Matt Yglesias

26 Responses to “Friday Nordic Blogging”

1. razib@gnxp.com Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

   svenska? why not suomen kieli?

2. Njorl Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

   I bet the scene where Depp is explaining to the other FBI guys what “fuggettaboutit” means is hard to translate. You’d want some phrase that has all those meanings, dependent only on the pronunciation. If you just dub in a literal “Forget about it” repeated a half-dozen times it would be bizarre.

3. fostert Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   What I’ve always thought is the most interesting thing to translate is Lewis Carol’s “Jabberwocky.” That’s got to sound weird in Mandarin. Apparently, new characters had to be invented for the Mandarin version.

4. Joel Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

   Hejsan, hur ar laget?

5. Marlowe Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

   You’d want some phrase that has all those meanings, dependent only on the pronunciation.

   Actually, different pronunciation is not correct. It’s not the pronunciation that changes, but the context, tone of voice, inflection, and even body language. And remember, the phrase is not really forget about it” but “fageddaboutit” in a certain New Yawk accent. This dialgogue is almost certainly nowhere close to translatable to any foreign language in anywhere near its precise meaning. As much as I like many non-English language films, I am sure I am missing huge amounts of moments like this.

6. fostert Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

   “As much as I like many non-English language films, I am sure I am missing huge amounts of moments like this”

   If it’s a Western European language, probably not too much, as those languages share a lot of common history and culture. So anything involving historical or cultural references translate easily. Japanese films are a lot different. A lot of times, the subtitles make no sense whatsoever. Jokes are the hardest to translate, of course. I watched a comedy show in Thailand that had English subtitles (it was the entertainment on a long bus ride). I just didn’t get it all, but the Thai on the bus thought it was hilarious. But jokes are extremely dependent on cultural context. I can get French or Danish jokes, because the culture is somewhat similar. Turkish jokes are much harder, but some of them are pretty good. I still don’t get German jokes, but I think that’s because the Germans aren’t funny. Everyone else in Europe seems to agree with me on that.

7. fostert Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

   I just thought about a funny translation issue. I’ve seen the Dalai Lama speak three times, but all of them have been on refugee camps in India, so His Holiness was speaking Tibetan. Fortunately, they had localized FM broadcasts in English and Japanese. So I could listen to a live translation. The interpreter was very knowledgeable about the English usage of Buddhist terminology, so it made a lot of sense. Well, as much sense as Buddhism can make, at least. But His Holiness cracks a lot of jokes during his speeches. And when he did, the interpreter got completely lost. Sometimes, he’d actually try to translate the joke, and it made no sense at all. If you’ve never milked a yak, you just wouldn’t get it. But most of the time he’d say something like: “His Holiness just told a joke, and it was funny.”

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