Translation Train Wreck: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"I can use my present, mine of I to own instincts like you?"''}}

 

{{examples|Proper English Version}}

 

{{quote|''"My gift, can I use my own instincts as you?"''}}

* The HK subbed ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'' had many memorable translation train wrecks, none as more so as the actual title to the series: "Trashed Cat Princess".

* The OVA for ''[[Psychic Force]]'' has a fan-sub that is not remotely useful as a translation. Not even characters' names are correct or even consistent.

* The only fan translation for the fourth part of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' is nigh-unreadable, both for being scattershot in quality and for horrible copy-editing. Sadly, this is the ''only'' English version available at this point. The fans refer to them as the DUWANG scans.

* There is a bootleg version of the [[Pokémon: The Movie 2000|second Pokémon movie]] movie that, among its many bizarre phrases, consistently translated the word "Pokémon" as "magical sonnies". The Sixth movie received a similarly hilarious bootleg, where Pokémon became "Supernatural Magic Baby".

* When ''[[Dragon Ball]] Kai'' first aired, the first fansubs released were noticeably bad. It had gems like Vegeta referring to the scouter as "drug", or telling Frieza that he will "not stop till you okay". Bulma also seems to like using "That Thing" as a swear word.

* Fortunately it eventually got an official English release, but for a time only the HK dvds were available for [[Star Ocean EX]]. They're an interesting case, as there appears to be two translators. Some episodes are very high quality, and even seem to have knowledge of the game's English translation. But the majority of them are this trope in spades, barely even being comprehensible in some places.

* Circa 2000 there was a grey-market box set of ''[[Sister Princess]]'' available through various channels, apparently via Hong Kong. It had English subtitles that looked to have been translated from the Chinese translation of the original Japanese. Plus, there seemed to have been three different teams translating different parts of the series, because each character had three different names at different points in the story, none of them the original Japanese.

 

** "Darth Plagueis becomes "reaching the man cloth space", who could use the "original dint" to create life. He became more and more strong and big, until he lost his power and died. After teaching all skills whole only to [his] disciple, cloth space's land killed him to let him going to bed. Also, "Speaker D" (Palpatine) is both the Speaker and Prime Minister of the senate, as well as the governor of the city of Coruscant (which is redundant) and a West. The Presbyterian Church seems to be behind the Hopeless Situation Warriors (which are renamed Heroes Ground later on for no apparent reason) but they may or may not be using them to usurp D. D later goes on to form "The Empire of the First Choice." Evidently, D gets the choice.

* Somehow in the Indonesian subbed version of ''[[Live Free or Die Hard]]'', there are always references to the non-existent [[Epic Fail|soya-bean cakes]]...

** This example appears to be a combination of this trope with [[Malaproper]]. Clearly, the subtitler just wrote down what he (mis)heard.

** The bootleg sub creates a [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] moment when [[media:Why so serious.jpg|Sam asks Frodo]] [[The Dark Knight|"Why so serious?"]]

* [http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/H/Home_Alone_4.html This] subtitle script of ''[[Home Alone]] 4''. It seems almost Shakespearian.

* A bootleg copy of the musical ''[[Chicago]]'' had rather odd subtitles, such as "I will be a loaf" and "Some guys just can't hold their ass in it".

* One bootleg of ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]'' contained subtitling errors that, while pretty minor compared to other examples on this list, are still pretty amusing. For instance, the vase the Indy finds at the start of the film is referred to as being from "Mong's Dynasty," Short Round became "Shoot Ground" and the Kali-worshipping Thuggees became the "Sacky Cult," who we are told made human sacrifices in the name of "Colly."

* [http://akusoft.livejournal.com/100772.html Screenshots from a Japanese bootleg] of ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Half-Blood Prince''. Or, should we say, ''Harry Potter and Zahafuburaddopurinsu''. The name "Hedwig" is always translated as "[[Hedwig and The Angry Inch|Angry Inch]]".

== Long Gasping Afrongs (Live Action TV) ==

* [http://users.livejournal.com/_phoon_/20913.html This rather hilarious collection] of screencaps from a ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' bootleg. "Defendoofs"!

** On this subject, the HK subs for ''[[Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger|Hurricaneger]] vs. [[Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger|Gaoranger]]'' translated the name of Gao Red's Gao Mane Buster as "Gao Main Bastard". It's become a joking insult in the fandom.

** An HK sub of ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX]]'' has the villains searching for "the strongest queer guy" and the eponymous Rider referred to as "Black Superman."

** And nearly a decade later, we had [[Kamen Rider Kuuga|Coolguy!]]

* One of the episodes of the 1994 season of [[Catchphrase]] when it airs on Challenge airs with a subtitle track taken from another episode. As you can imagine, none of the answers match up, as well as the subtitles being horribly out of place with the actual dialogue

 

* If you know where to look, you can buy 150 ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' CCG cards, including rare ones, for around $1.50. Unfortunately, the Winged Dragon of Ra might read "Magic Dragon with Wings [Legend beast junta] Fairy is sing. Powerful strength is charging the world that means all the life, ghost so much as skeleton." And let's not forget "Black cows magician" instead of "Magician of Black Chaos".

** You tend to get this all the time with counterfeit cards, which is surprising, [[Fridge Logic|considering most of the cards you'd get were translated to English anyway.]] Of course, who's complaining when you find a limb of Exodia named [[Good Bad Translation|"Sealed Leet Feet"]]?

 

 

{{quote|According to the world statistics quantity of population on the planet comes to 6 bln. It witnesses of an extreme density of population and as a result of natural resources shortage. At critical point there turn on natural mechanism of population limitation. Natural cataclysms and outrages of new, unknown before diseases prove the said above.}}

** It doesn't get any better from there.

* ''[[Pump It Up]] NX Absolute'''s World Max mode. For example:

{{quote|Select the biggest Velocity at last and Do Not step the Misses more than 10.}}

* The English word "Does", when used in a question ("Does this work?"), is translated into Hebrew as Ha'im. Another Hebrew word, Ha'em, is spelled exactly the same way and means "the mother". [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1020247/babelfish-causes-diplomatic-incident This once caused an international incident].

* [http://my.opera.com/TheEve/albums/showpic.dml?album=630163&picture=8614669 Fire extinguisher sign says "Hand Grenade"]

* Bootleg toys suffer from this, as demonstrated by this [http://www.animejump.com/images/sections/bootlegtoys/digimon3.jpg Digimon knockoff.]

** [http://engrishfunny.com/2009/03/26/engrish-visual-convulsion/ Sometimes you need to look really closely.]