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If you speak another language besides ENG, are the subtitles terrible? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) by LtDan@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm mainly talking about watching a TV show or movie that's originally in English enabling subtitles that's either in Spanish, German, Russian, Finnish, etc. and can mistakes in translation still occur? I recall watching Lie to Me with Japanese subtitles during a scene involving an interrogation but a key word within the dialog was not translated correctly based on context.

For example, the protagonist said "You're an accessory for murder" towards the suspect but subtitles used the wrong word choice 小物 (which means "accessories" as in small goods, i.e. stationery or trinkets) when the intended meaning for "accessory" from that context leans more on being a conspirator (共犯者 or 共謀) of a crime (like as in aiding the criminal).

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[–] MyButSmellsBat@feddit.org 1 points 23 hours ago

My native language is German and I never had a problem with it. But i think compared to Japanese the German language is fairly easy and German is also much more similar to English than Japanese. So not only Translating but also dubbing and subtitles are much easier to do.

Maybe in your example the translators didn't know it better or were underpaid. I also don't know how well the dubbing and subbing to japanese are overall level is. In german the level is quite high.... i was onlynoticing that movies were translated and not origially german when i was like 11-13. (That could also just mean that i was a stupid child, but i think it's the combination between that and the good dubbing)

About the different challenges between subtitles and dubbing i can recommend a Tom Scott video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU9sHwNKc2c