{"id":2065,"date":"2014-03-31T13:49:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T13:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/?p=2065"},"modified":"2014-03-31T13:50:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T13:50:17","slug":"movie-titles-lost-in-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/movie-titles-lost-in-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Titles Lost in Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fact:\u00a0Superbad<\/i>\u00a0is called\u00a0Supercool<\/i>\u00a0in Mexico, Argentina, and Peru.\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo by Etc289<\/p><\/div>\n

It goes without saying that no one language translates word for word into another language and then back again without losing (or sometimes gaining) a new meaning along the way. This is true for Spanish, which shares a subject-verb-object word order with English. It is especially true for translations to and from unrelated languages such as Chinese, which functions very different grammatically from what we might be used to.<\/p>\n

How many of us have attempted to follow the directions printed in one of the pitifully humorous owner\u2019s manuals accompanying our foreign-produced electronic items; or perhaps had a good long chuckle over a poorly worded English sign in a Chinatown store window? This is partly due to a lack of cultural exposure as well as miscalculations pertaining to the subtleties of either language. It is also due to fundamentally different functionalities of vocabulary and grammar in both languages.<\/p>\n

There is a very real and understandable reason why translating the recently coined term \u201cSuperbad\u201d into Spanish and then back into English produces a completely different English term. What we are seeing here,\u00a0linguistic <\/i>causes aside, is simply a game of \u201ctelephone\u201d as it pans out in the real world of language translation, where we start with the concept of \u201cbad\u201d and end up with the concept of \u201ccool\u201d \u2013 whether in a temperature sense or (as one would presume in this case) hinting at a certain \u201ccoolness\u201d factor, traditionally attributed to rebels or \u201cbad\u201d boys.<\/p>\n

Take the title of any famous work of pop culture from the past however many years and translate it into another language according to the cultural understandings and experiences of the translators. Then translate the new foreign title back into English. You will begin with\u00a0Boogie Nights<\/i>\u00a0and finish with a very accurate Mandarin Chinese title that doesn\u2019t quite communicate the subtlety inherent in the original. Who wouldn\u2019t want to rush to the cinema to see\u00a0His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous<\/i>? Or take out The Full Monty <\/i>DVD or see that the title has suddenly changed to Six Naked Pigs?<\/i> One has to admit that the poetic title Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind <\/i>is lost on the Italian translation of If You Leave Me, I Delete You<\/i>, and the somewhat laconic The Matrix<\/i> is slightly less so when it becomes The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses <\/i>in France.<\/p>\n

These little mistranslations are what make our world of languages so special \u2013 meanings associated to words or phrases in one, will simply never be the same in any other. Find more about a few Spanish oddities specifically in our True or False video<\/a> on Latin American Spanish!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fact:\u00a0Superbad\u00a0is called\u00a0Supercool\u00a0in Mexico, Argentina, and Peru.\u00a0 It goes without saying that no one language translates word for word into another language and then back again without losing (or sometimes gaining) a new meaning along the way. This is true for Spanish, which shares a subject-verb-object word order with English. It is especially true for translations(\u2026)<\/p>\n

\n
\n\t \t\t\t\tCONTINUE READING »<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,182],"tags":[321,146,195,37,164,834],"class_list":["post-2065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun-games","category-true-or-false","tag-movie-titles","tag-movies","tag-spain","tag-spanish","tag-translation","tag-true-or-false"],"yoast_head":"\nMovie Titles Lost in Translation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Did you know that the movie Superbad is translated as Supercool in a few Latin American countries? 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