[Multilingual Monday] Lost In Translation
In today's Multilingual Monday, we're going to look at things that were lost in translation from English into another language, causing an unintended different meaning from the source. I admit, I find these things fascinating, as so much in a language can be reliant on context or social interactions that a direct translation is certainly bound to fail on some level. One of my favourite reads on this topic is this page, which examines Chinese (both Taiwanese and mainland Chinese), Vietnamese, and Japanese translations of the Harry Potter series, and there's quite a large selection of mistranslations (as well as successful and not-so-successful wordplay passages) in all four translations. Ever wanted to see how difficult it is to pull off the "Uranus" / "Your anus" pun in another language? This is the place to do it. Good, good stuff!
And everyday, I see translations into another language that ... just don't quite work. We have a disinfectant, and the back of the label reads, at the end, "DO NOT SPRAY ON POLISHED WOOD OR FURNITURE." Well that's fine, but then the Spanish equivalent on the right reads that you shouldn't use it "EN MADERA LUSTRADA O EN MUEBLES", and to me this means to not use on polished wood, and don't use it on any kind of furniture either! Granted, it's concievable that muebles in Spanish doesn't QUITE sync with the English concept of "furniture" (Do tables count? Dressers? Etc.), but apparently, according to this spray, you can't spray it upon ANY furniture whatsoever, which obviously makes no sense as then there's not much else in certain rooms you COULD spray this spray on.
Earlier this week I was trying to remember the name of a guy in a porn film that Carl got from TBRU, and I stumbled across a Russian warez page that had the video Big Easy Bears available, calling it Большие Спокойные Медведи, Bol'shie Spokojnye Medvedi. The title then gets rendered as "Big and Calm Bears," which ... isn't quite right. In English, the name is a double entendre -- the bears are both in New Orleans (The Big Easy), and they're big and easy (as in, slutty) men. The Russian title conveys NEITHER of these meanings, however. "The Big Easy" has no direct translation into Russian, and it's open to the translator just what to call the city in Russian, being rendered as Большой гуляка (Bol'shoy Gulyaka, "Big Reveler"), Большая Легкость (Bol'shaya Pegkost', "Big Ease"), Большое Просто (Bol'shoe Prosto, "Big Simple"), Беззаботный город (Bezzabotnyj gorod, "Carefree city"), and so on, and so on. Secondly, "easy" in this case was interepreted as "take it easy," with absolutely none of the sexual connotations that you get with the English term.
Do you have a story about a translation that misses the mark? Feel free to comment; I'd love to hear them!
And everyday, I see translations into another language that ... just don't quite work. We have a disinfectant, and the back of the label reads, at the end, "DO NOT SPRAY ON POLISHED WOOD OR FURNITURE." Well that's fine, but then the Spanish equivalent on the right reads that you shouldn't use it "EN MADERA LUSTRADA O EN MUEBLES", and to me this means to not use on polished wood, and don't use it on any kind of furniture either! Granted, it's concievable that muebles in Spanish doesn't QUITE sync with the English concept of "furniture" (Do tables count? Dressers? Etc.), but apparently, according to this spray, you can't spray it upon ANY furniture whatsoever, which obviously makes no sense as then there's not much else in certain rooms you COULD spray this spray on.
Earlier this week I was trying to remember the name of a guy in a porn film that Carl got from TBRU, and I stumbled across a Russian warez page that had the video Big Easy Bears available, calling it Большие Спокойные Медведи, Bol'shie Spokojnye Medvedi. The title then gets rendered as "Big and Calm Bears," which ... isn't quite right. In English, the name is a double entendre -- the bears are both in New Orleans (The Big Easy), and they're big and easy (as in, slutty) men. The Russian title conveys NEITHER of these meanings, however. "The Big Easy" has no direct translation into Russian, and it's open to the translator just what to call the city in Russian, being rendered as Большой гуляка (Bol'shoy Gulyaka, "Big Reveler"), Большая Легкость (Bol'shaya Pegkost', "Big Ease"), Большое Просто (Bol'shoe Prosto, "Big Simple"), Беззаботный город (Bezzabotnyj gorod, "Carefree city"), and so on, and so on. Secondly, "easy" in this case was interepreted as "take it easy," with absolutely none of the sexual connotations that you get with the English term.
Do you have a story about a translation that misses the mark? Feel free to comment; I'd love to hear them!