Oddly enough, I find I cannot ignore subtitles. Since English is my husband's second language, he likes to have the English subtitles on. It surprises me to watch a movie that I've already seen and realize how much of the dialogue I had actually missed without them. Of course then you miss the *action.*
Sadly, my German by now probably *needs* subtitles, as it has been so long since I taught it or used it on a daily basis. Where I *can* pick up discrepancies (aside from English language to English subtitles) is in Spanish, which I've never formally studied. This is especially true in the translation of epithets. The American English movie is far more vulgar than the Spanish or Latin American censors allow, so the good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon oaths come out with the equivalent of "oh, darn."
That's not the only place. In one of my 4th year French textbooks [the one claw-delivered by Dinosaur Express], in an excerpted Camus essay, the footnote translated a phrase as "Go to hell." I found out the embarrassing way it actually meant "Scr3w you." :(
This puts me in mind of a similar event. A friend was teaching a very elementary Spanish conversation class at the local community college. I took one semester of it, thinking I'd get some grammar out of it. Anyway, one exercise involved the conversation bubble of the Family Circle cartoon was erased. Mom was shaking her finger at Little Jeffy. We were supposed to write in what Mom could be saying.
I had no problem at all with this, because in Honduras the word "hodido" means rascal, scalliwag, and is slang, but in no way vulgar. My mother-in-law, who is a very proper person, uses it. So, it was the perfect word. Anyway, I wrote, "Que hodido, Jeffy!" Well, the teacher was walking around looking at people's work. When she got to me, I heard a big intake of breath and "Oh, my God, NO! You can't use that word!!" Puzzled, I looked up and asked why not, since it wasn't vulgar...she advised me that I had just had Mom calling Little Jeffy a "m*ther-f*..." I am very careful now when using Honduran slang around Mexicans...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-09-08 06:24 pm (UTC)Sadly, my German by now probably *needs* subtitles, as it has been so long since I taught it or used it on a daily basis. Where I *can* pick up discrepancies (aside from English language to English subtitles) is in Spanish, which I've never formally studied. This is especially true in the translation of epithets. The American English movie is far more vulgar than the Spanish or Latin American censors allow, so the good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon oaths come out with the equivalent of "oh, darn."
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Date: 2006-09-18 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:06 pm (UTC)I had no problem at all with this, because in Honduras the word "hodido" means rascal, scalliwag, and is slang, but in no way vulgar. My mother-in-law, who is a very proper person, uses it. So, it was the perfect word. Anyway, I wrote, "Que hodido, Jeffy!" Well, the teacher was walking around looking at people's work. When she got to me, I heard a big intake of breath and "Oh, my God, NO! You can't use that word!!" Puzzled, I looked up and asked why not, since it wasn't vulgar...she advised me that I had just had Mom calling Little Jeffy a "m*ther-f*..." I am very careful now when using Honduran slang around Mexicans...
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 02:07 am (UTC)