Did you have any prior experience working as a sports interpreter?
I first started my translating life in 2018 for the PyeongChang Olympics, the Winter Olympics in Korea. That was when I just got out from the military service. I kind of wanted to do something cool because I was kind of locked in there in the military for 21 months. I got the chance to do it. It was really fun, something that not a lot of people could try to do. After that, I just got so interested in it. Before working for the Dinos, I worked for a volleyball team, actually. It's kind of far away from baseball but still the same industry.
How did you become fluent in English?
I went to middle school and high school in Canada. Vancouver. That's where I picked up my English. But I had to go back to Korea because of the military. It’s mandatory.
[In South Korea, most able-bodied men between 18 and 35 are required to serve in the armed forces for 18-21 months, though special military exemptions are granted for athletes like Lee, who performed only four weeks of basic training after helping the Korean national baseball team win a gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games.]
Did you have any interactions with Jung Hoo before you became his interpreter?
No. That's the crazy part. I started bonding with him last Spring Training. In Korea, when you speak to somebody that's older or somebody that you have respect for -- we have a [different] kind of way of speaking in Korean. So for maybe two months, I feel like Jung Hoo and I were actually really awkward talking to each other. I would actually talk to him more when he needed me to translate.
How did you go about trying to establish that relationship and build that trust with him? What was that process like?
Yeah, so that is a big part of translating. There has to be that belief that he's translating well for me because Jung Hoo doesn't understand all the English I say. But it was after that injury that he and I really bonded. I feel like you become close to the people that you're around when you're having hard times, not the good times.
