Thursday 13 November 2003

Lost in Translation?

I picked up So I Married An Axe Murderer on DVD a while back, and it's still as funny as I remember it to be. What caught my eye was the naming of the film in 4 languages other than English on the DVD itself, and although I'm no linguistics expert they didn't seem to be direct translations of the title.

So, I decided to find out what they should be, and what they actually are.

I headed over to the altavista babel fish to help me out.

French
Should be: "ainsi j'ai épousé un meurtrier de hache"
actually: "Quand Harriet Découpe Charlie" which means "When Harriet Cuts out Charlie"

Sounds like another film, like, say, "Quand Harry rencontre Sally"

German
Should be: "so heiratete ich einen Axt Murderer"
actually: "Liebling hältst du mal die Axt" which means "You hold times the axe for favourite"

The auto-translator kinda failed here. I think it should be something like "Darling, sometimes you hold the axe" which still sounds pretty odd in English.

Spanish
Should be: "casé tan a asesino del hacha"
actually: "Una novia sin igual" which means "A fiancèe without equal"

At least this translation works, but it pretty much misses the entire point of the title.

Italian
Should be: "così ho sposato un assassino dell'ascia"
actually: "Mia moglie è una pazza assassina?" which means "My wife is one crazy assassin?"

now that's more like it! God bless the Italians.

Posted by Jim at November 13, 2003 09:44 PM | TrackBack (0)