It’s not more literal than English. I wonder why computers have so many problems with compound words, when theoretically it should be easy to divide them into their parts; but then computer spellcheckers are still too stupid - whether english or german - to understand that one word has a plural and adverbial form, instead you have to add each form and each case seperatly to the dictionary.
One of the biggest problems that Babelfish has when translating English-German and back is “Die”. It’s very common in German, because it’s the female form of “the”; but in too many cases it’s translated as either to die (sterben) or the die (Würfel), which makes the result… weird.
Ah, yes. The original text says that there were eight “Staffeln”. Staffel is a correct word to use in TV for one season; but the older meaning is … one squadron of planes or ships.
The great old sitcom Bewitched is **Verliebt in eine Hexe **which means “Fallen in Love with a Witch”, which is actually a good title. I remember watching this show
with my relatives in Germany. It seemed they were showing episodes a year or so behind the US.
A year is quite fast for an old show! Normal was 2 or more years.
It’s only recently and with hot shows like Greys Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Lost, etc. that ProSieben has managed to get the translation & dubbing time down to about 3/4 of a year; but I don’t think they do each show at a time, but rather the whole season, which does take some time to do.
Also, I once heard Pro 7 answer the common complaint of fans about those delays that current seasons cost more licensing fee than older shows (that presumably had run their course in the US and were only interesting for the foreign market).
They also claimed once - don’t know if it’s true - that showing sub-titles instead of dubbed episodes would mean a higher license fee for them, because they would have to buy the rights for the audio, too. I have a hard time believing this, since the Scandinavians, according to what I’ve heard, only show subtitled stuff (and have better English as result).
For the Daily Show Global ed., Comedy Central is 2 weeks behind, but they only do subtitles, no dubbing - and it’s only 30 minutes.
You heard correctly. The entire Scandinavia (Iceland included) do not dub except for shows for children. Here in Finland the Simpsons was never dubbed, thank god. All animated movies shown in theaters are viewable in both the dubbed and original versions. There is a dubbed version of the Simpsons movie, but I can’t imagine it’s any good.
As fore those looking for German titties, here you go (cleavage only).
The Avengers have an interesting title - I bet 50:50 that the translation will involve a fruit instead of a hat (Literally, it means: with Umbrella, charm and bowler hat - because it’s british, you see).
Swedish translators had their own (I hope) thing going for a while, where every Mel Brooks movie was a “Det våras för…” (Springtime for) and anything with Goldie Hawn was “Tjejen som …” (The girl that). I’m sure there were others, too.
