Adam Table
Bad Translations English is my first language.  Now that I know a little Spanish and French, I often like to watch American TV shows translated into those languages to practice.  I watch them with French audio or Spanish audio.   I often find that the translation in French or in Spanish, etc, is not correct.  It's often a gross simplification. Sometimes they completely change the meaning.  The thing I see most often is that they take a complex, colorful expression and translate it into a simple literal expression.  Why do they do that?  It's like other languages do not allow unusual ways of speaking.  If someone says something in an unusual way in English, then the translation should reflect that.  It's possible.  We do that sometimes.  What do you think?

L'anglais est ma première langue. Maintenant que je connais un peu l’espagnol et le français, j’aime souvent regarder des émissions de télévision américaines traduites dans ces langues. Je les regarde avec audio français ou audio espagnol. Je trouve souvent que les traductions en français ou en espagnol, etc., sont incorrectees. C'est souvent une simplification grossière. Parfois, ils changent complètement le sens. Ce que je vois le plus souvent, c’est qu’ils prennent une expression complexe et colorée et la traduisent en une expression littérale simple. Pourquoi font-ils ça? C'est comme si les autres langues n'autorisaient pas des manières inhabituelles de parler. Si quelqu'un dit quelque chose d'une manière inhabituelle en anglais, la traduction doit en tenir compte. C'est possible. Nous faisons cela parfois. Qu'est-ce que tu penses?
28 nov 2018 14:50
Commenti · 4
1
@Vera  It makes me sad though.  When they translate a language, they could try to use words that match the spirit of the original language.
28 novembre 2018
1
Same thing happens when an American movie is translated into Russian. I think it's because translation is adjusted to a specific country. I don't like it when I hear something very Russian that only Russian speakers are familiar with in an American blockbuster. It's annoying. Probably, it's the main reason why I prefer to watch original films.
28 novembre 2018
You make mistakes because you try to translate every word and don't understand the expression. 
It's like an English expression (out of the blue) this expression means suddenly 
but as an Arabic man 
I was translate it 
out ----> out
blue ----> color.
but I got the right meaning when I practice with some friends, so I advise you to try to read more about the language you wanna learn an practice it more and more 
good luck 

28 novembre 2018
Here's an example.  On the TV show "The Good Place" a character describes the results of a charity auction as "middle-thermometer".  It's funny and colorful.  It means mediocre because we often see thermometers used to represent the amount of money raised for a charity or some cause.  But the translations in French and Spanish just say "mediocre".  The spice and variety is lost, and we have a direct, literal translation.  It's boring and it's incorrect.
28 novembre 2018