As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 13:
Names appear especially hard to get right, even European ones, which is all the stranger as most American naming conventions haven't ventured far from their origin. This is why we see female Russians with masculine surnames and patronymics used as names or surnames. This could be explained if their name was anglicized, though the practice has fallen out of favor in recent decades. In most cases, the author [[They Just Didn't Care|just didn't care]].
Contrast with [[Gratuitous Foreign Language]] (and all its subtropes), where the writers take care to give characters lines in a foreign
Contrast also with [[Famous-Named Foreigner]], when in an attempt to avert this trope, the author manages to give his foreign character a ''real'' name... albeit belonging to a famous historical character, which often leads to ridiculous results. When a work is named with this trope, it may result in a [[Word Puree Title]].
Line 24:
* An ad for Dunkin' Donuts has a [[Take That]] jingle from [[They Might Be Giants]] aimed at Starbucks, complaining about the gratuitous foreign-sounding gibberish in its drink orders:
{{quote|Is it French? Or is it Italian? Perhaps [[Title Drop|Fritalian]]?}}
** Ironically, this is an ad for Dunkin' Donuts
* A German commercial used quasi-Italian sentences that really were German phrases spoken with a strange tone, like "Pasta ber prima" (=Passt aber prima / That fits [you] really good!)
* A South African ad for an Italian restaurant / coffee place had a husband pretending to say romantic things to his wife. Actually, he is surreptitiously reading the take-away ("takeout") menu, only with dramatic / passionate intonation. The wife goes all weak-kneed and says that she loves it when he speaks Italian to her.
Line 75:
* ''[[Fafner in the Azure]]'' has a supposedly Irish character named "Kanon Memphis", which doesn't sound like the sort of name ''anyone'' would have, let alone an Irish person.
** Might've been meant to be Conan, which IS the name of an Irish Anti-hero (Conan MacMorna).
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' actually does a pretty good job of having Western names. There's Eva, Maria, Rosa, Rudolf, George, Battler,
** Battler's name is [[Lampshaded]] by him in the sound novels, due to him complaining how odd it is.
* Somewhat subverted in episode 10 of ''[[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]]'', where in-show foreigners Suzuki Sato and Tanaka Watanabe, both CIA agents, don't bother to check their Japanese aliases for simple things like using two surnames as a full name before entering the country. The Japanese officials with whom they interact are understandably befuddled upon seeing their calling cards. They're [[Acceptable Targets|obnoxious Americans]] with their own sinister agenda and we're supposed to dislike them anyway. To add insult to injury, they look and act very much like some like racist stereotypes of the Japanese, which is probably supposed to reflect their opinions of the country they've been assigned to.
* ''[[D.Gray-man]]'', spectacularly so with the "Portuguese" Tyki Mikk's name. There are at least 4 blatant errors in this name alone.
** "Arystar Krory" was named after a real person called "Aleister Crowley", but the author deliberately went with a different spelling. There is also a Mexican man with the name "Winters Socalo", a German woman named "Miranda Lotto", two Chinese siblings named "Lenalee" and "Komui", and an American man named "Tup Dop". "Marie" is a man, and it seems that's his last name, meaning his first name is "''Noise''". Of note is that a woman who's name was spelled "Crea" in the series itself has her name more correctly spelled "Claire" in a [[All There in the Manual|data book]].
* ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' has most of its characters with obviously Japanese given names, but because they all come from [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture
* ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' is a repeated offender for its attempts at Italian names, most notably Bianchi is used as a (female) first name - it is actually a surname.
* ''Aura Battler Dunbine'' has a classic example of this. A female character is introduced as "Marvel Frozen", to which the Japanese lead hero responds, "'Marvel Frozen'? You must be American!"
Line 145:
* Certainly true of the sort-of Indian cult in ''[[The Beatles (band)|Help!]]'' Made funnier by the fact that the British actors make essentially no attempt to conceal their...[[Buffy-Speak|Britishness]].
* ''[[The Princess Diaries]]'' and ''[[The Princess Diaries]] 2: Royal Engagement'' play this trope straight over a cliff by [[Ruritania|inventing a European country]], "Genovia," in which the queen (Julie Andrews) is English, the peasants speak either French or English with French, English, and American accents, and the [[Beautiful All Along|princess's]] name is Princess Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi.
** The books do give some
*** Mignonette is a flower.
*** Queen Clarisse (Julie Andrews) could very well have been an English princess who married the Genovian King. The fact that she is styled "Dowager" would usually mean that she was a queen consort (married into the royal family) rather than queen regnant (ruling in her own right).
Line 177:
* In ''[[Charlie's Angels]]'', there's a scene where the angels speak Finnish to each other. They discuss what a bad idea it would be to sleep with a client, but this is not what it says in the subtitles. I'm guessing the scene was rewritten after it was shot. Things get increasingly weird if you watch the movie with Finnish subtitles, which also don't match what's said.
* Kal Penn has said that when filming the scene where Taj loses his virginity in ''Van Wilder'', the filmmakers told him to "say something in Hindoo [sic] -- something religious." Instead, he said in Gujurati: "There's a white bitch under me."
* ''[[The Producers]]'': While Uma Thurman certainly tries to speak
* In ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'', the thuggish Brazilian who harasses Bruce Banner in the early scenes speaks Portuguese with a horrible, horrible foreign accent. It's grammatically correct (or correctly incorrect for the setting), though.
** Really, every Brazilian not played by a Brazilian actor (there are quite a few) speaks in a barely understandable accent. Bruce Banner's emergency Portuguese actually sounded better than most of them.
Line 213:
== Literature ==
* Subverted in the Russian translation of ''[[Dune]]''. The original novel contains a Fremen funerary hymn, which is actually a real-world Serbian song. The translator mistook it for garbled Russian, and, in the preface, he chastised Frank Herbert for "picking up the most pleasant-sounding words out of a Russian dictionary"; to convey the purported
* Nanny Ogg of the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels usually manages to make herself understood no matter where she goes, although her linguistic approach is described as "gabbling away in her own personal [[Esperanto, the Universal Language|Esperanto]]". "Excuse me, young homme! Trois beers avec us, silver plate", or 'Mein herr! Mucho vino avec zei grassy ass'
** A straight example in ''[[Discworld/The Colour of Magic|The Colour of Magic]]'', where Rincewind's identity in our world is a Swedish scientist named "Dr. Rjinswand", which is nothing like a Swedish name. (In the Swedish translation, his nationality is changed to Dutch; though, confusingly, they left in the bit about his language sounding "Hublandish", the Discworld's equivalent of "northern".) Twoflower becomes a German tourist with the last name "Zweiblumen", which is correct, but translates to "Twoflower''s''" (a straight translation of his name would be "Zweiblume").
Line 350:
{{quote|Sheriff Andy: "Ik ben net in de stad gekomen. Wie zou mij willen vermoorden?}}
*** It's: "I've just arrived in the city. Who would want to murder me?" It's Dutch all right, although the first sentence is not 100% grammatically correct.
* [[Lampshade
* Justin and Zeke's "alien language" in ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]''. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the actual aliens ([[Aliens Speaking English|who speak fluent American English, anyway]]) in the episode "Wizard for a Day".
* In the ''[[All in The Family]]'' episode "Gloria Poses in the Nude", there's a Hungarian painter called Szabo Daborba. While "Szabó" is a common Hungarian family name meaning "tailor", Daborba is not a name in Hungarian. Szabo is also used as if it was his given name (in Hungarian name order, family name is followed by the given name). Gloria also says a sentence which is supposed to be in Hungarian, but actually isn't.
Line 361:
* ''[[Dollhouse]]'': When Echo tried to speak Russian, you'd be hard-pressed to find a native speaker who could understand half of what she's saying. Particularly [[Egregious]] because she was supposed to infiltrate [[The Mafiya|the Russian mafia]].
** Actually, the words are mostly correct. The accent is pretty bad though.
* The rare moments of comic relief in ''[[Mission Impossible (TV series)|Mission Impossible]]'' frequently came from the ''intentionally'' incorrect pseudo-Slavic (called "Gellerese" after creator/showrunner Bruce Geller) that features in almost every episode taking place behind the [[Iron Curtain]]; it
* ''[[Heroes]]'' is pretty accurate considering it's an entirely American production, but there are a few name-related items that you'd think someone would have brought up when being translated into Japanese:
** Yamagato (Industries) is not a Japanese name. This was likely taken from "Arigato." The writing in the show is 山形 which is "Yamagata": a surname, and city and prefecture in Japan, which would have been more accurate.
Line 368:
** "Hiro" is usually part of a given name in Japanese (like "Masa"). When the character is by itself, it is usually "Hiroshi." In Japan, "Hiro" would be used as a nickname, very informally. Typically, Japanese people do not introduce themselves with a nickname. Of course, his name is used [[Captain Obvious|because "Hiro" sounds like "Hero."]]
* ''[[Castle]]'' features a female Czech victim called Eliska Sokel. While both names are legitimate Czech names - lacking diacritics and misspelled, respectively - the latter one is male. The female verson of the Czech surname Sokol is Sokolová.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKbw9YMHUiI This skid
Line 388:
* "Spanish Bombs" by The Clash has a refrain which is supposed to be Spanish but is not actually a complete, comprehensible phrase.
** To a casual listener, in fact, the background lyrics of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" barely even qualify as gibberish as sung.
* Lemon Demon's "Hyakugojyuuichi 2003" has a whole verse of Mark "Toxic" Hughes talking pseudo-Japanese gibberish in the style of the announcer from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' [[Image Song]] "Pokemon Ieru Ka Na?" (also known as "the Japanese Poke-Rap"). This was so the gibberish could be [[Mondegreen
* ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]'''s soundtrack has some random made up language for at least one song.
* [[Madonna]]'s ''Greatest Hits Volume 2'' album has "モヂジラミミヂ" written on the packaging. Those katakana spell "mojijiramimiji". This means nothing in Japanese; however, it ''is'' what one gets when one types "Madonna" on a Japanese keyboard set to kana mode...
Line 413:
* [[David Bowie]] uses the phrase "Ouvre le chien" in two different songs. The literal translation from French is "Open the dog."
* The [[Red Hot Chili Peppers]] song ''Around the World'' has parts of the chorus sung in a fake stereotypical Chinese sounding language.
* Played for humor in the Angry Salad cover of Nena's "99 Red Balloons": their version is mainly in English (based on the translated version released as a single), but towards the end vocalist Bob Whelan starts throwing in stock German phrases, as a tongue in cheek nod to the original German version: "99 o tannenbaum, weinerschnitzel [[wikipedia:
* Lionel Richie's "All Night Long" features some African-sounding gibberish in its breakdown section. Richie originally wanted an authentic translation, but after learning there were literally thousands of languages spoken in Africa, he decided it was easier to just make something up.
* As part of the satire, the "Inuit" chanting in [[The Residents]]' ''Eskimo'' is actually strangely enunciated English: Most famously the track "Festival Of Death" includes a garbled chant that is actually "Coca-cola adds life!".
Line 458:
** It's even lampshaded in the end of the song : ''Hâ! Hâ! Ça-oh-râ toujours l'air chinoâ.'' (Ha ha, it'll still sound chi-neez !)
* Done in the Tower of Babel scene in ''The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)'', with fake Spanish ("Taco sombrero Antonio Banderas!") and fake Japanese ("Godzilla killy-killy sukiyaki").
* [[Cirque Du Soleil]] uses 'invented' lyrics in many of its
** Also played with somewhat, in that Cirque has songs in quite a variety of ''real'' languages, to the point where, depending on the show, you can never really be quite sure whether or not you're listening to music in a real language.
Line 466:
* ''[[Command & Conquer|RedAlert]]'' '''runs''' on this trope, complete with [[Blind Idiot Translation|Perevod Slepovo Idiota]] and [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|What Do You Mean It Does Not Sound Glorious]].
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Y6cVQUJb0&feature=player_detailpage#t=6m57s One of the examples:] АПОСНО! НЕ ВИХОА! <ref>Pure gibberish. Of course, they meant "Danger! Keep out!", but wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Опасная зона! Посторонним вход запрещён!"? If that would have been, then this cutscene would be a [[Moment of Awesome]] to these who knows the language.</ref>
** ''Red Alert 3'' trailer also throws this one for a second. A rebel board that says "Изменение".
** Good luck understanding the pseudo-Soviet hymn played at the menu screen. Apparently, they did try to use real Russian words, but none of the people who actually sang it spoke the language. The music does, however, make it sound like something similar to the Red Army Choir.
** They are the first, to this troper's knowledge, to correctly use the phrase" do svidania", which is normally used in movies to mean "good bye". To be fair, that is what it means, but in the context of "see you later". Literally it means "until (our) meeting". Which means you wouldn't say it to a guy you're about to shoot (unless you're very religious). The proper word in this case would be "proshchai" (a final goodbye). [[Tim Curry|Premier Cherdenko]] uses it correctly.
Line 487:
* Every Civ leader in ''Sid Meier's [[Civilization]] Revolution'' speaks in themed foreign sounding gibberish... Intentionally.
** The same thing happens for every governor in "[[Sid Meier's Pirates!]]". Notably, it's the '''''same nonsense phrases''''', just inflected differently for the various nationalities.
** On the other hand, the only main-line ''Civ'' game to incorporate talking units, ''[[Civilization]] IV'', has each of the units respond in the appropriate language. There was a little bit of [[Blind Idiot Translation]], but the fact that they bothered to come up with good
** ''Civilization V'' did away with the talking units. They just grunt now. Instead, they introduced talking leaders. Of course, the phrases the leaders say and the subtitles are completely different, even for leaders like [[George Washington]] and Queen Elizabeth I. There is still the problem of Rameses II not using proper Ancient Egyptian (this is justified by ''no one'' knowing what it's supposed to like) and other historical characters using modern-day versions of the languages. For example, [[Catherine the Great]] sounds like a modern Russian woman despite being born in a 18th century German principality (her subjects often complained at not being able to understand her heavily-accented Russian). Washington also sounds like he could be living in the 21st century. This troper can't speak for any others.
* Events of ''[[Half Life]] 2'' take place in an unspecified Eastern European location, so the game features quite a few inscriptions in Bulgarian.
Line 499:
* The ''[[Panzer Dragoon]]'' series has the so-called "Panzerese," which is basically a combination of Japanese, German, English, and either Latin or Italian. Example: One song of the Panzer Dragoon Saga Soundtrack is called "Ecce Valde Glorious Ale." Make of that what you will. (does not qualify for [[Fictionary]] because it uses actual words from other languages)
* ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'' features Arabic graffiti in some levels, of varying accuracy. In one particularly amusing case, "Infinity Ward", the game's developer, is spelled out phonetically.
* The [[But Not Too Foreign|Half-Japanese, Half-Russian]] male lead of the first two ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' games had the Foreign Sounding Gibberish name "Urnmaf" or "Urmnaf"
** It could be meant as "Yuuri" in Japanese (as well as "Yuri" in Russian)- which ''is'' a legitimate male name. English speakers don't necessarily pay attention to Japanese-style short versus long vowels.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]''. Midna's spoken language sounds like some strange merge of Asian accent with French, while employing neither the grammar rules nor words of either language. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfoBWjUNYQw We think it's gibberish, anyway].
Line 558:
* Ling Ling in ''[[Drawn Together]]'' speaks vaguely Asian gibberish, called "Japorean" by the show's creators. According to "Drawn Together Babies", in-world he speaks a language he made up with his dead twin. In another episode, Ling Ling undergoes an operation to speak English.
* In the original ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' cartoon, Splinter often uses random Japanese words (and sometimes even obviously non-Japanese words, like "Sacajawea") in his battle cries.
* One of ''[[South Park]]'''s creators is fluent in Japanese, so all speech in Japanese is accurate (albet on occasion slightly off, such as "sore no" instead of "sono" or "sonna"). Other languages are just gibberish, though. Lampshaded in "Good Times With Weapons", where the lyrics of the Japanese theme song are a [[Bilingual Bonus]] and a [[Take That]] to anyone who thinks that it's cool
** 'Broflovski' is not a real Polish or Pole-Jewish surname, though this is probably intentional.
** The episode ''Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants'' features Afghan children and Taliban who speak fluent, accurate Persian, (albeit with Iranian accents), while Bin Laden speaks random Koranic words, such as "jihad," "Ramadan," "Mohammad," "fatwa," mixed with gibberish.
Line 610:
* Adding "-iau" at the end of every word and speaking bad English in a heavy accent doesn't make you sound Welsh. (for example 'I is Welsh-iau, bruv')
** Also, many people believe that simply going 'chhhhggghahhhghahhgggh' sounds like Welsh.
* Häagen-Dazs ice cream is famous for having chosen a name which sounds... Danish? Hungarian?
* There's also [[wikipedia:Europanto|Europanto]], a "language" comprising random words and syntax of various European languages, depending on what languages the speaker happens to know. A sample sentence: "Europanto want nicht informe aber amuse." It started as a journalist's joke, but now there are forums dedicated to its use.
** Swedish humour magazine ''Grönköpings Veckoblad'' uses a similar Esperanto parody, Transpiranto, which uses [[Bilingual Bonus|bilingual puns and Swedish words phonetically translated into German, French, Italian, English or other European languages.]]
Line 622:
** Even when the names are made up of real kanji, they're often used wrong. Japanese names follow ''[[wikipedia:Japanese name|rules]]'', and they're not actually hard to use.
* Comedian Sid Caesar has gotten much mileage out of this technique. He shows it off on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dlr8fj4Y00 this guest appearance] on the American ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]?''
* Many "Spanish" place names in the American Southwest were actually invented by English speakers who wanted them to ''sound'' Spanish. In some cases, because these folks didn't actually know Spanish well at all, they turn out to be gibberish. For example, [[wikipedia:Isla Vista|Isla Vista, California]], [[wikipedia:Mar Vista, Los Angeles|Mar Vista, Los Angeles]] and [[wikipedia:Sierra Vista, Arizona|Sierra Vista, Arizona]] are [[Blind Idiot Translation]]s of "Island View", "Sea View" and "Mountain View" respectively that
** Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is guilty of this. Before marrying Corina Raigosa he was just Tony Villar. He added his name to his wife's name to come up with the far more ethnic-sounding (but utterly meaningless) "Villaraigosa" when he went into politics (and re-adopted his ethnic birthname "Antonio" rather than the anglicized diminutive "Tony"), to appeal to the large Hispanic population in Los Angeles.
*** It gets worse. The correct way of mixing both last names is Villarraigosa (with two r's), not Villaraigosa.
| |||