Such a fascinating and great read!Some of my favorites are the nonsense titles that are purposely made really…
Yes, I like tongue-in-cheek humour when it's done right!! Barrack O'Karma sounds great. Will check it out. :) Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Amazing article! enjoyed reading it soo much due to the fact that im able to relate on another level! i have noticed…
Chinese is a very difficult language to translate specially the historical dramas that are immersed in idiomatic expressions and a boat load of metaphors for every simple line. The modern C-dramas also suffer because many are directly translated from novels which again are filled with prose not often used while speaking. Actually, I think this a universal problem for all shows which are based on novels. Thank you for reading and commenting!
Great article! The details about translation and how it can be complicated to make one that is 100% perfect without…
Lol, yes specially because it makes no sense in Spanish. :)
And you are welcome! As an avid drama fan for decades, I have immense respect for fan subs and translators in general. When I started watching dramas, many of my college mates would do this on the side. I have seen old J-dorams, Korean and Thai shows because of their generosity alone. So I know how much effort they'd put in for translating and refer to dictionaries/fellow English speakers to translate the un-translatable. Also besides morphology, languages are impacted by culture in a major way and vice versa. It's wrong to think otherwise.
Though when it comes to current OTT platforms (except Viki etc fansubs) which are massively commercialised, the production crew can afford to put some thought behind the English titles if not the translation of the entire show. Cause I doubt it's the sole responsibility of the translator to decide the drama title of a show that you want to release world-wide.
The Korean title for Military Prosecutor Doberman is '군검사 도베르만'. Which ' 도베르만' is Doberman…
You are right! The English title though makes more sense with the use of 'Do Bae Man' than retaining the word 'Doberman' as it's mostly used as a metaphor anyway. What do you think?
"Daddy Long Legs could do with quotation marks or hyphens: 'Daddy-Long-Legs', but would still have weird connotations.…
Yes, it's a phrase but made popular only by the book becoming famously successful. I used the reference of the Oxford Dictionary cause I was sure there would be a lot of differing opinions and the term would be with the hyphens but I can see what you mean.
Maybe the book 'I love your Pancreas' would also become famous a few decades from now and the title would be a common phrase used by many! :P
Thank you for reading and enjoying enough to comment! :)
Wow, you have spent a lot of hard work on this article! It was interesting and fun to read. I'm always amused…
Oh yes! I have heard of that one. The original title 'The wrong Royal bride' is alright, no idea on the logic behind the English title as I haven't watched that show. Is she a doctor in the show or does she marry a doctor? Btw, thank you for reading my article and commenting.
This is not meant to be invalidation of your hard work/opinion but rather a defense of people who have a hard…
No job is easy and critiquing of the work doesn't mean a critique of the person. So, I don't take offence and hope you or other translators don't either. I have immense respect for people who do work, thankless or otherwise but I'd like to share some information as well.
Firstly, the adjective form of 'Devil' is "devilish" not "devil". One could also use 'diabolical or fiendish' but the word Devil as per the English Oxford Dictionary is a noun. In some cases it can be used as a verb when you say to be 'deviled' by someone but this is in informal use. There are of course many idiomatic expressions where the word devil is used but for the purpose of the drama title 'The Devil Judge', none of the expressions matter.
Just as I feel more comfortable with the original title, so I completely respect your opinion that you prefer the replacement version but linguistically, 'Clean with Passion for now' is grammatically incorrect.
While 당퐁당 is onomatopoeic, 'Splash Splash Love' is officially nonsensical without the correct punctuation and syntax.
I stand by what I said about Going My Home.
All in all I want to mention that I am not accusing anyone or any translator of making errors, so please don't take it personally. Wherever I am giving an opinion, I try to mention it as 'my opinion or feeling', but grammar and facts remain and those aren't opined by me. They just exist.
While all these titles suffer from incorrect language structure, literal translations or cultural dissonance, this doesn't mean that a person wouldn't be able to infer the 'implied' meaning if he/she/they put their mind to it. All I am saying is that in their current form, these titles are incorrect as per the dictionary. But English is forever changing and new words/phrases get added to the official language annually, so maybe by next year many of the phrases will get recognized as the correct form of the language with their constant use by drama obsessed fans worldwide.
As a Grammar Nazi, I truly enjoyed reading this editorial 🌟These titles are hilarious! 'I want to eat your…
Glad you enjoyed it! There are a lot of older ones I didn't venture to talk about here but if you check out the MDL thread I mentioned in the notes and older MDL articles, you'd be entertained as well! ^^
one english title of a kdrama i didn’t like is true beauty! it’s originally called 여신강림 and this is…
Oh that's interesting! I wasn't aware that's what it means. Another reason why translators shouldn't use Google translate to make sense of original titles, cause 여신강림 gives 'True Beauty' in GT. The 'inner beauty' you mention makes so much more sense though in a way, true beauty in English loosely means the same thing but is generally used by make-up brands to sell their products. :)
Ha, ha! I feel your frustration. :)I maybe biased but actually, I kind of admire that J-doramas have the gall…
Ha ha ha! I totally get you with 'Anohana'.
I wasn't aware they are changing the title for 'Some day or One day' as well. Firstly, the show is already such a success that I have no understanding why they wanted to make a Korean version. I get it's a purely commercial decision but haven't most Koreans already seen it?Secondly, why rename it? That makes no sense whatsoever!
The naming ritual sounds hilarious! We have it in our culture as well, but it's based on any random thing and not necessarily sound. That 'sounds' interesting. So what would the nicknames be? Just wondering...
I unintentionally learnt new stuff from 'Accidental Innuendos'. 💀Personally, I think there should be a ban…
Blame it on Tang Qi Gong Zi for making the novel so popular that everyone started using 'eternal' everywhere. :)
The innuendos are therefore, accidental! The first time I came across 'King is not Easy', I laughed my ass off! Cause the ML is such a young boy and of course the drama is not at all using the title as a pun. As I said, I love grade school humour.
Frightening Cohabitation totally would be a bigger disappointment than MRIAG well no bigger than the actual drama itself. (I was quite disappointed with it unfortunately.)
Nice to know you enjoyed reading my article. Thank you for commenting!
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Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Thank you for reading and commenting!
And you are welcome! As an avid drama fan for decades, I have immense respect for fan subs and translators in general. When I started watching dramas, many of my college mates would do this on the side. I have seen old J-dorams, Korean and Thai shows because of their generosity alone. So I know how much effort they'd put in for translating and refer to dictionaries/fellow English speakers to translate the un-translatable. Also besides morphology, languages are impacted by culture in a major way and vice versa. It's wrong to think otherwise.
Though when it comes to current OTT platforms (except Viki etc fansubs) which are massively commercialised, the production crew can afford to put some thought behind the English titles if not the translation of the entire show. Cause I doubt it's the sole responsibility of the translator to decide the drama title of a show that you want to release world-wide.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Maybe the book 'I love your Pancreas' would also become famous a few decades from now and the title would be a common phrase used by many! :P
Thank you for reading and enjoying enough to comment! :)
Btw, thank you for reading my article and commenting.
Firstly, the adjective form of 'Devil' is "devilish" not "devil". One could also use 'diabolical or fiendish' but the word Devil as per the English Oxford Dictionary is a noun. In some cases it can be used as a verb when you say to be 'deviled' by someone but this is in informal use. There are of course many idiomatic expressions where the word devil is used but for the purpose of the drama title 'The Devil Judge', none of the expressions matter.
Just as I feel more comfortable with the original title, so I completely respect your opinion that you prefer the replacement version but linguistically, 'Clean with Passion for now' is grammatically incorrect.
While 당퐁당 is onomatopoeic, 'Splash Splash Love' is officially nonsensical without the correct punctuation and syntax.
I stand by what I said about Going My Home.
All in all I want to mention that I am not accusing anyone or any translator of making errors, so please don't take it personally. Wherever I am giving an opinion, I try to mention it as 'my opinion or feeling', but grammar and facts remain and those aren't opined by me. They just exist.
While all these titles suffer from incorrect language structure, literal translations or cultural dissonance, this doesn't mean that a person wouldn't be able to infer the 'implied' meaning if he/she/they put their mind to it. All I am saying is that in their current form, these titles are incorrect as per the dictionary. But English is forever changing and new words/phrases get added to the official language annually, so maybe by next year many of the phrases will get recognized as the correct form of the language with their constant use by drama obsessed fans worldwide.
Appreciate your sweet comment!
And agreed! I feel the same way most of the times. ^^
There are a lot of older ones I didn't venture to talk about here but if you check out the MDL thread I mentioned in the notes and older MDL articles, you'd be entertained as well! ^^
Hope you are okay!
The 'inner beauty' you mention makes so much more sense though in a way, true beauty in English loosely means the same thing but is generally used by make-up brands to sell their products. :)
I wasn't aware they are changing the title for 'Some day or One day' as well. Firstly, the show is already such a success that I have no understanding why they wanted to make a Korean version. I get it's a purely commercial decision but haven't most Koreans already seen it?Secondly, why rename it? That makes no sense whatsoever!
The naming ritual sounds hilarious! We have it in our culture as well, but it's based on any random thing and not necessarily sound. That 'sounds' interesting. So what would the nicknames be? Just wondering...
The innuendos are therefore, accidental! The first time I came across 'King is not Easy', I laughed my ass off! Cause the ML is such a young boy and of course the drama is not at all using the title as a pun. As I said, I love grade school humour.
Frightening Cohabitation totally would be a bigger disappointment than MRIAG well no bigger than the actual drama itself. (I was quite disappointed with it unfortunately.)
Nice to know you enjoyed reading my article. Thank you for commenting!