Thrasyvoulos Drakoulis is a financial expert with 20 years’ experience and an avid cinephile. He often calls us to recount in detail the errors he spots on different channels and programs, which has made us laugh numerous times. The fact that a viewer actually cares how the content he consumes is localized and makes the effort to contact the only media localization company he knows to complain (even if he knows that it is not our project) is heartwarming, rewarding and encouraging. As such we decided to give Thrasyvoulos a chance to voice his thoughts and frustrations on his experience of localized content.
I’m an English speaking Greek with a passion for international TV and cinema. I have become accustomed to viewing numerous sitcoms from the UK and the US that I enjoy watching in their original versions with the added comfort of subtitles in my native tongue (just in case I miss any of the storyline). I have encountered some really bad subtitles that have frustrated me, especially when the translated version includes ridiculous words and phrases that bear no resemblance to what’s happening on the screen and only lead to confusion. Am I the only viewer that feels so passionate about watching a drama where the subtitles actually match the script and make complete sense?
33 AD. Jesus Christ dies on a cross and a new religion is born. Some years later Matthew writes his gospel in Aramaic. And on 325 AD this gospel is officially declared part of the New Testament, the books that define Christianity.
Around 1,700 years later, under the moonlight of rural Alabama and over a glass of whiskey a heated argument on verse 5-3 of the gospel was in progress.
John, a devout Christian, was shouting holding the King James Bible, that “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. No way shouted George reading from the Aramaic Bible in Plain English: “Blessed by The Spirit are the poor, because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (http://biblehub.com/matthew/5-3.htm)
It is after a series of translations, from Aramaic to Greek and Latin, and then to English, through a lot of years that we still do not know for sure whether the poor or the unwise will eventually own the Kingdom of Heaven.
Examples like this, which is not farfetched since the Bible is the single most sold book in the world, show how difficult translation can be, how misunderstandings are made and how wrong decisions can be taken because a wrong word was included in the wrong place.
Of course, as an English speaking Greek, my problems usually, and thankfully, reside on understanding a sitcom and matching what is subtitled versus what is actually being said. This is really helping, especially in cases where you try to locate Knights in modern day Las Vegas, because the translator understood that the night bus was actually a Knight bus. Or in the case when you try to visualize the Croatian aircraft carrier ship named Dubrovnik, proudly sailing the Adriatic when actually it was just a plain ship. Or trying to see whether the fringe benefits of a salary include a fridge.
But then again it all comes down to the translator, and the understanding that s/he has of the translation context. You do not need a PhD to know that Knights do not exist in the deserts of Nevada or that the proud nation of Croatia has no aircraft carriers. And ask him or herself if s/he knows of a company giving fridges to employees as part of the salary scheme.
And finally it comes down to the person who undertakes the subtitling to make sure that when Diana asks George at the farm to “help Uncle Jack off the horse” that the capital letters stay capital.
Here’s to hoping that one day I will enjoy a sitcom and not notice any translation errors!
