What Languages Does Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara Speak?

Renowned MLB linguist Ippei Mizuhara might have spent his childhood in the States, but his roots reach far beyond the borders of this country—further east, to the Land of the Rising Sun. There isn’t a single baseball-loving Japanese who isn’t familiar with the name Mizuhara, mostly because of his association with the two-way phenomenon, Shohei Ohtani. Languages don’t always come easy but Ippei-san does it as naturally as breathing.

The Japanese native speaks the local language, but since he migrated to the States with his family back in 1991, he’s also fluent in English. Ippei-san has made a name for himself working for various baseball teams as a translator inside and beyond the borders of America. Which languages is the interpreter most fluent in?

Ippei Mizuhara utilized his bilingual skills to the fullest

Ippei Mizuhara is a bilingual professional who primarily deals with a set of Japanese and American clientele. In his first job, he worked for the Boston Red Sox. The team called upon him in 2007 when Hideki Okajima needed help conveying his statements in English. Cue Mizuhara. Since then, Ippei Mizuhara has worked for several teams and leagues but three of them deserve a special mention.

After his Red Sox stint, Mizuhara was called by the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan to help their lineup of Anglophone members interpret English into Japanese. Mizuhara is also known to have worked for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic with his prominence in the languages of Japanese and English.

What’s intriguing about his deep-rooted interaction with Japan is that he met his current and most famous client, Shohei Ohtani, while working for NPB. The pair crossed paths in the team of Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, whom Ohtani was playing for back in 2013 when Mizuhara made his entrance into the Japanese market of interpreters. It wasn’t until four years later that he finally got the chance to work as a translator for Shotime himself. From translating for an English-speaking individual, he went to translating for a Japanese native.

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The beginning of the Ohtani Journey

After working for NPB, Mizuhara was called upon by the LA Angels team to work with their newest acquisition, Shohei Ohtani, in the year 2017. It didn’t take any second thoughts from Ohtani’s side to agree with the team’s choice of translator for him.

He had already witnessed Mizuhara’s proficiency in the Japanese League. It was only a matter of time until Shotime got the chance to use that to his benefit. Mizuhara and Ohtani have formed an inseparable bond ever since, which has continued with their migration to the Dodgers this offseason.

Read More: Who is Ippei Mizuhara? Everything to Know About Japanese Shohei Ohtani’s Link to America

Needless to say, Mizuhara’s elite hold over the languages of English and Japanese has become instrumental in garnering global success for both himself and the unicorn!