Comments on: There Will Be…What?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:51:29 +0000

I watched the ‘curious case of benjamin button’ last night. One particularly nice mistranslation was where the Captain said to Ben “you mean you’ve never been with a women?” – the translation was “你不知道你是个女人吗?”. Which means “you mean you didn’t know you are a women”, hehehe…

By: stuart

stuart — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:22:19 +0000

No wonder my students started laughing when Chief Bromden began asphyxiating McMurphy.

By: Sun Zoo’s American Expatriate » There Will Be…What?

Sun Zoo’s American Expatriate » There Will Be…What? — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:44:48 +0000

[...] I’m now a contributing writer for the expat blog Lost Laowai, and just did a piece for them on crappy subtitle translation in the movie There Will Be Blood. It’s pretty funny, I think, head over there and check it out. [...]

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:58:36 +0000

Ha, you know, that’s a good point…next time I see one of those, I’m going to contact them and see if I can arrange an interview; that could be hilarious.

Edit: Yup, if anyone sees one of those email addresses on something they’re watching, and drop it here or send me an email with it, along with the title of whatever you were watching. I’d like to interview of them, I think it could be interesting.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:19:27 +0000

Hey Charlie, welcome to Lost Laowai and awesome inaugural post. My wife, who is Chinese, now has solid enough English to let me know if the subtitles are truly horrible, mildly horrible or decent. However, it used to be that she would just sit patiently trying to figure out the plot, assuming the subtitles were right and that foreign films were just weird – which, admittedly, some that I watch are.

What I find hilarious is when we get part way through a movie and she says “these subtitles aren’t making any sense.” and I switch to the English and the subtitles are for a completely different movie.

On a lot of pirated films and TV shows you’ll actually get some sort of signature (and sometimes contact information) for the subtitler. I’d be curious to contact them and talk to them about their method.

By: Nedzer

Nedzer — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:20:57 +0000

Ah yes (great blog post by the way) the lost in translation thing. The thing is, when someone says they did not like (or really liked) a western movie it often means they did not, in fact, get what the movie was actually about.

On an interesting side note you can watch movies on http://www.youku.com dubbed into Shanghaihua, Jinanhuan or any “hua” you want.
I will quote a scene from Forest Gump – the scene when no one will sit with him on the bus as a kid.
………………………………………………..
Many boys and girls refuse Forest a seat by saying…
“I have hepatitis”
Girl – you can sit here I don’t have hepatitis.
Forest – thanks.
Girl – where are you going?
Forest – I have to go get vacinated i think I have rabies.
Girl – Why?
Forest – I was bitten by a stray dog.

(the thing is, I am totally not joking that’s what they said)

I will add it was a spoof… a damn fine one too.
At least I’m thinking it was a spoof haha.
Another quote ” Life is like a baked potato(kou di gua) – you never know what color it is in the middle.
If any one is interested in the link to the movie. I’ll post it. I’ll have to search for it though.

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:13:28 +0000

That’s a very detailed breakdown of how half-arsed these subtitles can sometimes be. I’ve long noticed this, and particularly that the easy pieces of speech get translated well, but that more complex sentences (which carry most of the plot, inevitably) are horribly mangled. I guess that the translator is him/herself confused, and just guesses. After all, the pirates are not gonna check the integrity of the translation!