Your Translation Ideas

Did you ever watched the show/read comic/played game/etc in English and then in your native language and thought "I could do it better"? Here's topic for you.

Naturally, it would work best if people who speak the same language would find each other. For example, I speak Polish and for fun I imagined how I would translate names of Miraculous Ladybug villains. And people who don't speak Polish might not understand why literal translation of Timebreaker (to "Czasołamaczka") does not sound good. Basically, you can't just mash time+break+er, you make it sound like invention my Absent-Minded Professor. My idea was "Zegarmistrzyni", lit. "Clockmaster" or rather "Clockmistress", feminine version of Clocksmith/Watchmaker. Sounds cool and adds meaning since Timebreaker's goal was to fix a watch.

But I was especially disappointed by the way show translated Copycat, evil copy of Cat Noir. In Poland "cat" is called "kot". So Cat Noir's Cataclysm (lit. trans. "Kataklizm") is called "Kotaklizm". OK, that makes sense. Still, I thought that Copycat could be just called "Sobowtór" (double, look-alike, Doppelgänger) and it would work just fine. They translated him as "Kotowtór" which sounds really fake. Thing is, there are still 2 words they could use if they wanted a pun : "replika" and "duplikat" which obviously mean "replica" and "duplicate". Replikot or Duplikot (Replicat/Duplicat) would make much better names.

I'm still waiting to see how they translate Kung Food. I played for a while with "Kung Głód" (prounced "gwood" means hunger) but I settled for Karma. See in Polish, Karma means food. Well OK, its generally used to describe fodder, but its still important word that other polish words are based on: karmić (feed), karmienie (feeding), pokarm (food)...And yet we still recognize it as concept of spiritual payback. Its a perfect name in my opinion and I look forward to see show (not) use it.

edited 17th Mar '16 12:54:06 PM by Sunchet

I, for one, would like to have the Japanese-sounding Aarune and the English-sounding Gilley swapped.

Aarune/Gilley is a Secret Base guy from the Hoenn Remakes.

Even though I grew up speaking English and would like to learn German, what has been bugging me is the fact that the card game name "Cards Against Humanity" probably hasn't been translated for the German-language localization.

However, I got a trick up my right-hand sleeve that could change that. My take on the name is Karten gegen die Menschlichkeit, which is a play on Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit, of course.

This is why I don't play games in Polish. I noticed that translations as a whole went down the shitter in the last fifteen years or so, and worse yet same happened with dubbing. This is most obvious in cases of re-translations, like Top Cat, where the titular hero was translated as "Kot Tip-Top" ("Tip-Top" being an expression meaning "top notch") in the early 90s version, but the current translation, rather stupidly, calls him "Tolek Cacek", for no reason other than to match the initials on the police call box near TC's trash can. But, on the other hand, the early 90s version translated Officer Dibble as "Slut" (pronounced "Sloot"), for no reason at all...

Anyway, Anarchy Online has those low-level critters called Rollerrats. My idea was to translate the name as "Szczurlacz" - a portmanteau of "szczur" (rat) and "turlacz" (from "turlać" - "to roll").

Oh dear god...

I checked how Morocco Mole's name was translated in Super Secret Secret Squirrel. Some complete moron turned it into "Mroczny Mól" (Dark Moth - moth of the wool-eating, closet-dwelling kind). My idea since a long time was "Kairski Kret" (Cairo Mole), which explained what sort of rodent he was (and the sunglasses), why did he wear the fez and was alliterative like the original.

This is one reason why I don't really like foreign media, especially Japanese stuff. It simply doesn't translate well. Linguistically, culturally, or — more and more frequently — both.

Sometimes, my idea is to translate names in Spanish.

Rainbow Dash - Colorapida (explanatory) Applejack - Manzanella (Manzana) Pinkie Pie - Rosadulce (pink pun) All I could think of at the moment...

These I actually quite like, especially Rainbow Dash. I don't know about others but I feel weird when I see My Little Pony without translated names. They're not Transformers.

Now I kinda regret I made topic so narrow. There are other stuff that could be discussed here, like particularly stupid/clever/interesting examples of translation we've seen. Maybe I should make new topic?

Anyway, Ball Weevil, Ben's alien that looks like bug who can make plasma balls and then ride on them, then kick them at enemies. In Poland, he's called Rochatynik, which is just slightly modified world Rochatyniec, which is type of beetle (rhino beetle to be exactly) Kinda makes me think of Beast Wars style of naming with guys like Cheetor or Tarantulas.

But here's my idea: In Poland table football is called Pilkarzyki which is diminutive for Soccer players. "Little Footballers " if you prefer. Single little footballer in polish is Pilkarzyk. I would name Ball Weevil Pilkazuk, which is combination of words "pilka" (ball) and "zuk" (beetle). So pretty much literal translation that's also a pun. ^note  If you want to go into details, it's not "zuk" but "żuk" where ż sounds very similar to rz, so it's even closer

Since The Legendary Starfy only comes in two languages (English and Japanese), how about the resident bad guys who somehow reveal that they only wanted to spread peace and love through fun games and were only roped in by a nutty space pirate would be in German:

• Snips - Anita (Chang)
• Ronk - Igul (Ching)
• Papes - Odel (Chong)