This will be a short post. Just a two-minute rant. Not overthinking, not analysing – just a little grumbling about how annoying it is when someone is careless, lazy, or simply stupid.
Translating a movie is a huge job. English is full of expressions that are extremely hard to translate well into Hungarian. It’s even harder if the length of the Hungarian line has to roughly match the English one. Translating sitcom jokes into another language? Almost impossible. But there’s a limit.
If the translator makes a mistake – okay, it happens. But there should be a proofreader who checks the script. If they also miss something, there’s still the voice actor, who might notice the error while recording. Or the director, or a technician, or anyone else who works with the material. And still, Hungarian dubbing is full of such obvious mistranslations that even a beginner English learner would catch them. Even just by listening to the Hungarian version.
Last night I was watching The Big Bang Theory, and this sentence hit my ear:
“A fiúknak el kellett menniük San Bernardinóba, és ott megszálltak.” “The boys had to go to San Bernardino and checked into a hotel.”
What? They just ran out of the lab to get some solder, not to spend a weekend away! Why would they book a room in San Bernardino? So I checked the original English line:
“Oh! The boys had to drive all the way to San Bernardino for the solder and got a flat.”
There you go. “Get a flat” is an idiom. Originally, it comes from “get a flat tire,” which means “to have a puncture”. But it’s clear what the translator was thinking. One meaning of “flat” is “apartment” In British English. Americans usually say “apartment” instead. It’s a good thing it wasn’t translated as “they got an apartment,” since one meaning of “get a…” is to obtain a physical object.
- get a job – to get hired
- get a drink – to have a drink
- get a taxi – to catch a cab
In the story, Leonard and Howard actually went to the movies and lied to Penny and Bernadette. And after that, this is what they say at the movies:
- They bought it.
- But we’re gonna have to put the spare on before we go back.
So seriously – no one noticed that they were talking about a flat tire?
Since I’m already in the mood, let me show you two more absurd moments from Friends.
In the first scene, Chandler and Joey are arguing. It all starts with a gold bracelet – Joey gave it as a gift, and Chandler, of course, immediately made fun of it. Joey gets offended and walks out. When he comes back, Chandler tries to explain himself, babbles, talks nonsense, and eventually, in his confusion, grabs a ball and accidentally knocks over a lamp with it.
Hey, whaddya say uh, we play some ball, you and me, huh, whaddya say? … OK, that’s my bad.
Here, “that’s my bad” is another idiom. It means “that’s my fault.” And in the dub? “OK. That’s my bed.” Seriously, no one noticed that “bed” makes no sense here?
How can you confuse the two words? Even their pronunciation is different – it’s not even possible to mishear them.
- bad /bæd/ – short, open “a” sound
- bed /bɛd/ – short “e” sound
In the other scene, the gang is talking after Monica’s Thanksgiving dinner about what they’re thankful for. Joey says he’s thankful for the nice autumn weather, because a breeze had lifted a girl’s skirt the other day. And what was the next thing he said? That he was thankful for his tongue.
Where did this nonsense come from? Is that really what he said?
“Which reminds me, I’m also thankful for thongs.”
Exactly. “Thong” and “tongue” are only the same in the Hungarian dub. In reality, Joey was thankful for thongs. (Although… if your imagination is dirty enough, the “tongue” version kind of works too.)
Once again! The problem is not that someone makes a mistake. The problem is that multiple people check the material, and the mistake still stays in. A good dub is not just a translation. It’s an interpretation. And if a joke becomes meaningless, awkward, or completely changes the mood of the scene, that’s not just a mistake – it’s a failure.
So that was today’s two-minute rant.