|
I stumbled onto the movie "The Ten Commandments" this weekend and I heard something too awesome not so share. When Pharaoh goes to visit Moses to see if he is building an army or a city, Moses shows him that he has constructed something beyond the Pharaoh's wildest expectation. Pharaoh's response? "Superb!" I hold that superb is the right word.
Translation is a funny thing. When it is done literally it loses a lot of its meaning and becomes flat. I was watching a fansub of bleach the other day where the translators decided to convey the meaning behind the phrase rather than the literal definition. It was awesome. Instead of translating urusai as "shut up", or "you are annoying" the character said "blow me". Sure the literal sense was off, but the meaning was exactly right in the situation. The characters had so much more dimension to them. That probably has something to do with why so many famous books written in foreign languages have so many translations. A translator gets to tweek the story a bit.
|