Pnyin - Comedy of errors found in translation

ENTERTAINMENT / Hot Pot Column






Comedy of errors found in translation

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-01-05 21:31



China's pirate disk manufacturers are a diligent lot. Not only do they
churn out the latest blockbusters, but they also often include subtitles
that add a whole new dimension to the word "creativity."

The most outrageous example is Minority Report when it first came out in
2002. The counterfeiter, in an effort to woo more buyers, had put in an
extra soundtrack for the Chinese translation that removed all the sound
effects. One man and one woman played all the characters and did not try
to vary their voices.

I was not surprised at the bad translation until Tom Cruise shouted to
Samantha Morton. The English is "Run," and the Chinese became "I love
you!" By then I began to doubt whether the translator knew the 26 letters
of the alphabet.

Subtitles in Chinese are mandatory, or nobody but expats will buy the
disk. If the movie is older than about six months, it comes with the
original subtitles, and the translator need only muster his reading
skill. If he's any good, he may get about 50 per cent right.

I heard that, for cost control, the counterfeit producers, mostly based
in the Pearl River Delta and funded with overseas money, hire college
students and pay them 500-1,000 yuan (-128) per movie. That's in a market
where a simultaneous translator commands 6,000-10,000 yuan (8-1,280) a
day. So, it may be excusable that News on the March, a mini-documentary
within Citizen Kane, became News in March in Chinese.

If the translator has to listen to the dialogue, things will get
complicated. As most language students practice more reading than
listening, trying to decipher lines from a typical Hollywood movie is
tantamount to recreating it.

I can imagine the kid, eager to earn a few hundred yuan, sweating in
front of the video screen. His supervisor may be standing by, and he
cannot reveal that he did not catch a single complete sentence. So, he
has to invent lines from the few words he does catch or from what's
happening on the screen. Under these circumstances, he'd be lucky if he
gets 10 per cent right.

Many years ago before Woody Allen made it big, he got a Japanese movie
and, not knowing a single word of the original, put in an English
soundtrack that is funny and fits the original image. What the
counterfeiters do is just as creative. The only difference is, they don't
bother to get the rights.

Recently, they have begun to toy with the original English. I noticed
that the Chinese caption could be 80 per cent accurate, but the English
caption does not correspond, yet is eerily similar, to what is spoken on
the screen. One day, it dawned upon me that the English is decoded back
from the Chinese translation and done with a software program.

When a character says "OK," the Chinese is "hao de," which then turns
literally into "good of." Because the Chinese "de" also signals
possession, the dictionary definition is "of." So, "wo de shu" (my book)
can be machine rendered as "I of book."

Anyone who believes a movie can go from one language to another by the
grace of a software programme must be out of his mind. The more common
the speech is, as in movies, the more it needs human understanding. If
you use a translation tool on the Internet, you can turn the most serious
article into a comic piece as if Mark Twain had written it in a drunken
daze.

Take the expression, "Come on!" It doesn't have a Chinese equivalent. Its
meaning changes by the tone or context. It's very easy to understand for
someone with a modicum of English, but a translation tool will throw up
its arms and put in something ridiculous.

You think your omnipotent software can translate a movie? Come on!










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