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May 20Liked by Tim Bissell

I catch the action on the NHK channel's highlights show. One of the bright spots for me in the past two days, with lower ranks filling in for all the missing top-rankers, has been the appearance of my guy Wakatakakage, fighting as Juryo #6. He's won both his bouts in the last few days and apparently most of the earlier ones, too. I have high hopes that we continue to see him in this tournament and gets promoted back up to makuuchi, particularly since his brother Wakamotoharu is out for the duration. Go Waka!

(My wife and I have to laugh to hear the Japanese announcer say the name Wakatakakage. He rips off the syllables so machine-gun fast that I'm still going "Waka...")

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I think he'll get promoted after this tournament, too.

My wife lived in Japan a little and is continuing to learn Japanese. Something she's told me is that in Japanese every syllable is spoken at the same speed, which is why we get that machine gun sound with Wakatakakage. The only exception is when there is an accent, like with the 'o' in ozeki (which is pronounced with a long 'o' sound, like in 'show').

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