sarah on subtitles

[arisha]

So I am a language major with no desire to be a translator, which often seems to befuddle people. I just get no joy from the act of translating. But if there was some sort of career where I could sit around all day and be fascinated by other people's translations, oh my god I would so be there.

Part 1!

So I've been watching The Big Bang Theory with the Spanish subtitles turned on. Considering I don't even read them half the time I'm definitely not going to claim this as an effective form of studying, but any exposure is good exposure I guess. However, when I do read the subtitles I sometimes find them lacking. I'm too lazy to go back and find the episode in which they had Penny say her own name at the beginning of a line that had nothing to do with her or her name, but here are three odd translations that I came across in two of the episodes I watched tonight. (And you guys know that whenever I talk about this sort of stuff you are always welcome to correct any errors I might make, right? Right.)

First up, two lines from "The Cushion Saturation" (which also featured a mistake of a different sort, in that YOU NEVER TAKE YOUR MASK OFF WHILE PAINTBALLING!!!):

In this first scene, Leonard asks, "How was the comic book store?" Sheldon cheerily replies, "Fine. The new issue of Flash is out." The subtitles read:


"No tienen la nueva edición de Flash" = "They don't have the new issue of Flash." Which Sheldon then proceeds to pull from his shopping bag and read. Oh translator, I'm sorry English is so fiddly, but something being out is not the same as being out of something.

Later in the episode, Sheldon is annoyed that Penny's dry cleaner also makes keys and argues the need to focus on one thing in order to become good at it. He asks, "Did Alexander Fleming moonlight as a hairdresser?" The subtitles read:


"¿Y Alexander Fleming también fue a la luna?" = "And did Alexander Fleming also go to the moon?"

Wait ... what. I know they both have "moon" in them, but ... what. Especially when the next line correctly translates Sheldon's imaginary conversation with Alexander Fleming the hairdresser.

The third screencap is from "The Work Song Nanocluster," and comes from a scene where the characters are discussing how to make the barrettes that Penny has been making more appealing to potential male customers. One of the guys suggests adding Bluetooth. Penny says, "You want to make a hair barrette with Bluetooth?" The subtitles read:


"¿Quieren hacer los pasadores con una flor azul?" = "You want to make barrettes with a blue flower?"

Now, I barely know about Bluetooth in English, never mind in any other language, but a couple Google searches later and I feel more or less secure in telling you that "flor azul" is not a term for "Bluetooth." So basically this entire conversation, originally about adding technology to an accessory, has now become a conversation about changing the colour of the accessory and, as you can tell by Penny's expression, blue simply will not do!

Part 2!

So as you might have heard, the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is out, and I am kind of obsessed with it, and I am kind of obsessed with it in all the languages I've been able to find it in, but for now I shall do my best to just focus on the Japanese subtitled version. In Japanese, this movie is to be called 生命の泉 (seimei no izumi), but with furigana so that it is read as いのちの泉 (inochi no izumi). I love furigana and the tricks that can be played with it but this one I don't really ... get? According to everyone's favourite dictionary, 生命 is "life" or "existence" and can be used in phrases like 永遠の生命 which means "eternal life." Meanwhile, 命 is also "life," but more specifically "mortal life." So this movie is called "The Fountain of Mortal Life" but is written "The Fountain of Eternal Life" ... ?? I don't know, for some reason I feel like I have this completely wrong. So let's move on to the trailer itself.

When I'm watching trailers for English language movies that have been subtitled in Japanese, I often feel like the subtitles have nothing to do with the trailer. Like, I get the feeling that the subtitles for the whole movie have been done, and then they've just been cut apart and pieced back together to make the subtitles for the trailer, with the result being that subtitles that work just fine within the context of the scenes they come from just seem totally random when read in the context of the trailer. The best example I could find here is when Blackbeard says, "If I do not make it to the Fountain, neither will you," and the subtitles read:




"伝説の泉を見つけだし永遠を手に入れる" = "Find the legendary fountain and you gain eternity."

I could see this subtitle making sense within its scene in the movie if, say, Blackbeard says something like that just before or after the "neither will you" line and the translator for whatever reason decided to flip the lines in the subtitles, but when you're watching the trailer and all you have to compare the subtitle to is this one isolated line in English, it definitely seems like it has nothing to do with anything. Buuuut I guess I will just have to wait to see the full movie to find out if my hypothesis is right, haha. :3

Another odd thing about the Japanese trailer:


They list the character's names instead of the actor's names, what the heck. Also, the text above アンジェリカ (Angelica) reads 女海賊, which I don't even know how to translate in a way that doesn't sound dumb. "Woman pirate"? "Female pirate"? "Lady pirate"? And is that seriously the best way they could think of to describe her? As if this is some new and exciting event? There have been female pirates in this series before!

And just one more screencap for tonight. Angelica gets to shout some Spanish in the trailer - "Sparrow, ¡ven aquí o te arranco la cabeza!" ("Sparrow, come here or I'll rip your head off!") Check out how the Japanese subtitles deftly handle this:


Yeah, I think that's about right.

Comments

[lysanderpuck.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling the Big Bang translator wasn't given context, because uh. No.

And I cracked up at the Japanese > Spanish subtitles. That's how I feel trying to speak Japanese!

[jazzkittykat.livejournal.com]

Interesting post. I think that the main lesson you can take from the Spanish example is that you don't really have to be that good at a language to be employed as a translator, if you're not picky about where you work. I'm guessing that TV subtitles are some of the lowest quality, because a lot of material has to get translated very quickly and it's not very high profile (in comparison to a movie or a speech or something).

[lady_turner]

The Japanese version of POTC4 have shocked me! I'm happy that Italian translator are more faithful than others!