#translation error

[royalarchivist]

Pepito: armas asi komo asi? :0

Foolish: "Armas" Weapons... uh. [Taps the sign for a TTS translation]

TTS: Armas breast milk como breast milk. Zero.

Foolish: Well that can't be right. [Laughs]

[sojourner-between-worlds]

How can a single of line of text/ dialog be translated [for subtitling] to mean two entirely different things and reference two entirely different characters in the process?

I asked a friend of mine about this, who has experience with French translation, and she was also completely baffled about how something like this could happen, so now I'm yelling it into the tumblr void and hoping someone yells back.

Like, I completely understand that certain things like idioms, puns, and slang terms get a little lost in translation and have to attempt to have an equivalent replacement found, but this... is not that. I also understand that since this is a Japanese anime from 2008 that older translations can be a bit... off in places, I guess, since they were more often than not subbed by fans. (And, since they're old, unless they are super popular, the less-than-legal sites often never get updated to official subs.) In this case, there was also a DVD release that is no longer available for purchase in the US (except off Ebay and shipped from overseas). I have no way of verifying if the same subtitles appear on the DVDs as appear when streaming on Crunchyroll. So the discrepancy is between the "official" Crunchyroll subs and either the DVD release or fansubs. But either option still makes this...weird. Even if the DVDs are older, there shouldn't be this big of a discrepancy. But I also can't blame it solely on "bad fansubs" because in all my years of watching this with varying subs across varying less-than-legal platforms, I have never had anything that has stuck out to me like this exchange this does. Difference in word choice, sure, that's basically inevitable; but I've never seen a conversation where the words spoken are about two entirely different characters.

For greater context, here are the two different ways the dialog in question is presented:

Source 1:

N: He's even stronger than before. Y: His opponent was weak, right? B: Yeah, he was completely played by Jack. Y: He's bored.

Source 2:

N: He's getting even stronger. Y: Was he facing a wimp? B: Yeah, Jack completely toyed around with him. Y: He was probably no big deal then...

So as you can see, this exchange is mostly the same. The baffling part is that last line. In the first one, Y is making a personal observation about someone he knows; in the second, he's making an impersonal observation about someone he doesn't know. The difference is getting information about a character (both the one spoken about and the one speaking) and just being a throw away line that doesn't mean anything at all.

This has been driving me nuts for literal years at this point, as to how this big of a difference in translation could happen. Again, it could have been a whoopsie on the part of a fansubber but everything else largely lines up between the two (as far as I can tell), and you'd think it would at least still be referring to the same character, which just makes it Weird to me.

So if anyone can actually explain how this happened, I would love you forever, haha.

[presaly]

So I was trying to read some of the WTP children's books by searching deeply on the internet, because in my country (or in my situation) it is too difficult to find a book and not fucked up old shi.

Many times people publish things on their own pages, and those images somehow end up on Google. It's like trash, and as the saying goes, "Someone's trash is someone else's treasure."

AND THIS IS MY TREASURE!

I went down and down for many hours in the Google images section, until I hit the target with apparently pages of Chinese books separated and scattered randomly.

However, my curiosity was greater and I used the "image translator" to decipher any useless stupidity that was said there.

AND THIS HIT ME.

I have as little context as you guys have. What the hell does Tigger mean BY COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET?...RABBIT IN THE CLOSET?! AND TIGGER KNOWS THAT?!?! This has a completely absurd amount of potential

There is no way this is real, I deeply believe that the image translator made a mistake... but it is a very funny mistake, so I decided to share it here.

Here it is translated into English for those who don't know Spanish (so they can understand what the hell I'm talking about).

[solemn-siren]

Molly saying “Hi I would like to go to jail” in Episode 1 of Epithet Erased gives me the same vibes as this hilarious translation error my mom sent me

The correct translation is roughly among the lines of “Stealing is illegal, We will immediately call the police if we find you stealing”

[badani-studios]

I found this Russian gaming website and just wow,

Recently, I showed my friend this gaming website on a school computer, and they showed it to our Russian half of the mix of 4 (2 Russian, 2 American). They sent a screen recording of it and...

there was their voice playing back. recording. muffled. without consent.

They logged off, but I was playing Baby Hazel (I LOVE BABY HAZEL BECAUSE SHE IS SO DIVA), so I kept going. I eventually got bored and found "Cat Mario." It was a Japanese game translated to Russian and then English. A translation error was bound to happen, and it did.

IT WAS NOT SUBTLE

[mymangamemes]

When you want to gossip with friends but you’re all super drunk

From The Villainess Tames the Beast by singaSong, NDduck, Seol Young, and HI (fan translation)

[salvadorbonaparte]

Translation faux pas: Audible just suggested me the third installment of the "Ten Realms" series by Michael Chatfield. Unfortunately, the German translation of this title is "The Third Reich".

[gailyinthedark]

Grammar rant time.

I see this construction somewhat regularly and it drives me crazy. Say is intransitive. Whom isn't the object of anything, it's the subject of its own clause and should therefore be who. Probably it's done in imitation of sentences like this:

But the sense is completely different. (Made is transitive with whom as object; they're both part of the same clause.)

Gah.

[livingfictionsystem]

During one of my birthdays, Kaspar made a celebratory comment about how it's excited for me to join the "27 club."

It...

Didn't understand that didn't just reference what age you are.

"Oh yes we're all so titillated over your ascension into the illustrious 27 club. :3"

Me: "-choking on my wine- ARE you???"

-Xanthe

[newera-interactiveif]

I not sure if this was a mistake or not but...

I believe "voce" left a "voce" untranslated here on the 3th option. Kkkkkkkkkkkk um gringo confundira um você com um que nesse caso? Voice? "Voice sighs and walks to class" voice seria o nome da pessoa? Kkk seria legal.

Eita 😅misericórdia, não tinha percebido isso ai. I'll check that and correct it, thank you for letting me know 😁

[netscapenavigator-official]

When using Firefox's on-device translation to translate a website from Norwegian, this is what I got:

Thank you, Firefox. So glad I can get a Kia EV6 in shit, cocaine gray.

[royalarchivist]

Phil: I swear to god, the translator is so fcking funny. Baghera: Oh ye- oh no [dissolves into laughter] NOOOOOO TODAY'S AWFUL.

[sunstormbudgie]

Sometimes Youtube will offer to translate people's comments if it detects that they're using a language that isn't the one you've set it to. However, it tends to be a bit overly enthusiastic about detecting non-English words. Occasionally, this can have some… amusing results.

[panther-os]

[cries over a Mando'a translation error bc it's just been that type of day]

"Jurkad ti kote" means "an attack with glory" - with the noun form of "attack". "I carry a saber into battle" would be "ni jurir kad lo akaan". "Jurkad" and "jurir" are right on top of each other in the Mando'a dictionary.

"Attack with glory" as an imperative sentence with the verb form of "attack" would be "Ke'jurkadir ti kote". As an exclamatory sentence or battle cry like "Oya!" it would "Jurkadir ti kote!"

"A glorious attack" would be "kote'la jurkad". "Glory in battle" would be "kote bat kyrbej" ("glory on the battlefield") or literally translated "kote o'r akaan". And "(a) glorious battle" would be "kote'la akaan".

(For those wondering why "kote'la" and not "kotyc" - since "kot" means "strength", "kotyc" already means "strong" and "koteyc" would be easily confused.)

[hchollym]

It's a strange question, but i was currently looking for Percy quotes in Book 4 (very strange feeling because i haven't opened it since like...18 years?) and something bugged me, does Charlie ever worked at the ministry at some point? You had to know that i am French, and in the conversation when Harry ask who is Maugrey, Charlie answers that he had meet him one time at the ministry "when he had started to work with Dad". It's bug me, i wonder if there was a translation error because i didn't remembered that Charlie had worked there for a time before to go to Romania, i doubted it but for to be sure i checked a HP page about him and it's no stated, so the translator of the book in my language must had made a mistake, in all likeliwood Percy shoud have answered to this question. Does it's also Charlie who answered in the english version??? If yes, that mean JKR herself had made the error. In either cases, Percy doesn't need to have quotes stoled!

The translator made a mistake.

Here's the quote in the American English version:

“Who is Mad-Eye?” asked Harry. “He’s retired, used to work at the Ministry,” said Charlie. “I met him once when Dad took me into work with him..."

So Charlie never worked at the Ministry; Arthur just brought him in at one point, probably for something like a "Bring Your Kid to Work Day" thing when Charlie was young.

I'm guessing JKR just had Charlie answer the question because she wanted to give him a few lines since he's one of the Weasleys that we rarely see.

Thanks for the ask! 😊

[mikeyhasthoughts]

thinking about a few days ago when a bilingual friend texted me about a really unfortunate translation error he made while on the phone with a family member

accidentally told them “congratulations” while trying to say “much luck” after their dad had died

received this text while in front of a different friend -> “oh NO” “what” “i should NOT be laughing”