Constanze (who is in Germany) and I (in England) started discussing this on various episode boards. Constanze sees both SG-1 and Atlantis dubbed in German and so has never heard the real voices of Jack O’Neill, Rodney McKay etc. I was curious whether their personalities are brought across by the actors who dub the characters, and so Constanze very kindly recorded the teaser to the Atlantis episode “The Siege” and sent it to me. I have also recorded some episodes of both series in English and have sent them to Constanze, and hopefully she’ll get them soon.

I was quite shocked by the difference in the voices! John Sheppard in German has a really deep voice! It was very odd not to hear his soft drawl. I imagine that Constanze will be equally startled to hear him speaking in English. Weir sounds more like Teyla than Teyla does. The actor who dubs Rodney McKay seemed to be quite a good choice – at least, he does have McKay’s irritable-sounding voice. The most accurate soundalike was Zelenka, though my ear isn’t good enough to tell whether they make it clear that Zelenka is a different nationality to the majority of the characters.

I only heard a very brief clip of Beckett in German, and I asked Constanze how they cope with his different use of English, e.g. “wee” for “small” and “aye” for “yes”. Constanze said that they ignore such things and just have him say “small” and “yes”. This could, I imagine, cause confusion in episodes like Poisoning the Well when Perna realises that Beckett speaks differently to the others. It could also be a bit bewildering when he suddenly starts talking about Scotland – after all, I doubt that every viewer would even realise that he does come from Scotland until then. I don’t imagine that everyone knows that the blue and white flag he wears on his sleeve is the Scottish flag.

Of course, I wouldn’t expect Beckett to speak with a Scottish-tinged German accent, but it must cause problems when non-American or –Canadian characters suddenly reveal their origin.

Another thing I came across recently was some episode titles in German. While some titles are a direct translation of the English, sometimes they either don’t have a direct German translation or the translators decide to go for a different title. For instance, the SG-1 episode “Lockdown” is somewhat unimaginatively titled “Colonel Vaselov” and “Resurrection” is called “Anna”. However – far more unforgivably – “Fragile Balance” is called “Der Falsche Klon” (“The False Clone”) and “Fallout” is called “Kiannas Symbiont”. Talk about giving away the plot!!

I think the german episode you need to see is "Fragile Balance", since the Young Jack's voicing and mannerisms (in the English version) are dead on for RDA's. It would be interesting to see how they handled the dubbing!

I have a friend from Germany who actually refuses to watch the German dubs of most English speaking shows as, he claims, most of the actors drafted in to do the voices never come close to the natural voice/inflections of the original actors.

The only time I've actually seen a dubed version of a show was an ST:TOS in French. That was a bizarre experience.

SpottedKitty,

until the internet became widespread and easily available, fans in Germany had very little choice but to watch the dubbed versions. The other possibilities of getting the original versions were:

- put up a satellite dish to try to get BBC (I don't think US TV is available over satellite). Expensive, and many houseowners forbid the tenants to put up the dishes (claiming the house looks ugly with a dish attached to every other window. As if the standard block-of-concrete multi-apartment building can look more ugly! And they never offer the alternative of putting up one single big dish and linking the households to it, either.)

- Buy the VHS tapes in US and have them shipped. Before DVDs and the internet, this was expensive, troublesome (waiting till the tapes were released, and paying in a different banking system, plus bank fees!) and took a lot of patience/waiting time (shipping 6-8 weeks, and the delay til the tapes were released.)

Now, of course, it's possible to download the original ep.s from the internet (though the quality is usually low due to filesize) or at least order from Amazon.co.uk, where shipping from England doesn't take quite as long.
Also, with DVDs available, there's always the original and the dubbed version on it.

I'd still like if TPTB re-dubbed the disastrous TOS ep. "Amok time", but I don't think it'll ever happen... (For one, the voice actors are probably too old by now...)

According to the culture tests at Zompist.com, different European countries handle the dubbing problem differently, some (I think the Finnish?) showing always the original with subtitles, some (the French?) dubbing, too.

But as long as the german TV stations claim that the viewers want the dubbed versions because they don't understand enough English, and that viewers don't like subtitles, there's not much we can do. (I still think that with modern series like SG or ST or X-files, the viewers are younger and English-oriented, anyway, to want the non-dubbed versions, and that they should ask the fans of each series individually instead of dubbing everything.)

ScottN,

what season is "Fragile Balance"? I haven't seen it yet. If and when we get it, I can try to tape it...

About knowing which countries the characters are supposed to come from: we never get a clue in the dubbed version (and before I read the boards, I had no idea at all that the blue/white cross Beckett wears meant Scotland!)

Many jokes therefore fall flat or are replaced. Good example: in the SG1 ep. where Jack goes to Antartica, and Beckett and the others are playing with the Ancient devices, they talk about the ZPM, and McKay says Zee Pee Em, while the others say Zed Pee Em, so another scientist explains that Rodney can't help it, he's canadian.

This little joke was replaced in the german version by some other exchange that made little sense. (Only when I read the exact quote Callie had provided on the board did I realize what they were talking about...)

The other real problem is on "Lost", where the different accents give hints which character is from the US, Australia, etc.
E.g. until the rock player (Charlie?) talks to the pregnant girl (Sherly?) and says that they have to stick together against the Yanks and drink tea did I realized that they're both Aussies...

Fragile Balance is Season 7, Constanze, and you should be getting the English version of that one shortly, German Post Office permitting!

Constanze--

In America, over-the-air broadcast television of foreign language films are almost always dubbed, and for the same reason you give. Premium sattelite stations (HBO, Showtime, etc.) sometimes alternate both dubbed and subtitled, VHS tapes are sometimes available either way, and sometimes only available dubbed. DVDs Likewise for cropping vs. letter-boxing of films origianally shown in the cinema (foreign or domestic).

As for accents in the undubbed versions, I'm afraid most of us would not be able to tell the difference between German and Swedish, much less the "more subtle" variations between Castillean Spanish and Cuban Spanish. A difference between Bavarian and Prussian would be beyond all but those who have spent years in Germany.

Re: Lost -- The scriptwriter for the German dub apparently does not know the difference between an Austalian accent and an English one (Charlie is from Liverpool.) But that's all right, about half of Americans don't, either.

Re: Scottish flag. The flags of England Scotland and Ireland were origianlly the Royal Arms of each monarch, but there were also naval "jacks" used mainly on ships which were the crosses of Sts George (England), Andrew (Scotland) and Patrick (Ireland). After the kingdoms were unified, the jacks were combined as the Union Jack. The Royal Arms were less and less used on flags, and the Union Jack eventually became the official flag. When there is cause (or pride) to indicate which kingdom is represented, the flag of that kingdom is used. Wales still uses the Red Dragon arms, since it lost its independence before the Union Jack was first created. St Patrick's Cross only represents Northern Ireland, since the rest of the Counties form a separate and independent country.

http://www.ujnews.com/html/flags.htm
http://flagspot.net/flags/gb-hist.html

they talk about the ZPM, and McKay says Zee Pee Em, while the others say Zed Pee Em

Actually, you've got it backwards. McKay says "Zed Pee Em", the others say "Zee Pee Em".

As for accents in the undubbed versions, I'm afraid most of us would not be able to tell the difference between German and Swedish, much less the "more subtle" variations between Castillean Spanish and Cuban Spanish. A difference between Bavarian and Prussian would be beyond all but those who have spent years in Germany.

Well, the series mostly use only "High" German (standard German) without any accents. Some movies replace a strong accent in the original with a strong german accent, eg Bavarian or Saxonian, but that's always a difficult decision to make, since it easily degenerates that character into comical farce (Bavarians are ridiculed a bit as rednecks, East Friesians and Austrians as dumb people- I think like the Scottish jokes the English have?, and Saxons are ridiculed since the reunion as being backwards and stupids - nobody likes the Saxon accent in the west...)

Zelenka, BTW, has no noticeable accent in the german version to indicate he's eastern Europe, only his unusual name indicates that. (And in the Ruhrpott region - middle of Germany - where the coal and steel industry used to be, there are many 3rd and 4th generation Poles with polish names, but german-speaking and with German passport. Though I think he wears a different Flag?)

Re: Lost -- The scriptwriter for the German dub apparently does not know the difference between an Austalian accent and an English one (Charlie is from Liverpool.) But that's all right, about half of Americans don't, either.

Well, he didn't say they were both english, but that they had to stick together against the Yanks and that they enjoyed drinking tea, so I assumed they were both English. But then, Australia has an English heritage - I only didn't know they also drink tea, I thought they all drink beer down under

...The Royal Arms were less and less used on flags, and the Union Jack eventually became the official flag...

The Union Jack would be recognizable. But then, I think Callie already wondered on the board for the Atlantis pilot why Beckett's allowed to wear a nation state flag, when the other flags seem to be countries.
Since I've already seen one guy with a German Flag, this would be like that guy wearing a Bavarian or other flag instead of the German one, and it would look strange indeed.
*****
One of the other annoying aspects of dubbing is the limited amount of qualified, trained voice actors/speakers (due to less fame than real acting , and low fees), so it's very disconcerting to hear the voice of some character - say Mulder of X-files - in a very different role. (My fiancee always complains that he doesn't like watching US movies since they always have the same speakers. But he also doesn't want to watch subtitles, since it's too distracting. I guess there's no pleasing some people )
*****
Those of you who live close to either the Canadian or Mexican border would be able to watch their versions of the US series shown over there, right? What do they use - dubbing or subtittles? Or two channels? (Sometimes, our public channel ARD shows late-night movies with original version on one sound channel, and the dubbed version on the other .)

If any of you is interested in listening to the clip himself, contact me, and I'll mail you the access to download the files.

ZeePM versus ZedPM – not totally relevant to this topic but I couldn’t think where else to put it (and anyway, subtitles can also be a language of their own at times!): when Rising was finally shown on terrestrial British TV a couple of weeks ago, I had the subtitles (closed captioning) on. They, like the German translators, didn’t know what to do with the Jack/Daniel/Rodney lines so rather bewilderingly had it as follows:

McKay: “We need the ZPM to power the Gate.”
O’Neill: “What?”
Jackson: “ZPM. He’s Canadian.”
O’Neill: “I’m sorry.”

Not very helpful for deaf viewers who couldn’t hear the difference in pronunciation.

Back on topic, and this is about Stargate in two different languages – English and American!

I had a bit of a scrap with one of the webmasters over at Gateworld recently about his editing of one my transcripts. I know that my transcripts are read by people from all sorts of different countries, so I deliberately emphasise the different pronounciations of the ZPM to make it clear what’s going on. For example, I might put something like:

Weir: “What’s happened to the ZeePM?”
McKay: “The ZedPM has broken down.”
(We see that the ZPM is no longer glowing.)

When I sent a recent transcript to Gateworld for publishing, I noticed that when it appeared, the above lines (if they really existed) read like this:

Weir: “What’s happened to the ZPM?”
McKay: “The ZedPM has broken down.”

I promptly protested to the editor – an American – pointing out that his website is also read by people from all over the place and a Brit or a Canadian, for example, would see the initials ZPM and read them as “ZedPM”, and therefore would do a bit of a double-take when it suddenly read as “ZedPM” because they wouldn’t see the difference. I must have had a bit of a rant, because he meekly agreed to leave my different versions alone in future!

this is about Stargate in two different languages – English and American!
I often wonder how it sounds dubbed into English. ;-)

American Jack: That's a big honkin' space gun!

English Jack: Hip hip & cheerio! I say that's a rather large weapon.

Australian Jack: Crikey! Now that's a gun!


American Teal'c: Indeed.

English Teal'c: Cor blimey!

Australian Teal'c: Strewth.

American Jack: “Oh, fer cryin’ out loud.”

English Jack: “Oh bother.”

Australian Jack: “Strewth.”


American Walter: “Unauthorised offworld activation!”

English Walter: “I say, General, the aliens are coming. Do you think they want tea?”

Australian Walter: “Strewth.”

Another revealing title:

Season 6, "Bane" was translated to "Insekten des Todes" (Insects of Death).

Sorry, Bane was Season 2, not 6.

I am from germany but I want so see the original version of shows for two major reasons:

- I can watch them almost immediatly from the internet after airing and don't have to wait about a whole year to see a ad-filled version.

- I don't need to be angry about the mistakes they make when dubbing. Jokes get lost, no accents,...

I watch Simpsons,(Futurama), Enterprise, Smallville, Desperate Housewives and Stargate from the internet.

To see the Sg1 and SgA episode I watched today
(aired friday) I had to wait about 15 months for them to appear in germany. Thats not accepteable
for me!

Judging by the Star Trek in German article on ex-astris-scientia.org, the whole 'German sci-fi dubs use absurdly obvious giving-away-the-end titles' thing has been going for quite a while...

Elwood,

so where do you download them? (And how big are they?)

Thande: yes, sadly. But if the dubs themselves are bad, the title is the smallest problem. (Of course, the TV guides also love to either reveal an important plot point or mis-describe the series...)

Regarding bad translations: In the season 6 ep., "Unnatural evolution" (The Human Replicators), Jack says to Thor: "I was afraid the other shoe was going to drop", and Thor replies: "I hope that was the last footwear to come off" (or somewhat similar.)

For some reasons - either because the translators wanted to keep the orignal joke, or because they didn't recognize it - the translation was Jack: "I knew the other shoe would come off", and Thor: "New footwear can be provided".

Now, for somebody who's not well versed in special idioms, Jack's comment doesn't make much sense, since a german saying with a similar meaning would sound different (in which case they would've tro rewrite Thor's line, too.)
I've beent rying to think of a saying with a similar meaning to use instead, but so far I only thought of "Das dicke Ende kommt noch nach" (literally: the thick end will follow - which rather invites some lame kind of butt joke. Translating good isn't easy!)

It's similar to the "crossing your fingers" problem in "Redemption: since the german phrase is "die Daumen drücken" (literally: press the thumbs), neither McKays nor Jonas gesture makes sense (and there's no real way around that!)

Not StarGate, but translation-related: I already pity the german (and probably, the french and spanish, italian) translator for "Harry Potter and the Half-blood prince". A big plot point is the identity of the prince; but it#s almost impossible in german to give the sentence "This book is the property of the half-blood prince" without giving away whether Prince is a title or a name. (If it's a title, the translation would be "Dieses Buch ist das Eigentum des Halbblut-Prinzen", if it's a name, it would be "...das Eigentum des Halbbluts Prinz.")

Constanze, the English title for the episode is "Unnatural Selection".

There is (or was) a board in the ClassicTrek Sink called "Something Lost In Translation" that described some of the German & Japanese translations of Trek.

---

Looking at some of the joke translations I notice we didn't mention Canada.

Canadian Jack: That's a big honkin' space gun, eh?

Canadian Teal'c: Indeed, eh?

Canadian Walter: Unauthorised offworld activation, eh?

;-)

---

So why are opening & closing quotes suddenly being replaced with question marks?

Re:Constanze's 21st August comment
Reportedly, a Harry Potter fan put up a Spanish language translation of
Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince on his website, but was forced to remove it, for legal reasons, according to a news item...
(I'm not sure which dialect of Spanish it was translated into though, as the news item did not mention the country the person came from...)
The official Spanish translation(s) of "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince..." are due out
sometime next year...

Season 8, Ep. 1: New Order" (pt.1):

The scene where Weir and Daniel talk about the Goauld delegates, Weir asks "Yu?" and Daniel says: "Don't. Every pun, every joke has been done to death."
Since the Yu/You pun doesn't work in german (nor any other jokes on that level), the translators didn't search for a similar reply, but instead replaced the sentence with "An old aquantaince of ours. He's quite old.", to which Weir continues that she's heard he's going senile.

Frobisher: The german translation of Harry Potter 6 is scheduled for October of this year, making it once again an incredible fast translation for a book that thick and well-written. (which probably means some oversights will be in there).

In "New Order", Pendergast aboard the Prometheus orders to engage the Translating device into Goauld before he rattles of his speech.

However, at SGC, when the message from the System Lords about the conference arrived, Dr. Weir had to ask Daniel to translate, because the screen only showed Goauld symbols.

Now, given that TealC and Daniel (plus the Tokra) speak Goauld (and Daniel should've learned some Ancient from Jack), and with the current level of computer-based translation, it would make sense for SGC to have an automatic translating device around for any incoming messages, and maybe even small pocket versions for the SG-teams.

However, I've never seen anything like that before Pendergast called for it - on the contrary, we usually see alien symbols while Daniel translates. (The same goes for Atlantis, where the laptops don't seem to have an Ancient-script-converter program.)

For some reason, in the german version, when Weir visits Oshu in his cell at SGC, she adresses him with the personal form (Du) instead of the usual formal adress (Sie). This isn't very diplomatic, but close to being an insult.

Another mistake of the translators (Along the lines of translating names like "Ancient" into "Antika" and "Furlings" into "Fellinge"): In New Order, Daniel mentions Antarctica several times as ... "Antarctica"! (when the correct german term for the southern pole region is "Antarktis").

*****

A new series has just started, called "Dead Zone" (based on the Stephen King novel).... again making not much sense, since the title refers to the usually dead zone in the brain (which is activated in Johnny Smiths's brain).
But since the dialogue where the Doc explains Johnys condition is translated ("Toter Bereich"), the title of the series is left hanging without reference.
Probably because it sounds more cool in English - or because the translators didn't know what to do with the several layers of connotation.
Since "Desperate Housewives" (Verzweifelte Hausfrauen) and "Lost" (Verloren) also weren't translated, I guess that TPTB think that the viewers will think US titles are more cool (or notice quicker that this is a cool, expensive US series, and not a lame, cheap home-made one?)

Re:The Dead Zone
Constanze, we're on Season 3 or 4 of The Dead Zone in the U.K.
However, i'm not sure exactly which season the Sci-Fi Channel is running, at the moment, as they seem to have it in permanment "Rollover" mode at present...
As a result, it seems to fade into a "blur"...

And is it good - worth seeing? (I'm no praticular fan of Stephen King, and given how outdated the concept of a "Dead Zone" in the brain that allows these psychic powers is, I wonder how old the novel the show is based on is. (And "Johnny Smith"? King isn't very imaginative with names, is he?)

It's good, constanze. I'm no King fan myself, but in general, the show is fairly character driven, rather than "spooky" driven.

Plus, it co-stars Nicole deBoer (aka Ezri Dax).

Re:The Dead Zone
We're on Season 3 at the moment, Constanze, although Season 4 is due to be transmitted
later this month, by the Sci-Fi Channel in the U.K.
As for the novel,I think it was written in the late 70's/early 80's...?

Differences /mistakes in the translation of "Lockdown" (Season 8):

When Daniel talks to Vasilov about Jack, the translation says "He [Jack] has problems with regulations" instead of "He's an equal opportunity offender"
When Jack and the other soldier abort the self-destruct, Jack says "That wasn't so difficult." instead of "You did good, son".

I really dislike it that my TV station, when showing 2 eps., always cuts the credits of the first and immediately blends into the teaser for the second. And going from season 8 (with Daniel) to season 6 (with Jonas) is dizzying...

Pretty much all stations do that here in the US, constanze

Now if you want to put that into a "US is evil" rant ... (no offense intended)

No, only into an "all TV stations (and producers) are evil... " rant (we could agree on that, right?)

Yes, even the Evil K-NIT TV-47 Executive (see the LICC boards) would agree with that

Another mistranslation: Metamorphosis, Season 6:

According to the transcript, dialogue is:
O?NEILL: I let you go once. We made a deal, I honoured it.

NIRRTI: I told you then I would not have done the same.

But in the translation: Jack: "I let you go last time.
Nirrti: And I told you that it was stupid.

ScottN,

Pretty much all stations do that here in the US, ..

Have they always done that, or only started recently? Because it used to be that credits were shown full length originally, but in the last years, the private stations have chopped series credits down, and now we hardly see end credits at all.

And in some ep.s, they chop the last few seconds/last scene (noticeable, e.g, in Atlantis, "Message in a bottle", where the whole scene at SGC was cut!) - this can't be due to violence (which is often the reason some of the gore-scenes get cut - it's shown at 8 pm, after all, when children might watch), so I think it's sloppiness of the station.

What they do here is shrink them off to the side, making them unreadable, so that they can put the promo for "Next on this station" taking up about 2/3 of the screen.

Really annoying if you're trying to figure out who the guest star is.

Re:last comment
They're starting to do the above here in the U.K as well Scott,esp on digital satellite, & if you're not watching on a 16:9 ratio "widescreen" T.V set, the credits get "cut off" on both sides...

They did that credit-shrinking some few years back, but now it seems as if credits have vanished completly, now...

Season 8, Zero Hour:
Dialogue changes:
Jack: That snippish?
Daniel: Depends on how you see it.

Instead of "That snippishness?"
Daniel "Is that even a word?"

When Jack talks about the colour for bunting, the translation is "Olivgrün" (which I can't find the correct english word for at the moment; but it that's special green colour used by the military...)
So now I finally had to look up "peridot" to see what shade of colour it is (I was sure that such a nice word would be a delicate, nice shade), and, after LEO and Hornby came up empty, found in collins that it's "a pale green .. variety of the olivine chrysolite...". So it is a variant of green after all!

When Reynolds ask Jack if he really will turn Camulus over to Baal, Jack says "Certainly not" instead of "It's on the table".
Then, when Reynolds describe Baal torturing Jack, he says "SG1 didn't give in then..." instead of "give up..."

The joke about "Camel-as" is given as "Camel-driver", which doesn't come close, since Camulus is pronounced differently in German, For those interested, the literal translation would be "Kamel-arsch".)

Jack adresses Camulus and Baal in the familiar/disrespectful "Du" instead of the formal/respectful "Sie".

When Sam and Jack talk over the air, Sam says "the DHD no longer works/functions" instead of "is no longer accessible".


Season 6, "Disclosure"

The chinese, english and french ambassador all speak with strong accents - nice touch.

"Olivgrün" (which I can't find the correct english word for at the moment; but it that's special green colour used by the military...)

"Olive Drab"

Peridot is a semi-precious gemstone deeper and more "olive" than emerald. Normally, only a stereotypical interior designer would be expected to use that word instead of olive to describe the color.

(I hit the wrong button from the preview, and posted before I was finished -- Assume this is incuded at the end of the last post.)

Presumably Jack has recently had to deal with such a designer who made a big deal over a (practically non-existant) difference between "Olive" and "Peridot," and the word just stuck in his craw.

Sorta related to this board.

From the FAQ for Stargate SG1 - The Alliance game
Question: What about the voices? Will the actors from Stargate SG-1 give their voices to the game?
Answer: We are talking to all the actors from the series and are confident that they will enjoy participating in the project. We will also look towards securing the “voices” of the series in localized versions.
If I interpret that correctly it sounds like they will be getting the actors who dub the voices to do foreign language versions of the game. Wonder how the translations will work out? ;-)

Jack adresses Camulus and Baal in the familiar/disrespectful "Du" instead of the formal/respectful "Sie".

I wouldn't have expected anything else of Jack. In fact, kudos to the translators for deciding to go with that form of address.

Shows how much I know - I always thought until now that peridot was a pale blue!! I get such an education here on Nitcentral!

While it's in character for Jack to be disrespectful (and not care about consequences), other team members etc. should be aware of the insult that is implied when adressing somebody suddenly in "Du" instead of "Sie" (as Weir, supposedly a diplomat!, does in New Order when talking to Camulus.)

Shows how much I know - I always thought until now that peridot was a pale blue!!

That's what I thought, too! It's a pity that the translators just choose "olive-drab", because several connotations get lost: in the ep. "Heroes", Jack mentions peridot first, and IIRC, it was given as "taupee" - an equally obscure (unless for decorateurs) colour in german. I guess it's some kind of beige, but I have no real idea.
So the reference to that ep. is lost; as well as the subtle sarcasm of Jack mentioning such an obscure word/colour he normally wouldn't know/use; while "olive-drab" is what we would expect of a soldier like Jack.
Translating isn't easy, but it's a pity when things get needlessly lost....

Re:Shades of Green
Ah the delights of NATO Olive Green paint a/k/a Europa 1, available for 35GDP per 5 litre tin from your specialist Military Vehicle site...
BTW, Taupe is a shade of beige...

BTW, a language-related question: If "olive-drab" is a shade of green, why are brown-skinned mediterreans called "olive-skinned"? I haven't seen many people with green skin...

Don't olives come in both green & black?

Olives are green when unripe, bluish black when ripe.

Drab was defined as a brownish color in DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary. In Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged Second Edition Drab was identified as a dull yellowish brown.

Olive Drab was described as a greenish brown in Webster’s.

Olive-skinned was not in any of my dictionary's.

I read "olive-skinned" when referring to brown-skinned mediterrean people in several books, and also somebody made a comment about the illogics of language.

While it's true that olives come in two colours, the term is used to refer only to green, AFAIK. (Similar, there's a tree "Flieder" in german, "lilac/syringia" in english, that blooms lilac and white, but the term refers only to the colour lilac.)

Back to Stargate: Season 8, Ep. "Icon" was given as "Soren". And apparently, the translators didn't know what "squirrelly" meant, either, since the replaced it with
"The nerves?" Jack,
"The nerves, right!" Daniel
which doesn't make much sense. (I missed some part of the dialogue).

I've heard of the term it just was missing from my reference works (even the Random House Word Menu which has a number of phrases missing from my dictionaries).

Another possible meaning for olive-skinned could be 'dark-skinned' rather than brown-skinned.

Since I have Spanish ancestors I also wondered if the term was used because of oily skin & hair?

Haven't seen Icon yet, but 'squirrelly' can refer to a person who's nervous (squirrels tend to be jittery, jumping at little sounds & movements), so "the nerves" seems to be in the ballpark if not necesarily accurate.

Icon and squirrely:
Jack admonishes Daniel - who wants to go back to a planet on the brink of a war to talk to people there to prevent the war - and doesn't want to let him go into such a dangerous situation, to "get out the moment things start getting squirrelly". (I missed how that line was translated), and then repeats to Daniel "Squirelly!", to which Daniel replies a bit wearily "Squirelly, right."

Since I have Spanish ancestors I also wondered if the term was used because of oily skin & hair?

I thought it might be because the mediterreanean diet/kitchen (which scientists have now found to be very healthy) makes heavy use of olive oil in cooking.

I've heard of the term it just was missing from my reference works (even the Random House Word Menu which has a number of phrases missing from my dictionaries).

I have a hard time finding phrases in my dictionary at all - I have an old Hornby from school days, a pocket edition of Webster (with bad print, hard to read), and new, big Collins, but I couldn't find several phrases from TV series and the boards here.

E.g. the term "something goes south" seems to mean it becomes bad, but why? Is this in Americanism, from the civil war, or has it a different origin?

Or the term "make an honest woman out of someone": does this mean marrying a steady girlfriend? Is this an americanism, because of the puritan attitude? Can it also be used for men?

Okay, "the nerves" is a bad translation.

I think "goes south" is a synonym for "goes to hell".

"make an honest woman out of someone": does this mean marrying a steady girlfriend?
Sometimes, although it can also be used to mean marrying a woman who is pregnant, or with whom the man is believed to have had sexual relations with.

Is this an americanism, because of the puritan attitude?
I would say it's puritan (the "honest woman" part anyway), but I'm not sure if it started in America. Part of me thinks it could have been British since it does have a "what would people think?" attitude as well.

Can it also be used for men?
Well, if a man got pregnant... ;-)

Re: "Olive" Green
I think it's a reference to the processed oil's colour, rather than it's use....
Originally, farmers left olives for oil processing, on the tree, until the point of becoming over-ripe, then mechanically retreived the oil by "pressing" the olives in a wooden vat...
The "cold pressed" oil as a result of this, was a golden green colour...
Now, most olive oil is processed in a different way,with the result, that steam filtering, &
later refining, removes most of the oleic acid, & some say the colour & flavour, from the oil...

...The "cold pressed" oil as a result of this, was a golden green colour...

Yes, I've seen cold-pressed olive oil, but to me, it looks much more golden-yellow then green.

But then, unless an etymologist shows up, we can invent plausible theories all day long without knowing we're right or wrong...

Reading the transcript of "Changeling", Season 6, it's interesting that whenever TealC's in the fireman dream, other people call him T or T-man, not TealC, Bratac has changed to Bray, and Shaunac to Shauna - in other words, everybody's human.

This was replaced in the dubbed version: everybody calls him TealC, and Bratac is Bratac. (which makes the dream a little less real, since these are unusual names for american earthlings.)

Like Bray, T, T-Man or even Shauna are normal American names. ;-)

T and T-Man aren't normal? Wasn't there this guy who played "B.A." (itself a rather funny name) on the A-Team, and whose name was Mr. T? Or all these rappers and music artists, they have pretty strange names...

Bray does sound kind of funny in english.

But I meant they don't follow the sound pattern for Jaffa names.

Forgot about about Mr. T, but then one person out of 270 million isn't exactly normal. ;-)

As for rappers & music artists they are usually trying to stand out by having unusual names.

Shauna sounds like a name I hear occasionally, but it's still unusual.

T & T-Man were supposed to be nicknames in the show, but it seemed odd for everyone to call him that the whole time.

Bray just sounded weird. The writer should have just gone with Ray which sounds close.

SG Season 8, Affinity

Of course, the secondary meaning (of Dick) is completly lost when Jack says to Kendrick: "Oh, don't be so dramatic, Dick, it'll give you gas."

Interesting side note for the S/J shippers: in the dubbed version, Sam and Jack are on a "Sie"-basis to each other (formal). While Tealc and Daniel call each other "Du" (informal)...
Or is this because Sam and Jack are the only two offical militaries in the team, and thus, adress each other formal because of protocol ? Like Sam still calling Jack "sir"?

Funny thing: when Sam says "...Do I drop the baby off at daycare on my way to some unexplored planet on the edge of the Crab Nebula?", the translators made it a "cra-p Nebula", although correctly it should be "Krabben Nebel" , not "Krap Nebel". (Or the voice actors misspoke it - I had no idea what nebula Sam was referring to, until I later read "Crab" and went "oh, that's what they meant).

And the translators messed up the word for "tripod" in the ap. scene... Pete shows three dents and Sam says "A small chair" (Hocker). Not really.

This isn't Stargate, but Translation-related (and I couldn't find a general Translations board - maybe the moderator wants to create one in the general Kitchen Sink, if there's enough interest?).

Yesterday, I watched again "Pillow Talk" with Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Part of the plot is that Hudson plays Brad Allen, a womanizer, with whose voice Doris Day is well acquainted, yet he manages to pretend he is Texan Rex Stetson.

Now, in the dubbed version, I always wondered how Doris could fail to recognize his voice (unless the phones were really scrambling and distorting sounds, which they didn't seem to be), as he's talking pretty much the same all the time.

But now I wonder if in the original version, Hudson affects a strong, typical Texas accent which is so different from his NY one that Doris can't reasonably recognize his voice?

Re:Constanze's last comment
"Kotham Gotar"
(F/X: Cloud of Smoke & Flash of Light....).
Thread Created, Constanze
(it's called "You Said What" ? & is on The Kitchen Sink...)

Re:My Last Comment
It's the last thread on "They Don't Have...Forum"

Thank you kindly, Mark.

Could you please move my post there, too? Thanks.

And who or what is "Kotham Gotar"? I know "blink*blink" (Jeannie), and "Gotham" (Batman), but not that...

Mark’s not a moderator, AFAIK, and I can’t move posts to a topic that I don’t moderate. Mark Morgan is probably very busy with his new role as moderator of the main Kitchen Sink, so it might be quicker for you just to copy and paste your comments into the new topic.

Ah, thanks for the info. Will do.

Season 4, Point of no return:

The funny line Daniel makes about doughnouts (in the van) is translated as "Shouldn't we be wearing trenchcoats or something like that?" Either the translator thought that dougnuts aren't known widely in Germany yet (although some places offer them by now), or that the clichee of cops eating doughnuts on stake-outs wouldn't be common knowledge. (But Columbo with his trenchcoat is a reference point...)

Tangent:

For some reason, the Tokra operative in the orignal transcript is translated as "operation" into german.

It's a reference from the Arabian Nights Cartoon series, (part of The Banana Splits show) Constanze....
(It's the magic word the conjurer uses to perform a spell, normally suffixed by "Size of a (Insert name of animal here)....")).

If you think “All your base are belong to us” is funny, try these!! They’re screen caps of a Japanese DVD of “The Siege part 2” with subtitles in English translated literally from the Japanese.

See if you can work out what these examples were in the original English. I’ve given the answers in white after each line. Highlight to see them.

I have an exterior insect hole conjunction
We’ve got an incoming wormhole

A conductor department of the interstellar
Stargate Command

You really slice what mission is, superior?
What exactly is your job, sir?

This always damn him in our eyelid underneath
Damned thing’s been under our noses the whole time

(I love this next one!)
Major of Sheppard, dial spare base of fly the horse galaxy
Major Sheppard, dial the Pegasus Alpha site

(I’m bewildered how they got this one ...)
... chair type weapon platform elephant we that discover in the Antarctica
... chair weapons platform like the one we found in Antarctica

Sounded to start have a little the elephant kind
It’s beginning to sound like a plan

The Japanese like their elephants! I think it’s the word “like” that keeps translating into “elephant” for some reason!
Ahem, sorry ... apparently on the previous line I should have said, “The Japanese elephant their elephants” ...

So you think this is a not the situation that win the noodles at have
So you think this is a no-win situation?

Colonel, I am a Radnor!
Colonel, this is Radnor!

Colonel, I am a first lieutenant of Ford!
(Oh, work it out yourself!)

Agree verbally
You’ve got a deal

Give me the converse machine
Give me your radio

Colonel, we wased in Dutch
Colonel, we have a problem (Eh??!)

Help me start from ruin the device, in order to prevent unpredictable
Help me arm the self-destruct, in case this fails

This isn't exactly a foreign language issue but... can anyone tell me why some posters call the Goa'uld stun guns Subniktels? I've seen that a few times but all my material calls them Zatniktels (and the contraction just doesn't work if it's not that).

I think that the German dubbing must call them subniktels, as Constanze has often called them that, so I imagine she's getting it from the dubbing or German subtitles.