I get that ofcourse no languages will be exactly identical but as a bilingual, whenever i watch a show with my native language and the subtitles are set on to my second language, so many of the meanings get lost in translation even when the translation is pretty accurate? How could this be
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A lot of meaning in communication also relies on common idioms shared among the people who use it as their native language. Sometimes while the words translate, getting the meaning across can be difficult without providing a lot of detail…but that’s not conducive to trying to match the pacing of the movie.
There are many reasons for it.
Mainly differences in cultural values and nuances each language evolved in compare to other.
In addition to the things others have noted, there’s an extra complication with subtitles specifically. That is, the translations have to be short enough to be easily read and understood in the short amount of time they are on screen. There’s not a lot of time for extra context, explanation, or other additions, so subtext that isn’t strictly necessary for the plot can sometimes get left by the wayside.
Ooh, I have a good example for this.
I have a Korean copy of Moby Dick. Now, Moby Dick has one of the most famous opening lines of any English language book: “Call me Ishmael.” The Korean edition translates this first line faithfully, but it also includes a footnote explaining that Ishmael was a character from the Bible who experienced great hardship, and therefore the name has connotations that should be remembered.
So the issue is that language isn’t just about the literal meaning of words. A Korean reader would have no difficulty literally understanding the phrase “Call me Ishmael,” but without having grown up in a Christian culture, they would have no reason to think that the name “Ishmael” *itself* has a greater meaning. The surface meaning of “This guy’s name is Ishmael” is easy to translate, but the deeper implication of “This character is destined for profound suffering” isn’t.
The best way I heard it described is languages are basically like a map to the culture they are born from. You’ll have some languages with ten variations of sand/desert but no word for tundra until they meet another culture that has 10 words for snow. It’s just not needed. But going beyond that to just basic cultural differences (that’s an extreme example dictated by geography), you might need ten words for sorrow or for an apology. You might need ten words for war. You will definitely have a lot of idioms that only make sense if you understand the wordplay in that language, but in another it makes no sense.
Many phrases, and idioms, are born from historical context from some local community that ended up spreading out to a whole nation’s language. But when you translate those phrases, and idioms, the context as to why a person would say something like that is completely lost on you.
And then you have puns, which are a whole level of complex playing with language for the sake of a joke, or naming convention, or hidden meaning that will just not work outside their intended language.
It all boils down to lack of context between the languages and history. If you translate it straight, it likely won’t resonate with the foreign audience. But sometimes there is no parallel in the language to make it make more sense.
My favorite example is the word “God”.
In the Western world (or Christianity), the word “God” invoke a sense of interpretation of a single entity that created the world and all that stuff. Monotheism.
Then, in the East (say Hinduism), the word “God” invoke a sense of interpretation of multiple entity that created the world and all that stuff. Polytheism.
There are some words, that, despite sharing the same definition is interpreted differently. It’s not exactly a case of bad translation since all good translation are just as bad. It’s more like it’s the closest word that can be translated to.
There can never be a perfect translation because there will always be something left to be desired.
There are others more. Jokes and idioms are probably the worst. And puns.
If I told you this sentence:
“Man, Bill really knocked it out of the park today.”
But you’d never heard the phrase or baseball isn’t big in your country, then that literal meaning doesn’t really make sense. Because you don’t have the cultural context to understand what the phrase is referencing
Some euphemisms do not translate well. If I said “That fellow was acting a bit spicy” that makes sense in a couple of languages but English isn’t one of them because I’m using a Kenyan euphemism. Yes, it does make sense in English to an extent, but it’s uncommon. So you might say “That guy’s a bit grumpy.” as a translation. It’s not correct, but it gets the meaning across..
If you say, in French, “Je ne comprend…” You could translate that as “I don’t get it.” or you could translate it as “What?” or you could translate it “I don’t understand.”, etc, etc.
If I say “That’s like Jay refusing a ‘J’.” and there was a previous reference to a Kevin Smith movie, people would know what that means. This assumes that you have watched Kevin Smith movies and are aware of Jay’s penchant for smoking the jazz cabbage. For safety though, you change the translation to the nation that you are translating for. There’s probably a “Jay” there but they have a different name.
If I made a movie, and I had a female character say, “Did you see my panoosh?” that would not make sense. Because the context is that it is a local slang, in Ojibwe, in northern Minnesota, for a woman’s lady parts. It is not common parlance. So you’d have to translate that into something that makes sense in the region that you are showing the movie in but you can’t use standard language, you have to use a local euphemism. Also, it has to be a local euphemism that does not match the speakers ethnicity. That takes work. It’s hard, and it will never be perfect.
Bottom line, as much as it bothers all of us, they are doing their best. You have to translate things that make no sense in the language you are translating into.
Another one are situations where it sounds like the right translation, but carries a different meaning.
Butt dial vs booty call
“Ich bin ein Berliner” ended up being “I’m a jelly doughnut”
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