Giving an overall take on the end of the Olympics in Japanese

Osaka – The 2020 Tokyo Olympics held a scaled-down 閉会式 (heikaishiki, closing ceremony) on Sunday, which, like the 開会式 (kaikaishiki, opening ceremony), received mixed reviews.

Did you watch the 閉会式? What were your thoughts? Shortly after the 開会式 took place, we looked at ways to talk about expressing your thoughts on it using 好き (suki, likeable) and 良い (yoi, good).

When talking about the 閉会式 with other people, it’s good to say what you didn’t like about it followed by what you did: バッハ会長のあいさつは好きじゃなかったけど、日本各地の多様な祭りの映像が好きだった (Bahha kaichō no aisatsu wa suki janakatta kedo, Nihon kakuchi no tayōna matsuri no eizō ga suki datta, I didn’t like President [Thomas] Bach’s greeting, but I liked the video clip of the different festivals from around Japan).

As for myself, アオイヤマダのダンスはまあまあだった (Aoi Yamada no dansu wa māmā datta, Aoi Yamada’s dance was so-so). でも、東京からパリオリンピックへの引き継ぎ式が良いと思った (Demo, Tōkyō kara Pari orinpikku e no hikitsugishiki ga yoi to omotta, I thought that the handover ceremony from Tokyo to the Paris Olympics was good).

A couple of terms that can come in handy for giving overall assessments are 全体的に見て (zentaiteki ni mite), which means “on the whole,” and 少なくとも (sukunaku tomo), which means “at least.”

I can sum up my thoughts about the entire closing ceremony by saying, 全体的に見て、良い閉会式だったと思う (zentaiteki ni mite, yoi heikaishiki datta to omou, on the whole, I think the closing ceremony was good). If I wasn’t all that enthused about the Olympics taking place overall, I could add the caveat that 少なくともアスリートの活躍は多くの人を元気づけたと思う (sukunaku tomo asurīto no katsuyaku wa, ōku no hito o genkizuketa to omou, at least the success of the athletes cheered up a lot of people, I think).

8月24日から始まるパラリンピックを楽しみにしています (Hachi-gatsu nijūyon-nichi kara hajimaru Pararinpikku o tanoshimi ni shite-imasu, I’m now looking forward to the Paralympics starting from Aug. 24)!