# How do movies get translated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272 "2005-01-18T00:37:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/1 "2005-01-18T00:37:15Z")
After a friend who speaks Chinese told me the translations for _Hero_ weren’t quite right, I started wondering about the process of translating movies from one language to another. Who provides translations, and how is accuracy evaluated? ---
**Author:** ![joazito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@joazito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joazito)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/2 "2005-01-18T03:19:35Z")
Some companys provide that sort of translation, i imagine it’s as simple as the distributor for a certain country hiring their services. Most translations have noticeable errors here in portugal, so I imagine no one really cares much about quality issues. I would say the exceptions to this are the really big movies, such as LOTR, in which I am yet to find an error. BTW, all of the above was about subtitles. Obviously, it’s much more difficult to find errors in dubbed movies. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/3 "2005-01-18T08:36:53Z")
As **joazito** says, film companies often use an out of house service, such as [these guys](http://www.take1scripts.com/take1-translation.html). The quality is going to very much depend on the price you pay. If you thought _Hero_ was bad, I’ll lend you some really badly dubbed Chinese films, just for comaprison. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/4 "2005-01-18T13:41:10Z")
> [@Fionn](#): > > After a friend who speaks Chinese told me the translations for _Hero_ weren’t quite right, I started wondering about the process of translating movies from one language to another. Who provides translations, and how is accuracy evaluated? Don’t think of it that way. It’s more fun just to try to spot the moments in which the translation radically differs from the original language. And I’m talking about the subtitling of foreign films into English. I can’t imagine how awful some of the translations from English into languages with smaller markets must be. ---
**Author:** ![joazito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@joazito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joazito)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/5 "2005-01-18T13:44:58Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I can’t imagine how awful some of the translations from English into languages with smaller markets must be. But you haven’t seen bad until you’ve seen a subtitled cheap porno, trust me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jester21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed655f/32.png) [@jester21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jester21)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/6 "2005-01-18T13:50:54Z")
> [@joazito](#): > > But you haven’t seen bad until you’ve seen a subtitled cheap porno, trust me 🙂 Why even bother? 😕 Hell… it’d be more fun to make up your own dialog while you ‘watch’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/7 "2005-01-18T14:35:25Z")
Oh course, you _do_ realize that accuracy is sometimes given up to better match the actor’s lip movements, right? I’m not saying that there _aren’t_ errors in translation, but after dating (and almost marrying) a native Spanish speaker, I can tell you that 1) there are some idioms and aphorisms that don’t translate from one language to another; and 2) some sentences might require 18 words to say in Spanish but only 3 words in English (or vice versa), so sometimes the dubbers have to substantially change what they’re saying in order to fit the lip movements. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/8 "2005-01-18T15:07:38Z")
Having seen a very large number of English-language films and TV shows subtitled in Spanish here, I can vouch for the fact that there little attempt is generally made for close accuracy in translation. For one thing, the subtitles often give a very abbreviated version of what is being said in English, because they have to fit on the screen and there isn’t enough time to fit in all the dialogue in the time available. They don’t attempt to translate many colloquialisms or idioms, but substitute something else entirely. And sometimes they are just sloppy. Recently I’ve been watching _Deadwood_ with subtitles here on TV. The main saloon in town, the _Gem_, is referred to as the _Gimnasio_, obviously because the translator misheard the name as “Gym!” (I’m surprised they didn’t have a transcript available.) For the first few episodes I couldn’t figure out why the saloon was called the _Gymnasium,_ unless it referred to sporting about with the prostitutes. I finally realized what had happened after visiting the show’s website. It’s also amusing to see all the show’s c\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*rs and m\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*rs translated just as _Imbecile!_ ---
**Author:** ![Asteroide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Asteroide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asteroide)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/9 "2005-01-18T17:13:09Z")
I’ve worked in both sub-titling and dubbing, and I can confirm that it’s a rushed and generally chaotic process. Add tight budgets into the equation, and you get what you get. With subtitles there are space constraints (generally 50 character captions), sometimes you get a transcript (which often widely differs from the final soundtrack) sometimes you don’t, for TV shows there’s often a ‘style guide’ telling you for example which characters call each other ‘lei’, ‘vous’, ‘usted’ vs. ‘tu’, place names etc. Anyhow, you get the idea - it’s pretty chaotic. Deadlines are often very short, and you can only make good money by working fast, so there’s not much incentive to do anything more than an OK job. My main complaint with dubbing is that the language and acting gets ‘neutered’. If you think the dialogues are bad on “Sex and the City” or “Roswell” in English, try the translated versions - all the color gets leached out, and the words sound stilted and un-natural. Generally the actors are reading the text for the first time, and the pressure is on to get it down in as few takes as possible, so you don’t get a whole lot of ‘Actor’s Studio sense memory’, ‘what’s my character’s motivation ?’ type stuff happening. So I guess what I’m saying is that you get what you pay for ! ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/10 "2005-01-18T17:14:00Z")
There was a good article in [Salon](http://archive.salon.com/media/1998/03/23media.html) a while back about the difficulties that arise when trying to subtitle a movie. > [@](#): > > Instead, he gets a “spotting list” that tells him how much time, or how many frames, he has for each title – and a week to write about 1,200 to 1,500 snippets of dialogue. If he’s lucky he’ll watch the movie once before getting started, and once after the titles have been printed; but all too often, he must make do without such luxuries. With “Primary Colors,” Rodriguez was under such intense deadline pressure that he had to begin translating without seeing the movie at all. > > The fact that translators have so little to work with goes a long way toward explaining why subtitles can be so dreadful. Given the creative choices they must make with little time and even less guidance, it’s a wonder foreign audiences come away with even a rudimentary grasp of what’s going on. For instance, with “Primary Colors,” Rodriguez had to determine which of the many references to the American political system were necessary for a basic understanding of the film. If he couldn’t come up with a generic equivalent to an obscure political personality, he just cut the reference altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/11 "2005-01-18T23:17:59Z")
Generally, everything said above is about the same as my experience with subtitles. Except that **Pork Rind** ’s cite reminds me of when I though it would be super easy and I’d do the subs for _Lonestar_ from English into Spanish. I’d already had a text file of the English subs with timings downloaded from the internet, and I do well enough in Spanish, right? Well, it was a _major freaking pain in the bum_, although I don’t usually verbalize it so gayly. Some things are obvious, but others aren’t. Language reflects culture in addition to simple communications. How do you say “southern sheriff” in Spanish with _everything_ that it means to you in English? What’s important to reflect in the translation, and what’s not? If I don’t want to say _x_, then what should I say in its place? I finally just got bummed out and didn’t bother making a copy. If anyone has the DVD subs in any text format for _Lonestar_, let me know (_Witness_ would be cool, too, as would the non-redux version of _Apocolypse Now_ – seems to be a problem with older movies). ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/12 "2005-01-18T23:56:17Z")
> [@joaztio](#): > > I would say the exceptions to this are the really big movies, such as LOTR, in which I am yet to find an error. Amazing. A translation from elvish to English to Portugese, with no linguistic or cultural untranslatability and no problems of equivalency. It really is a small world after all. ---
**Author:** ![Jayrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/13 "2005-01-19T00:21:12Z")
Subtitles are sometimes done well when they really account for context and don’t try to translate things to literally. The Japanese _so desu_ can have hundreds of “meanings” based on the conext and what it is responding to. Don’t know if this is a good translation or not but it sticks out in my memory: From the movie Snatch, the Russian guy Boris is talking on the phone in Russian to another character. It is subtitled for the audience’s benefit. One character tells Boris that he needs some guys to do a special job and they can’t be idiots or need to be discrete or somesuch. His answer: “Ya ponimayu”. In Russian this means “I understand”. We it’s translated for us as “Yeah, I know some guys like that”. What do you think? Good translation or not? Keep in mind this is an English movie, _in English_ with fairly high production standards, not some quick and dirty subtitling service. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/14 "2005-01-19T02:25:41Z")
The answer to the OP seems to be: pretty badly sometimes. The theater release of “LOTR: Fellowship” in Japan was bad enough that some people complained about it. There are relatively few people who do subtitling work for movies and they are credited for it. According to my girlfriend, the woman who did the subtitling was well-known and normally did good work, but this time she’d screwed up a bit. An example was when Boromir was working himself up to taking the Ring from Frodo. Frodo said, “You are not yourself.” The subtitles were _uso mitai!_ (you lie; that’s a lie) which didn’t really fit the situation. The DVD release had significantly different, improved, subtitles done by the same translator. She must have had a time crunch or some other problem at the time of the theater release. Another theater-oops, DVD-correction I saw in Japan was “Matrix: Reloaded.” Neo is fighting the New and Improved™ agents at the beginning. The first agent blocks Neo’s punch and Neo says, “Hmm, upgrades,” which was chuckle-worthy. The Japanese read, _tsuyoku natta,_ ([they’ve] gotten stronger) which has zero humor value. The DVD version has changes to that scene’s subtitles among others. I don’t know why either studios or distributors skimp on the translation. A bad translation can possibly break a movie in a foreign market. A related issue has to do with importing movies into the US. Miramax apparently has the North America distribution rights to many of the early Hong Kong movies and has decided to only produce dubbed versions of the movies, without the original Chinese soundtrack. Why they would do something like that is beyond me. It’s not like including the original sound would entail much extra work or expense compared to translating, hiring voice actors, and recording English dialog. Not having the option to at least hear the original soundtrack, with or without subtitles, is kind of silly. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/15 "2005-01-19T02:44:24Z")
Pixar is notable for the efforts they make when translating their films into other languages. They go over the translated script carefully, trying to translate the concepts and idioms as well as the literal words, and hire speakers with acting talent and voices to match the characters. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/16 "2005-01-19T02:47:24Z")
One other thing I’ve noticed is that many movies translated into French have a small notice saying the work was done in Quebec (I assume the accents are noticably different to native French speakers). Is this done for financial reasons or is there some other reason behind this? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/17 "2005-01-19T04:46:33Z")
The Lucayan Indians of the Bahamas were encountered by Columbus in 1492, and had disappeared from the islands by not long after 1513. Although the Spanish wiped them out very effectively, that was not their deliberate intent. Many died of disease, and the survivors were captured and taken as slaves to Hispaniola and the other islands of the West Indies. Certainly many people today are descended from the Lucayans, although culturally they have been utterly eradicated. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/18 "2005-01-19T04:49:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The Lucayan Indians of the Bahamas were encountered by Columbus in 1492… Maybe so, but could they write subtitles? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/19 "2005-01-19T04:50:27Z")
Sorry, wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![Argo84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b19c9b/32.png) [@Argo84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argo84)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272/20 "2005-01-19T05:07:36Z")
This thread reminds me of a something I’ve been wondering about for a while. When they edit out “obscene” language from theatrical movies shown on tv and sustitute a dubbed alternate word, it sounds as if the original actor is speaking the dub. Do they use voice doubles for this or do the actors read lists of alternate words that are later edited in when the movie is shown on the tube? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-movies-get-translated/285272.md?page=2)