Bad Santa — USA

"Lost in Tokyo"

A Not so Saintly Santa — Argentina

Santa is a Pervert — Czech Republic

With such a straight forward original title, is such a liberal (and odd) translation of a movie title necessary? Marketing research and recent trends say yes. The title may be changed to account for cultural differences, remove a double entendre or pun that doesn’t work in translation or, more commonly, for reasons apparently unknown…

Translations of movies can be quite vexing to someone more familiar with the original title. Here are a few examples of the more confusing, both translated into Spanish and into English

Movie Titles in Spanish

“Con la Muerte en Los Talones” (North by Northwest)

“Sonrisas y Lagrimas” (The Sound of Music)

Movie Titles in English

“Vanilla Sky” (Abre los ojos)

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (El laberinto del fauno)

I’ve touched on the topic briefly before, but a recent project led me to further investigate the differences between British English and American English. A quick Internet search on American and British spelling differences provided me with more information than I could possibly digest in a year. This topic is apparently quite the darling of linguists on both sides of “the pond.”

While I did find some fascinating information, some relevant to the project and some incredibly banal (are tortilla chips called tortilla crisps in England, even though they are made from corn and not potatoes?), I would like to leave a bit of information here for anyone who is translating/localizing into their non-native UK English or US English.

A simple tip for those trying to pass their American scribblings off as the Queen’s English is to perform a Find and Replace for the letter Z (pronounced Zed in British English). Very carefully, check all of the instances the letter Z appears in your document and replace your organizations with organisations, recognizes with recognises and characterizes with characterises, etc. You must be very careful not to change your sizes to sises, hazards to hasards, and so on. You can also search for the more well-known words with spelling differences, such as those ending in -or (color vs. colour) and those ending in -re (theater vs. theatre).

This method is by no means fool-proof and is undoubtedly some form of cheating, but it will serve in a pinch… Of course, you should not accept any projects that involve this until you are extremely well-versed in both formats and canthen use this method as a backup.

Veo arboles verdes, rosas rojas tambien

Las veo florecer para ti y para mi

Y pienso para mi mismo, que mundo tan maravilloso.

Sound familiar? I came across a site last week called Song Translator that while entertaining, shows just how difficult it is to produce a top-notch song translation. Like poetry, music lyrics have a rhythm, a feeling, a sound that are notoriously difficult to replicate. The rhyme scheme goes            out the window, the subtle innuendos and word play are often lost and the translated lyrics typically come out stilted and clumsy.

That being said, the site is great if you want to have some fun, maybe laugh at how silly some songs would sound in another language.  Guns N’ Roses in Spanish? Luis Miguel in English? The site is however well put together, showing the lyrics in Spanish and English, sometimes along with a Youtube video of the original.

Poetry translations are notoriously difficult and force a translator to walk the fine line between accuracy and beauty. In a similar vein, song translations frequently receive a mixed reception.

Case in point: the US National Anthem in Spanish. There have been a number of  “Star Spangled Banner” translations, the most controversial being the hip-hop version “Nuestro Himno,” featuring Wyclef Jean, Pitbull, Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon. The criticism ranges from the liberties taken with the translation (it is far from literal) to the topic of illegal immigration. Below are the “Nuestro Himno” lyrics and the “Star Spangled Banner”  lyrics for comparison, plus the  “Nuestro Himno” Youtube video.

“Nuestro Himno”

Amanece:­ ¿lo veis a la luz de la aurora

Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?

Sus estrellas, sus franjas flotaban ayer,

En el fiero combate en señal de victoria.

Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertad,

Por la noche decían: «¡Se va defendiendo!»

¡Oh, decid! ¿Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada

Sobre tierra de libres la bandera sagrada?

“The Star Spangled Banner”

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Here’s the “Nuestro Himno” music video:

I found this nice little comic strip at Mox’s blog, a site put up by a fellow translator.

I liked it because I feel like, to at least some extent, it shows what we translators go through at some point. When we are up to our eyes with work, an upcoming interview, when we can’t sleep and we have next to no contact with the outside world (not even through TV!), we’re in cruise control and can’t help but translate whatever we’re thinking. In other words, thinking itself has become a synonym for translating. We translate everything, out loud or in our heads, for ourselves and for others. Or we’ll speak in another language without realizing it or considering that Aunt So and S o doesn’t know the language and the dog doesn’t understand sentáte. But that doesn’t translate to what we think about life and death or what we’re planning to do next weekend.

As you can see, this post is not an attempt to solve anything. It’s just a reflection. We’ve made a few suggestions before about how to beat the exhaustion and stress when you’re in the middle of an important delivery (take a walk, eat an apple, call a friend on the phone). Exhaustion can lead to errors… For all the “craziness” that comes from too much translating… I don’t think there’s much we can do.

Accent marks can be somewhat of a mystery to non-Spanish speakers. Even if the Spanish student (or translator…) remembers where in the word to put the accent mark, he or she still might not be sure how to do so. There are three basic ways to write Spanish accent marks.

1. Keyboard Setup (Windows)

–Go to Start menu>Control Panel> Regional and Language Options

- From here, click on the Languages tab at the top and then the Details button

-Click on Keyboard and then Add. You can add any number of languages.

This will put the languages icon in your system tray, thus allowing you to switch back and forth between keyboard languages.

To type an accent mark, press the apostrophe key and then the vowel you want to accent. Ñ is the colon key and the two question marks (¿ and ?) are made by pressing the + and _ keys.

2. Ctrl. + Apostrophe + Vowel

This is a fast approach that is very easy to remember. Just press Control, the apostrophe key and then the vowel you want to accent.

3. Alt Codes for Spanish Accents

These can be helpful if you make a list and keep them by your computer. For short projects, it can be faster than switching your keyboard settings.

á = Alt + 0225

é = Alt + 0233

í = Alt + 0237

ó = Alt + 0243

ú = Alt + 0250

ñ = Alt + 0241

ü = Alt + 0252

¡ = Alt + 0161

¿ Alt + 0191