Tuesday, April 28, 2009

"Off" Translation (Update)

A P R I L 2 9, 2 0 0 9

I was watching some old back-and-white movie. In one scene, the army commander instructed his army to fire the guns at the enemies. In the subtitle, they translated "Fire" to "Api" instead of "Tembak". That was years before... in the old days. We used to laugh at the translation

Years later..... Recently, I was watching a movie on the television. To my surprise, we never learn from our mistakes. The same thing happened again. Similar scene, latest movie..... Again they translated 'Fire' into 'Api'. When will we ever learn.

I also do not know whether these people are trained translator or not. Recently, in TV (or maybe Astro), in one movie, two person were arguing and one fellow scolded the other "D***H***" which is vulgar word. Instead of censoring the word with "blip". They put the word "D***H***" in the subtitle as if it is a name. My Gosh! What happen to Malaysia?

Some other famous translation of movie name. They translate "Breathless" to "Sesak Nafas".

2 May 2009
Last night, I was watching a German movie on Astro. In the movie, there was freak accident involving a tanker. When investigating the accident, the inspector was mentioning something about 'acid' (which was supposingly carried by the tanker in the accident) in German language. I look the word 'acid' (German) is also 'acid' in English. To my surprise, they translate the German word 'acid' to 'cuka' in BM ('vinegar' in English). I know both are sour but 'acid', of course, are more corrosive, which tiggered off the accident. Do we understand what we are translating, or the translator just listen to the soundtrack and do not watch the movie.


{Sigh}

PLEASE TRANSLATE IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT.

9 comments:

J.Y. said...

Black-and-white. Haha. Charlie Chaplin.

You get no disagreement from me. You get to see plenty of skil-less censorship in the movies. One example, "Dead Man's Chest" was translated to "Karun Lelaki Mati". =.=

alexwong said...
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alexwong said...

No-lah. A Malay movie of the 60s.

Yes, JY, Funny translation is it? LOL

When will we ever learn?

AmUyO ToMoKo said...

tranlations are always very funny... last time my mom used to kinda like to follow the local Malaysian chinese TV dramas...
i just realised that the tranlations of chinese into Malay is also funny...

especially when there is a chinese poem part, the translation there will be subtitled as "puisi"

J.Y. said...

That reminds me. I recalled a few years ago for seeing this:

"What's up?"

to be translated into this. XD

"Apa di atas?"

alexwong said...
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alexwong said...

Haha....Wonder do they translate "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" into "Asal Orang-X: Orang Serigala"?... Why can they be like other countries...use an alternative name instead of direct translate.

Amuyo: maybe they translate "qi tou wan ming yue" into "angkat kepala, tengok bulan"... hahaha

AmUyO ToMoKo said...

sir, yeah sometimes they do...
but sometimes they just put "puisi"
hahaha...

alexwong said...

JY: I wonder will they translate "that's Cool" in "itu sejuk"...lol

Amuyo: I give up...