Okay, so the other day I was watching a baseball game and Shohei Ohtani was just killing it, as usual. It got me thinking, “I wonder if this guy speaks English?” I mean, he’s from Japan, but he’s been playing in the US for years now. So, I decided to do a little digging.
My Little Investigation
First, I jumped onto Google. You know, the usual, typed in “Does Shohei Ohtani speak English?” and hit enter. A bunch of stuff popped up, mostly articles and forum discussions.
I started skimming through some of the articles. Many of them talked about how Ohtani primarily uses an interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, for interviews and press conferences. That made sense, it’s probably easier for him to express himself clearly in his native language, especially when dealing with the media.
But then, I found some other interesting tidbits. I read that Ohtani has been taking English lessons, and that he understands a lot more than he lets on. Some articles even mentioned that he occasionally answers questions in English during interviews, even if it’s just a few words or phrases.
- Found some fan forums where people shared anecdotes.
- Some claimed to have seen videos of him joking with teammates in English.
- Others said they’d heard him order food in English at restaurants.
I Watched short video clips, and, sure enough, he does seem comfortable, you know, I can see some basic English there.
My Conclusion (For Now!)
So, from what I gathered, it seems like Shohei Ohtani does speak English, probably at a conversational level. He’s not fluent, but he’s definitely working on it and can understand and speak it to some extent. He mostly uses an interpreter for official stuff, which is totally understandable. But it’s cool to know that he’s making the effort to learn and use * Just show’s he’s not just a beast on the field, but he’s also putting in the work off the field too!
