacks between intensely local experiences of social transformation and universal themes of memory and unknowing, love and solitude, and regret and reconciliation. Jack Hargreaves’ nimble translation skillfully renders Kuo’s ludic wordplay and queer registers, conjuring up a profoundly unique narrative voice as hauntingly melancholic as it is acerbically campy.


Alingam by S. Girish Kumar, translated from the Malayalam by Vrinda Varma

From the judges’ citation: Ochira Velukkutty (1905–1954) was a unique dramatist in the early days of Malayalam theater in Kerala, India. He played the female heroine role in the groundbreaking work Karuna over 7,000 times in a seven-year period. Kerala was undergoing radical and revolutionary social reform at the time, particularly in its cultural scene. Alingam is a fictionalized biography that provides a rare perspective on gender, class, caste, and religious conflicts and reveals fascinating historical insights into the evolving folkloric and dramatic traditions of 1930s Malayalam theater. A thoroughly researched debut novel by award-winning writer and professor Dr. S. Girish Kumar, it was shortlisted for the 2018 D.C. Literary Prize. Dr. Vrinda Varma has translated this richly textured historical fiction with careful attention to subtle details, bringing Velukkutty’s distinct voice and attitude to glorious life in the English.


But You Weren’t There: Notes from the Dig by Heo Su-gyeong, translated from the Korean by Soje

From the judges’ citation: Working as an archaeologist in Baghdad during the US invasion of Iraq, the late poet Heo Su-gyeong ruminates in this collection of essays on existence and remembrance, mortality and immortality, writing and literacy, and life and death. But You Weren’t There: Notes from the Dig sprawls across space and time–from Baghdad to Jinju, Münster to Gwangju, Normandy to Busan, probing histories of state violence, empire, and diaspora with startling originality and lyricism. Soje’s delicately wrought translation adeptly renders the linguistic strata and powerful quietude of Heo’s poetic voice.


Partizanke: Poems from the Jewish Resistance by Rikle Glezer, translated from the Yiddish by Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice

From the judges’ citation: When she was just eighteen years old, Rikle Glezer (19242006) leapt off the train from the Vilna ghetto bound for death at Ponary. Joining the resistance in the forests outside the city, she took up pen and pistol against the fascists, chronicling her life as a partisan through poetry. Partizanke: Poems from the Jewish Resistance traces her own courageous life’s story and the larger sweep of history, crucially reminding us that a subjugated people will always rise up against their oppressor. Jay Saper and Corbin Allardice brilliantly employ a range of formal interventions to bring Glezer’s Yiddish into English with great verve and dignity.


Swallower of Secrets by Ali Hilal Ali, translated from the Kiswahili by Meg Arenberg

From the judges’ citation: Ali Hilal Ali’s novel Swallower of Secrets bustles with compassion for the complexity and messiness of life. Questions of friendship, kinship, and community brush up against explorations of ambition, trauma, and how cultures survive across generations. Hilal Ali’s meditations on what it means to leave one’s home or stay as it changes will resonate with readers interested not only in the local and global aftereffects of migration but also all those curious about the ways people and places weather an ever-evolving modern world. Meg Arenberg’s deft translation limns nuanced portrayals of characters in this fictional yet vividly real East African city. Her prose embraces poetry, unlocking the lyric possibilities within descriptions of landscapes, of passing generations, of expressions on human faces. Swallower of Secrets keeps curiosity and magical realism close by, inviting readers to wonder their way into the universal struggles of people finding their way through life in a city on the brink.


The Eve of Man by René Marqués, translated from the Spanish by Sabrina Ramos Rubén and Verónica Dávila De Jesús

From the judges’ citation: Sabrina Ramos Rubén and Verónica Dávila De Jesús’s translation of The Eve of Man, by Puerto Rican novelist René Marqués, is an existential Caribbean bildungsroman about a child from the mountainous heartland of Puerto Rico who flees to Carrizal, a sugarcane plantation located in the northern coast. There, he grapples with the gut-wrenching truth of his parentage, his relationship with the land, and the political climate of the times as he comes into adulthood. First published in Puerto Rico during the late 1950s, The Eve of Man went on to win the Ibero-American Novel Award from the William Faulkner Foundation in 1962. Now, thanks to Rubén and De Jesús’s expert translation, an overlooked classic from a still under-translated region of Latin America is available to us in English for the first time.


The Other Dream by Vladimir Hristov Poleganov, translated from the Bulgarian by Zlatomira Terzieva

From the judges’ citation: In his novel, The Other Dream, Vladimir Hristov Poleganov unravels the repercussions of a wrongly dialed number, a story that earned him the 2017 Helikon Award for Book of the Year in Bulgaria. The narrative impressively delves into such complicated themes as identity, technological encroachment, memory, desire, and capital-R Reality. Translator Zlatomira Terzieva’s prose conveys an eerie sense of suffocation, a glut of words conjuring the world of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled. Terzieva immerses the palpable immediacy and fragility of this sci-fi universe in English.


The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from the Mandarin by Dong Li

From the judges’ citation: The Ruins spans thirty years of poetry written by Ye Hui, one of China’s most distinguished contemporary poets. Comparable to the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and the paintings of Agnes Martin, Ye Hui’s work weaves Chinese metaphysics into real-life snapshots and creates compelling collages of contemporary myths and mysteries. Dong Li’s translations beautifully convey Ye Hui’s poetry of solace and revelation into English.


The Russian Testament by Shumona Sinha, translated from the French by Subhashree Beeman

From the judges’ citation: Following the unexpectedly intertwined lives of a young Bengali woman in India and an elderly Jewish woman in Russia, Shumona Sinha’s novel The Russian Testament is an homage to the power of literature and translation. Shunned by her mother and her peers in Calcutta, Tania finds solace in the Bengali translations of Russian literature. Seeking out the fate of a publisher, she makes her way to Adel, who lives in a nursing home in St. Petersburg. In their encounters with one another, the two women become like mirrors to one another, offering up an expertly woven portrait of the interconnectedness of political oppression and familial oppression. Based on the true story of Russian publisher Lev Klyachko and his daughter Adel, as well as on Sinha’s own love for Russian literature, The Russian Testament attests to the capacity of literature to offer solace, resilience, and dialogue across difference. Sinha’s meticulously detailed and atmospheric prose shines in Subhashree Beeman’s nimble translation.

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6 Must-Read Foreign Language Books Translated into English - WION - Translation

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6 Must-Read Foreign Language Books Translated into English  WION

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Google's Circle to Search feature will soon handle language translation - Engadget - Translation

Google just announced that it’s expanding its recently-launched Circle to Search tool to include language translation, as part of an update to various core services. Circle to Search, as the name suggests, already lets some Android users research stuff by drawing a circle around an object.

The forthcoming language translation component won’t even require a drawn circle. Google says people will just have to long press the home button or the navigation bar and look for the translate icon. It’ll do the rest. The company showed the tech quickly translating an entire menu with one long press. Google Translate can already do this, though in a slightly different way, but this update means users won’t have to pop out of one app and into another just to check on something.

The translation tool begins rolling out in the “coming weeks”, though only to Android devices that can run Circle to Search. This list currently includes Pixel 7 devices, Pixel 8 devices and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, though Google says it's coming to more phones and tablets this week, including some foldables.

Google Maps is also getting a refresh, with an emphasis on AI. When you pull up a place on Maps, like a restaurant, artificial intelligence will display a summary that describes unique points of interest and “what people love” about the business. The AI will also analyze photos of food and identify what the dish is called, in addition to the cost and whether it's vegetarian or vegan. The company hopes this will make it easier to make reservations and book trips.

A smartphone showing a new trending list.
Google

On the non-AI side of things, Maps is getting an updated lists feature in select cities throughout the US and Canada. This will aggregate lists of must-visit destinations pulled from members of the community and local publishers. There will be tools to customize these lists as you see fit.

These will be joined by lists created by Google and its algorithm, including a weekly trending list to discover the “latest hot spots” and something called Gems that chronicles under-the-radar spots. All of these Maps updates are coming to both Android and iOS devices later this month.

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Shohei Ohtani's Presser Reveals The Gaps In Translation - Defector - Translation

In Shohei Ohtani's press conference on Monday, his first interaction with the press since last week's news, he debuted an interim interpreter: Will Ireton, a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers' player development team and former interpreter for Kenta Maeda. During the press conference, Ohtani referenced but largely did not read directly from a sheet of paper, while Ireton took notes and provided a live translation, which can be found transcribed here. In it, Ohtani reiterated that he never gambled on sports, never asked someone else to gamble on his behalf, and never went through a bookmaker to gamble. He said that his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen money from him, and laid out his timeline of events.

Ohtani said in the presser that Mizuhara had never informed him about any investigation or media inquiry from ESPN, and lied to his representatives about him paying off a friend's gambling debt. It wasn't until the team meeting in the clubhouse after the first Global Series game, when Mizuhara admitted to the team that he had a gambling addiction and that a negative story was coming out, that Ohtani realized that something was amiss. After speaking to Mizuhara one-on-one in the team hotel, the interpreter confessed that he had a massive debt, and admitted he was sending money using Ohtani's account to the bookmaker. Ohtani then contacted his representatives, who learned that Mizuhara had been lying, before Ohtani reached out to the Dodgers and his lawyers, who released the statement alleging theft.

Other interpreters within baseball have suggested that it's not beyond the realm of possibility for Mizuhara to have taken Ohtani's money without his knowledge. According to a translation by Jeffrey J. Hall on Twitter, Katsunori Kojima, a former interpreter for the Mets and Giants, stated on Japanese television that he often handled financial transactions for players, including banking and car payments. Interpreter Daniel Kim also said that he carried player checkbooks for clubhouse dues. And that's without factoring in the additional layer of Ohtani's reported friendship with Mizuhara.

Ohtani's account aligns with the timeline provided by ESPN's Tisha Thompson this past Friday, clarifying what the term "Ohtani's camp" entails: ESPN had reached out to Ohtani's agent Nez Balelo about the wire transfers, and received a response from a "crisis-communications spokesman," who had just been hired in response to the inquiry. The spokesman then told ESPN that Balelo had reached out to Mizuhara, who "came clean," and that Ohtani had told Balelo that he had covered Mizuhara's debts. ("It's not clear whether the spokesman is saying Ohtani communicated with Balelo through Mizuhara," ESPN wrote.) ESPN, understanding that the spokesman worked for Ohtani, requested to hear the story from Mizuhara, which was why the original 90-minute Tuesday interview was arranged.

After Mizuhara addressed the team on Wednesday in the clubhouse, the spokesman reached out to ESPN to say not to publish the original story, stating that Mizuhara had been lying and that all communication between Balelo and Ohtani was mediated by Mizuhara. After the Dodgers fired Mizuhara hours later, ESPN reached Mizuhara by phone; he admitted to lying in the interview but did not answer when asked about stealing from Ohtani.

This version of events provides an alternate, comparably simpler explanation to the theories of why the Ohtani camp's statement had changed: Mizuhara was lying. Ohtani's agent and spokesman had never independently confirmed with the ballplayer that Mizuhara's narrative was true, and because the ESPN reporter assumed that the spokesman was speaking for Ohtani directly, they requested to speak with Mizuhara independently. All of this would have been done with Mizuhara as the touchpoint for all English-language communication with Ohtani. In this case, though the spokesman was hired by Ohtani's camp, Ohtani's words would by necessity come through Mizuhara.

In this case, Balelo, the CAA, and the crisis-communications spokesman would not have been able to corroborate the story with Ohtani himself without providing their own interpreter who also spoke both Japanese and English. They did not do this, even after it became clear that Mizuhara was personally involved in the issue. During Monday's press conference, Ohtani mentioned that the postgame clubhouse meeting was conducted in English, so Ohtani did not have someone to translate for him. He stated that he could grasp that something was amiss, but did not realize that Mizuhara had lied to him until they spoke one-on-one in the hotel later.

Every English-language transcript of Ohtani's statement is a translation, and Ireton's interpreting during the press conference is no exception. That's not to say that Mizuhara serves as some call to assume all translations are inaccurate, but it's a reminder that for an athlete like Ohtani, all English statements provided for the public are being mediated by someone else. Yesterday's press conference reified this stark power of an interpreter to be the sole English voice for an athlete on even just a public-facing level, not to mention the behind-the-scenes conversations with GMs, agents, or managers.

One big question in the aftermath of ESPN's initial report was why Ohtani's camp would arrange a lengthy interview with Mizuhara, then within 24 hours totally change the explanation. Ohtani's press conference, taken in tandem with ESPN's timeline, suggests it stems from an issue of translation. Balelo and the two-hours-on-the-job crisis-communications spokesman reached out to Mizuhara in order to communicate with Ohtani; when Mizuhara said that Ohtani had paid off a friend's debts, that became, to them, Ohtani's side of the story. ESPN assumed the spokesman, as a representative of Ohtani, was only providing Ohtani's side of the story, so there was no need to speak to Ohtani directly. Then ESPN requested an interview with Mizuhara to get his perspective. In this sequence of events, the end result would be almost comical: Only at the clubhouse meeting would Ohtani learn that any of this was happening.

What remains now are the details of how Mizuhara stole $4.5 million from his client and friend, as Ohtani and his attorneys claim. That'll require further investigation, moving at whatever pace MLB and the IRS choose.

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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Shohei Ohtani's Presser Reveals The Gaps In Translation - Defector - Translation

In Shohei Ohtani's press conference on Monday, his first interaction with the press since last week's news, he debuted an interim interpreter: Will Ireton, a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers' player development team and former interpreter for Kenta Maeda. During the press conference, Ohtani referenced but largely did not read directly from a sheet of paper, while Ireton took notes and provided a live translation, which can be found transcribed here. In it, Ohtani reiterated that he never gambled on sports, never asked someone else to gamble on his behalf, and never went through a bookmaker to gamble. He said that his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen money from him, and laid out his timeline of events.

Ohtani said in the presser that Mizuhara had never informed him about any investigation or media inquiry from ESPN, and lied to his representatives about him paying off a friend's gambling debt. It wasn't until the team meeting in the clubhouse after the first Global Series game, when Mizuhara admitted to the team that he had a gambling addiction and that a negative story was coming out, that Ohtani realized that something was amiss. After speaking to Mizuhara one-on-one in the team hotel, the interpreter confessed that he had a massive debt, and admitted he was sending money using Ohtani's account to the bookmaker. Ohtani then contacted his representatives, who learned that Mizuhara had been lying, before Ohtani reached out to the Dodgers and his lawyers, who released the statement alleging theft.

Other interpreters within baseball have suggested that it's not beyond the realm of possibility for Mizuhara to have taken Ohtani's money without his knowledge. According to a translation by Jeffrey J. Hall on Twitter, Katsunori Kojima, a former interpreter for the Mets and Giants, stated on Japanese television that he often handled financial transactions for players, including banking and car payments. Interpreter Daniel Kim also said that he carried player checkbooks for clubhouse dues. And that's without factoring in the additional layer of Ohtani's reported friendship with Mizuhara.

Ohtani's account aligns with the timeline provided by ESPN's Tisha Thompson this past Friday, clarifying what the term "Ohtani's camp" entails: ESPN had reached out to Ohtani's agent Nez Balelo about the wire transfers, and received a response from a "crisis-communications spokesman," who had just been hired in response to the inquiry. The spokesman then told ESPN that Balelo had reached out to Mizuhara, who "came clean," and that Ohtani had told Balelo that he had covered Mizuhara's debts. ("It's not clear whether the spokesman is saying Ohtani communicated with Balelo through Mizuhara," ESPN wrote.) ESPN, understanding that the spokesman worked for Ohtani, requested to hear the story from Mizuhara, which was why the original 90-minute Tuesday interview was arranged.

After Mizuhara addressed the team on Wednesday in the clubhouse, the spokesman reached out to ESPN to say not to publish the original story, stating that Mizuhara had been lying and that all communication between Balelo and Ohtani was mediated by Mizuhara. After the Dodgers fired Mizuhara hours later, ESPN reached Mizuhara by phone; he admitted to lying in the interview but did not answer when asked about stealing from Ohtani.

This version of events provides an alternate, comparably simpler explanation to the theories of why the Ohtani camp's statement had changed: Mizuhara was lying. Ohtani's agent and spokesman had never independently confirmed with the ballplayer that Mizuhara's narrative was true, and because the ESPN reporter assumed that the spokesman was speaking for Ohtani directly, they requested to speak with Mizuhara independently. All of this would have been done with Mizuhara as the touchpoint for all English-language communication with Ohtani. In this case, though the spokesman was hired by Ohtani's camp, Ohtani's words would by necessity come through Mizuhara.

In this case, Balelo, the CAA, and the crisis-communications spokesman would not have been able to corroborate the story with Ohtani himself without providing their own interpreter who also spoke both Japanese and English. They did not do this, even after it became clear that Mizuhara was personally involved in the issue. During Monday's press conference, Ohtani mentioned that the postgame clubhouse meeting was conducted in English, so Ohtani did not have someone to translate for him. He stated that he could grasp that something was amiss, but did not realize that Mizuhara had lied to him until they spoke one-on-one in the hotel later.

Every English-language transcript of Ohtani's statement is a translation, and Ireton's interpreting during the press conference is no exception. That's not to say that Mizuhara serves as some call to assume all translations are inaccurate, but it's a reminder that for an athlete like Ohtani, all English statements provided for the public are being mediated by someone else. Yesterday's press conference reified this stark power of an interpreter to be the sole English voice for an athlete on even just a public-facing level, not to mention the behind-the-scenes conversations with GMs, agents, or managers.

One big question in the aftermath of ESPN's initial report was why Ohtani's camp would arrange a lengthy interview with Mizuhara, then within 24 hours totally change the explanation. Ohtani's press conference, taken in tandem with ESPN's timeline, suggests it stems from an issue of translation. Balelo and the two-hours-on-the-job crisis-communications spokesman reached out to Mizuhara in order to communicate with Ohtani; when Mizuhara said that Ohtani had paid off a friend's debts, that became, to them, Ohtani's side of the story. ESPN assumed the spokesman, as a representative of Ohtani, was only providing Ohtani's side of the story, so there was no need to speak to Ohtani directly. Then ESPN requested an interview with Mizuhara to get his perspective. In this sequence of events, the end result would be almost comical: Only at the clubhouse meeting would Ohtani learn that any of this was happening.

What remains now are the details of how Mizuhara stole $4.5 million from his client and friend, as Ohtani and his attorneys claim. That'll require further investigation, moving at whatever pace MLB and the IRS choose.

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