Thought I’d just go ahead and start this thread now the opening ceremonies are happening. I’ve already been watching the soccer(football) and some other preliminary and practice events, but the opening ceremonies are happening right now, so it’s started officially.
It’s cliche to say it, but I do not like the American commentators on the opening ceremony. In came the Indonesia team with their flag and the announcer said, “Badminton is their biggest sport in the Olympics. That’s what a I love about this event. Badminton might be that game you play in the backyard with your family, but it’s an Olympic event!”
Very condescending.
Anyway, that aside, I love the Olympics so much and shelled out the money to watch it via streaming this year. I’m home the entire two weeks and want to catch as much as I can. I hope they can have a good one even though it has been so hard to get it going.
One thing I didn’t know until yesterday is that the whole country of Japan was given a two day holiday for the Olympics. Tried to contact people there last night and sure enough everyone was out. That is so cool., except that I really needed to talk with some people.
The uselessness of NBC is why I’m watching on the BBC. Anyway, it took me far too long to decide they were using the Japanese chart and not the Latin order after romanization. In my defense, the Latin order is basically what they did in 1964. And half the time I couldn’t see the kana for any given country.
Anyway, all the music is from video games. Ireland came in to the “success” fanfare (well, one of the versions anyway) from Final Fantasy.
The US is late, which is kinda weird since America is generally converted straight to katakana and then if you’re adding “United States” it comes after in kana. The UK was very early, because the name in Japanese is Igirisu and thanks to the order the “I” put them early.
Except I’m slightly wrong on the UK. I’m right that the name is usually Igirisu, but the Olympics used 英国 (Eikoku), which was done in kana. So they were really sorted by the E.
Anyway, the US will probably come in as 米国 (Beikoku) and the result is that they’ll come in on the h/b/p part of the chart which means it should be soon after I’m posting this at 9 AM Eastern if I’m right.
So, i may not be able to watch this year. I mostly watch Netflix and broadcast TV, but NBC moved its signal and my table ears don’t pick it up. And it looks like you can’t get anything streamed without paying a chunk of cash. There’s a bunch of interviews and crap on peacock, but nothing i want to watch.
I’m probably not paying, but if i do, is there any way for me, an American, to get Canadian coverage instead of US coverage? (Or any other English-language coverage, i guess, but Canada shares my time zones.)
Anyway, they must be using 亜米利加合衆国 for the US, but I don’t know what the sound is for that first kana. I wonder if it’s the Yu sound, which would put the US very late indeed.
The best answer is a VPN, which is how I get the BBC, but considering the board’s ban on discussing how to break the law, that’s about as far as I’ll explain.
It’s always been an American-commentator thing to try to say something that sounds cutesy but just comes across as smarmy. I don’t know if it’s because they feel they must say something at all times, but it gets irritating how they come across as know-it-alls or put-downers.
They try to have a cute fact about every country or the team or an athlete on that country’s team. I’m sure they had a team of researchers working on this for weeks. (Although in their defense, they have to say something. It’d be rather rude to say, “I’ve never even heard of that country” or, “They have no chance of a medal here.”)
BTW, one country was represented by an official with their Olympic committee because their three athletes are marathoners and don’t get to Japan until almost the end of the Games. I thought everyone goes for the opening ceremonies and stays through to the end but apparently not. I think, in fact, if your event is over the first few days, you’re supposed to fly home.