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BDHs speak French!

POSTED BY: REDNAX
UPDATED: Sunday, December 11, 2005 16:27
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Monday, October 24, 2005 12:43 AM

REDNAX


The following is French site for "Serenity : L'ultime Rebellion"
http://www.commeaucinema.com/news.php3?nominfos=35373

It includes links the the French Poster and the French (dubbed) trailer. This seems longer than any of the English-language trailers I've seen.

There's a user rating there which puts it at ***/**** after 16 votes - I'm sure us browncoats can bump that up a bit!

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Monday, October 24, 2005 1:19 AM

IAMZOE


I saw the review for Serenity in 'Premiere', a French cinema review magazine which is cited on this website. It was interesting to read a different perspective, especially as I think a lot of the appeal of Joss Whedon's work is in the writing and dialogue, and I had wondered how that would work when the film was dubbed or subtitled. Also whether that would mean other plot points would be considered more important.

Premiere's review was good - three stars out of four. To compare, they also gave Polanski's Oliver Twist and Wallace & Gromit three stars that month, while four-star films were L'Enfant(French, by the people who did Rosetta) and Rize (that dance documentary).

The review said basically that it was faithful to the TV series, and reminiscent of the ideas of the original Star Wars (and better than the recent ones). Of plot points (minor spoilers!) it picked up on the Chinese - does anyone know how that worked with dubbing / subtitling? - , that line of Kaylee's 'ou on parle de vibromasseurs' and the 'explosions'.

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Monday, October 24, 2005 3:32 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

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Monday, October 24, 2005 4:14 AM

LUCKYSPENCER7


we have a group of browncoats here in Montreal and one of our crew went to see it once in French with some friends of hers. she said that it wasn't too bad (she'd seen it in English a few times before). then again, Quebec French and France French are not entirely the same thing.

me, just the tagline "L'ultime rebellion" makes me cringe. so corny.

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Monday, October 24, 2005 5:41 AM

MSCKAREN


Well, it took almost an hour to update and fiddle with my laptop to get to see the trailer but I thoroughly enjoyed it! :-)

The trailer is longer and seems to feature more of the Operative which I think is a good thing. Also, may be highlighting a better known actor for the French Market...?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Appears they've cancelled the show and we're still here. What does that make us?"
"Big damn junkies, Sir!"
"Ain't we just."
http://karenallover.blogspot.com/

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Monday, October 24, 2005 6:26 AM

REDNAX


The are 2 versions of the French trailer here, along with inteviews with Nathan & Summer (over-dubbed in French).
http://www.allocine.fr/film/video_gen_cfilm=57920.html

Does anyone else think Wash's dubbing artist sounds like a woman?

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Monday, October 24, 2005 10:21 AM

BLUESUNWORSHIPPER


I thought the same thing, that Wash sounded like a woman, and that Mal sounded like he had a deeper voice than Jayne. Which, we all know, is just plain crazy-talk.


- T

:)

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Monday, October 24, 2005 11:10 AM

DOCTORPAYNE13


I'm living in Quebec City right now, studying French at U Laval, so I had to watch Serenity on opening night in French (I found an english theatre closer to campus after, of course, so I was able to see it in its full glory there later). The Quebec version might have been different from the France version, but I liked it alot. In fact, I actually might have enjoyed it a bit more in French. I don't know why, the actors that they used for dubbing weren't great or anything... I guess I just liked it a bit more because it was the first new Joss thing I had seen in over a year. One thing I noticed is that there was alot more laughter in the french theatre than in the english one. I guess Joss' humour translates well into any language.

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Monday, October 24, 2005 11:12 AM

DOCTORPAYNE13


Oh dude, if you think Wash sounds bad, you should hear the voice they used for the Rock in french version of Doom. I seriously think it was a 10 year old girl.

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Monday, October 24, 2005 1:13 PM

BELASERA


I just went poking around the Italian site, kinda cute, it's set up to look Like Mr. U's consoles, but it inexplicably features fooftage from the children's show Max and Ruby on one of them. I just stared at it for like, 4 minutes straight.
But good to hear about the positive French review, you should post that at Whedonesque, where word on the street is France pumped out alot of bad reviews.
Italian Serenity site- http://www.serenity-ilfilm.it/

"I'll be in my bunk."

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 1:39 AM

IAMZOE


I'm interested in what someone said above, that there are different versions of Serenity in Quebecois French and French French - is that true? I started learning French in Canada (Nova Scotia - now Acadian French, that's something), but then lived in France, so I'm really into finding out the differences between the two.

How good is the dubbing in Serenity / Firefly? Do you ever get things like, if the person has a really strong accent in English, they choose to put it in a Canadian French accent in the dubbing? For example (because that doesn't seem specially clear now I read it over!), I used to watch a Scottish police show (Taggart) when I just moved to France - the English they speak in that has a really distinctive accent (they're from Glasgow), and my friend told me that in French they choose actors to dub it with strong southern French accents.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 4:58 AM

LUCKYSPENCER7


iamzoe, that was me. as I metioned in my post, it wasn't me that saw it in French, but a fellow Montreal Browncoat. so I really couldn't compare myself. all I know is that there *usually* is a difference between the French version of a movie played in Quebec and in France. not only accent-wise, but also certain contemporary expressions are only used on one side of the pond.

I really don't know the actual details on this for Serenity.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 5:54 AM

TALLAUSSIEBROWNCOAT


Quote:

Originally posted by doctorpayne13:
Oh dude, if you think Wash sounds bad, you should hear the voice they used for the Rock in french version of Doom. I seriously think it was a 10 year old girl.



*DIES laughing!*

--------------------------------------------------

[On sharing Firefly Browncoats' love with relatives, friends and anyone that's remotely curious:]

"It's very Jehovah's Witness, I'm not sure if anyone's actually going door to door, but it's not far off."

- Nathan Fillion

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 6:57 AM

KAZZAHDRANE


Quote:

Originally posted by iamzoe:
I used to watch a Scottish police show (Taggart) when I just moved to France - the English they speak in that has a really distinctive accent (they're from Glasgow), and my friend told me that in French they choose actors to dub it with strong southern French accents.



there's been une murder!

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 7:43 AM

DOCTORPAYNE13


Okay, having actually watched the trailer I can confirm that there are different voice actors in the French and Quebec versions. Also, there seem to be script differences as well. You know that scene from the rbberey at the beginning, where the dude's all like "you have to give me your authorization passcode," and Jayne shoots his gun? In the Quebec version that I watched, the guy down in the vault goes "D'accord," wheras in the France trailer, he goes "Okay!" with a french accent. So, there you have it.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 7:53 AM

HAIDON


Quote:

Originally posted by doctorpayne13:
Oh dude, if you think Wash sounds bad, you should hear the voice they used for the Rock in french version of Doom. I seriously think it was a 10 year old girl.



Start again with the part where The Rock's voice gets dubbed by a 90 pound girl, cause I don't think that's ever getting old!

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 8:25 AM

HARDAN


In case you're interested:

German Trailers:
http://trailer.uip.de/serenity/trailer.html


-----------------------------
Yes there are Fireflyfans all over the world. Even in little switzerland.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 8:29 AM

MT


Quote:

Originally posted by iamzoe:
different versions of Serenity in Quebecois French and French French - is that true? I started learning French in Canada (Nova Scotia - now Acadian French, that's something), but then lived in France, so I'm really into finding out the differences between the two.

How good is the dubbing in Serenity / Firefly?



Well, you have to realise that Québécois French
and "French French" are two different thing,
such as British English, Canadian English and
American English have their own particularities.

Now talking on the dubbing of Serenity,
I saw this wonderful movie 2 weeks ago
[I'd never heard of Firefly or Joss Whedon before that...]
in a theater in Sherbrooke, Québec. I selected this theater as it is known
for releasing movies in both languages.
Unfortunately, I went on the very firt week of
the show, and the original version was not yet
in. I had to go with the French version...
I am a huge supporter of diversity and multiculturalism,
and so I do love to see a movie in its original version [English, Spanish, Japanese, French, Whatev'].
For Serenity, I was satisfied enough with the
dubbing, as most of the voices selected strengthen
or match the personnalities of the characters. I also appreciate the general approach of the adaptation of the film, as
reading on lips give me a particular sight
of the original dialogue.
Now, I am actually waiting with very little patience
to see the original version as I am definetly going to enjoy it much more. I am also looking forward to see the episodes of Firefly
and or course read the novel.

This message is getting long, sorry about that,
but I feel I must insist on one point: adaptation.
Dubbing a movie and adapting it to match
a certain market is not that easy, as the original
version gets many cultural points very picky
to modify. In general, I have to admitt the French adaptation are
in very general, rather good. However I also admitt some dubbing voices
are shitty, oh so shitty, and some adaptation
just give you the madness to burn the dvd.

I do think original version subtitled are the best, but this is a matter of opinion.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 10:57 AM

CYBERSNARK


Quote:

Originally posted by iamzoe:
I used to watch a Scottish police show (Taggart) when I just moved to France - the English they speak in that has a really distinctive accent (they're from Glasgow), and my friend told me that in French they choose actors to dub it with strong southern French accents.

Same thing happens in animé, where Japanese => English = Osakan accent => Texan/generic cowboy accent.

I'm interested to see if this goes both ways when Serenity hits Japan. Unfortunately, I can't (yet) distinguish Japanese accents, so I have to wait for a fluent Japanese-speaker's review.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 11:19 AM

SHAMBLEAU


I've watched Firefly in its Region 1 French-dubbed version. it's actually a good way to keep up your French proficiency, if, like me, you practically have the dialog memorised. I can't tell if they're quebecois accents, I'm not that good. I can say that they miss a fair amount of the humor and they reduce the amount of Chinese, but don't eliminate it. Some of the voices are quite similar, but some just don't work well.

I have to say that the French do the best dubbing that I've seen, in general. Buffy was well dubbed, in particular. When you compare it to the Spanish, Italian and Japanese dubbing I've seen, it's head and shoulders above them.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005 11:19 AM

REALLYKAYLEE



um is it me or does simon just seem better in french?

shakespeare: more words than God.

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005 5:50 AM

ALLARTICULATE


I think here is a good opportunity for one of my favorite internet games: babelfish translation!
My friends and I have whiled away many working hours by insulting each other in languages we don't know and trying to decipher the insult, which is invariably funnier coming back.

Here is the French description translated back into English:

*****
The captain Malcom "Badly" Reynolds is a hardened veteran who was the wrong to choose the bad camp in the last galactic war. The weapons are kill, the order reigns from now on under the authority of Alliance and Malcolm the rebel launched out in new adventures to the orders of the Serenity vessel and the head of a small crew as faithful as devoted. Badly is not the only one to resist the heavy domination of Alliance. At the school of the future elites, the young person To rivet proclamation since always a savage independence of mind. Telepathic faculties and the gifts of warlike that it developed before the seventeen years age worry the leaders. Those chose to put the teenager at the secrecy. A medical team consequently endeavours to model her spirit and to suppress her "bad tendencies" by the daily administration of drugs surpuissantes... When his/her brother, Simon, the extract of force of the Center of Conditioning and take refuge with it on board Serenity, the mode entrusts to its best sleuthhound, the Operator, the care to neutralize them by all the means. Fleeing the vessels of Alliance, Mal gains the borders of the galaxy where grinds the barbarian tribe and cannibal of the "Reavers". A new adventure starts - most dangerous that ever Serenity lived...
*****

"Sleuthhound"

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005 6:27 AM

CYBERSNARK


Quote:

Originally posted by allarticulate:
Malcom "Badly" Reynolds

"Captain'll come up with a plan."
"Well, that's good, right?"
"Possibly you're not recalling some of his previous plans."



-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005 9:43 AM

IAMZOE


hey guys
thanks for the detailed replies! I particularly like the idea that in the Quebecois trailer he says 'd'accord' and in the French one 'okay'. Seems to fit in pretty well with my experience learning French in the two different places.

I saw Buffy in France, but found it hard to watch as I just kept thinking the voices were 'wrong'. Same with some other shows - I did find that often they seemed to choose voices that were pitched just too high... but then someone said to me they could tell right off I was an English speaker just because my voice was too low.

Taggart... 'il est mort', no matter how much of a Marseille accent it's in, is never going to have the effect of 'he's deid'.

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Friday, October 28, 2005 7:06 PM

RUNA27


This makes me wonder now whether there are different Spanish dubs as well, as there are a LOT of different accents. I wonder what the R1 Spanish dub is like for the film or series, anybody know? *doesn't speak French, but is interested in dubs to begin with* A better question, actually - how well does it/do they match up to the translation/feel of the English dialogue? Because I've learning Spanish and would like to practice it, but I'm not 100% capable of keeping up with Spanish dubs yet (I'm usually lucky to get the gist of of a scene or single line in a scene), so I'm wondering if it would work if I watched the Spanish dub with English subs (I have the box set now, so I could do that)?

Hmmm... *checks out one of the Spanish links*

Quote:

Y ahora... los chalecos marrones.


Es nosotros! They mention us Browncoats in it! (On a side note, apparently there's no feminine form for "chaleco", which apparently translates to "vest" or "waistcoat" which means...)

Soy una chaleco marrón! (That translates, I think, to "I am a (female) Browncoat!" *hopes the translation is 100% accurate* On a side note, "ser", from which you get "soy" in Spanish, is a term used for anything to do with identity and has a connotation of "always". *newbie language nerd* Which sums up how I really have begun to feel about this series! )

Quote:


Durante años, se podía ser trekkie, jedi o incluso echar de menos al profesor Robinson de Perdidos en el espacio.



...er... something about over the years... something about Trekkies and... Jedi? And something about space.

Damn. I really need to study more... I'd have to look up most of those words.

Quote:


Ahora, existe una nueva tendencia, todavía desconocida en España: los chalecos marrones.



"Now, there exists a new something (tendency? that can't be right), something something in Spain: the Browncoats."

Quote:


Así se autodenominan los fanáticos de la serie Firefly.



I think that latter part any English speaker could discern the meaning of. ;)

Quote:


Su presión y su unión consiguieron que saliera adelante el proyecto de Serenity. ¡Frikis al poder!
Quote:



Something about... adoring? The something of Serenity... project, I think, I'll have to double-check... yes, that means project. Argh. I really, really, really need to study more...

Er... so, does it match up pretty well?


-Runa27





Can't Stop The Signal

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Friday, October 28, 2005 8:12 PM

PINGJING


Quote:

Originally posted by Hardan:
In case you're interested:

German Trailers:
http://trailer.uip.de/serenity/trailer.html


-----------------------------
Yes there are Fireflyfans all over the world. Even in little switzerland.



Yes! Another German speaker! Thanks for posting the link - I understood most of it, but the words flashed by too fast for me to catch them. Hearing Jayne in German...he sounds so intelligent. It's just not right. Also, it's interesting that Wash has a higher voice in this one, just like the French version.

Julia



Lasst uns richtig boese sein.

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Monday, October 31, 2005 11:45 AM

RONAN


After watching this Max and Ruby did you inexplicably beat the living crap out of all those around you using immense martial arts skills that you didn't know you had?

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Monday, October 31, 2005 12:49 PM

LIMINALOSITY


Quote:

Originally posted by allarticulate:
babelfish translation!


*****
Badly

At the school of the future elites, the young person To rivet proclamation since always a savage independence of mind.

Telepathic faculties and the gifts of warlike that it developed before the seventeen years age worry the leaders. Those chose to put the teenager at the secrecy. A medical team consequently endeavours to model her spirit and to suppress her "bad tendencies" by

the daily administration of
drugs surpuissantes...


sleuthhound

Fleeing the vessels of Alliance, Mal gains the borders of the galaxy where grinds the barbarian tribe and cannibal of the "Reavers".
*****

"Sleuthhound"




Oh it hurts! sleuthhound! Badly! The daily grind of the barbarian horde!

It looks like they somehow missed the premise that the Alliance turned her into the mean chica fighting machine at the school of the future elites.

I am having tears now from the the daily administration of the
drugs qui rigole.

Is there a site for the creation of the babel-silliness?

Shiny Trees! Yavanna made Shiny Trees!

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 6:19 PM

ALLARTICULATE


http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Hours of fun, with the right players!

Shiny

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Tuesday, November 1, 2005 7:46 PM

LIMINALOSITY


Thank you for the articulation!

Shiny Trees! Yavanna made Shiny Trees!

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Wednesday, November 2, 2005 6:05 AM

CYBERSNARK


"The skill that works the translation of the many languages is being shamefully used." --Usenet (anon).

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 2:14 PM

PAISLEY


Quote:

Runa27 wrote: Friday, October 28, 2005 19:06
This makes me wonder now whether there are different Spanish dubs as well, as there are a LOT of different accents. I wonder what the R1 Spanish dub is like for the film or series, anybody know? *doesn't speak French, but is interested in dubs to begin with* A better question, actually - how well does it/do they match up to the translation/feel of the English dialogue? Because I've learning Spanish and would like to practice it, but I'm not 100% capable of keeping up with Spanish dubs yet (I'm usually lucky to get the gist of of a scene or single line in a scene), so I'm wondering if it would work if I watched the Spanish dub with English subs (I have the box set now, so I could do that)?



Hi-
I had written on this on the Firefly Talk podcast forum, I'll include it here since it seems appropriate:

*********
One thing that I haven't seen or heard mentioned in any Firefly medium- most likely because it doesn't affect the general English-speaking Browncoat community- is the dubbing on the Firefly DVDs. While I can’t comment on the French dubbing, I am fluent in Spanish so I can say a few things about that particular rendering.

After watching the DVD set a couple of times in English, I thought it would be fun to listen to how things were referred to in Spanish. Generally, I don’t do this- I like watching programs in the original language and read the subtitles if I need to. However, being a recently converted Browncoat, I just had to know: Would our beloved series be lost in translation? Or would a Spanish-only speaker “get” the show? Sadly, the former is true while the latter is unlikely. There are little of the quirks of the ’verse left over by the time the Spanish version tramples through it. An unacceptable portion of the translation is unclear, changed unnecessarily, or simply wrong. This can be very confusing and ruins the flow of the script. While it would be impossible for me to go over every single mistake, change, and omission here, I’ve thought of a few to share.

First off, if you ever wondered what they do to the Chinese in Firefly DVD translations, the words are kept in Mandarin only if what is said can’t be guessed. This means that the longer phrases are in Chinese, but most of the other words are not. Thus, there is no “gorram,” no “dong ma,” and no “pieces of go-se.” All these words are translated to Spanish directly from the Chinese.

The translation also affected some character names. The most obvious is Mal, which changed to Mel. Strangely enough, Malcolm stays the same. I understand that this is because “mal” [pronounced mahl] means bad in the Latin as River pointed out; this holds true for Spanish as well. Still, all they had to do was to keep the original pronunciation, and problem solved. Also, it is curious to note that Jayne’s name changed to Jay-nee which makes no sense since it only adds a syllable to the name, and makes things a little more difficult for the Spanish-speaking actors to lip sync. The worst of the name changing, however, is River’s. Her name stays the same, but is pronounced in Spanish, making it sound exactly like “Reaver.” Now in some episodes the word Reaver keeps its English pronunciation, so the River/Reaver use is quite confusing. In other episodes, such as Bushwhacked, “Reaver” is translated as a derivation of “to rip” or “to tear” so this isn’t a problem. But it does confuse people who had first heard of bad guys called Reavers and then suddenly started hearing of “Rippers.”

Sloppy translation is rampant. As examples, the “Tam Estate” in Safe is the “Tam State.” “Captain Tightpants” becomes “Captain Formal” in Shindig. Zoe’s famous line “I think you have a problem with your brain being missing” becomes “I think you have an enormous brain tumor.” There are mistakes in just about every scene- the ones that bother me the most are fundamental changes in the script. For example, according to the Train Job- Spanish version, Inara has been on the ship for 18 months, not 8, as in the original version.

Badger loses his accent, so the moment in Shindig where River speaks like him is completely lost on the audience. All the words that have become part of the Browncoat lingo are ignored or changed. Things aren’t “shiny,” only “excellent.” Train heists aren’t “easy as lyin’,” only “simple.” There are no “purplebellies,” no one is “bound by law,” and the “hands of blue” are just hands. The list goes on and on. It isn’t a matter of there not being a good word to use in Spanish for the jargon- to me this smacks of pure laziness and unprofessionalism from the translators.

I haven’t had the heart to keep watching much in Spanish after Shindig. Who knows what further sacrilege I might find? As a fan of the series and as a native Spanish speaker, I hate what was done to Firefly during translation, and can almost certainly predict we won’t be converting any exclusively Spanish speakers based on this mediocre dubbing job. After all, I think most of us can agree that one of the best parts of Firefly is the dialogue- to ruin that is to ruin the whole show.

Finally, as I was writing this it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any episodes with the Spanish subtitles on. Therefore, I put on my favorite episode, Shindig, and read my way through it. Thankfully, the written translation does NOT match the spoken one. I am happy to report that although there are several mistakes (e.g. “water planets” are “watery planets” and the short Chinese phrases get ignored again), for the most part it is translated well and its quality is way above that of the translation used for dubbing. Shiny is actually “shiny” and although Captain Tightpants is Captain Fittedpants, this actually works. So, if you ever lend out your converter set of DVDs to a Spanish speaker, tell them to watch it using the subtitles and to ignore the dubbed version- you’ll be doing them a favor and possibly bringing another Browncoat to the fold.

Thanks for letting me rant! I'd be interested to hear what the native French speakers have to say about the dubbing on Firefly.
***********

This thread has answered my French question pretty much. I'm glad I found it.

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 2:55 PM

PAISLEY


Oh, and RUNA27, since you made such a nice effort on translating that article, here are the full translations of your quotes. Nice work! I've taught Spanish so I can really appreciate a hard-working student. So, just for you:

***
"Y ahora... los chalecos marrones."
And now... the Brownvests.

I'm not sure about Spain, but over here in the Americas, a chaleco is a vest. A coat here would be abrigo. Hmmm... maybe we can use Abrigospardos? Too long... I'll have to think on that one.

***
"Durante años, se podía ser trekkie, jedi o incluso echar de menos al profesor Robinson de Perdidos en el espacio."
For years, you could be a Trekkie, a Jedi or even miss Professor Robinson from "Lost in Space."

***
"Ahora, existe una nueva tendencia, todavía desconocida en España: los chalecos marrones."
Now there's a new trend, as yet unknown in Spain: the Browncoats.

***
"Así se autodenominan los fanáticos de la serie Firefly."
That's how fans of the Firefly series call themselves.

***
"Su presión y su unión consiguieron que saliera adelante el proyecto de Serenity. ¡Frikis al poder!"
Their pressure and unity made the Serenity project possible. All power to the frikis!"

"Frikis" is tricky. I'm pretty sure it comes from the word "freak" so it could be translated as a really, really devoted fan.

Keep up the good work! ¡Buena suerte!

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Saturday, November 19, 2005 8:27 PM

RUNA27


Quote:

Originally posted by Paisley:

Quote:

This makes me wonder now whether there are different Spanish dubs as well, as there are a LOT of different accents. I wonder what the R1 Spanish dub is like for the film or series, anybody know? *doesn't speak French, but is interested in dubs to begin with* A better question, actually - how well does it/do they match up to the translation/feel of the English dialogue? Because I've learning Spanish and would like to practice it, but I'm not 100% capable of keeping up with Spanish dubs yet (I'm usually lucky to get the gist of of a scene or single line in a scene), so I'm wondering if it would work if I watched the Spanish dub with English subs (I have the box set now, so I could do that)?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Hi-
I had written on this on the Firefly Talk podcast forum, I'll include it here since it seems appropriate:

*********
One thing that I haven't seen or heard mentioned in any Firefly medium- most likely because it doesn't affect the general English-speaking Browncoat community- is the dubbing on the Firefly DVDs. While I can’t comment on the French dubbing, I am fluent in Spanish so I can say a few things about that particular rendering.

After watching the DVD set a couple of times in English, I thought it would be fun to listen to how things were referred to in Spanish. Generally, I don’t do this- I like watching programs in the original language and read the subtitles if I need to. However, being a recently converted Browncoat, I just had to know: Would our beloved series be lost in translation? Or would a Spanish-only speaker “get” the show? Sadly, the former is true while the latter is unlikely. There are little of the quirks of the ’verse left over by the time the Spanish version tramples through it. An unacceptable portion of the translation is unclear, changed unnecessarily, or simply wrong. This can be very confusing and ruins the flow of the script. While it would be impossible for me to go over every single mistake, change, and omission here, I’ve thought of a few to share.


Awww. That's too bad. I had heard that since they do so many dubs, some of them were good (at least, I've heard anime dubs have been getting better in Spanish just as they have been getting better in English).

Quote:


First off, if you ever wondered what they do to the Chinese in Firefly DVD translations, the words are kept in Mandarin only if what is said can’t be guessed. This means that the longer phrases are in Chinese, but most of the other words are not. Thus, there is no “gorram,” no “dong ma,” and no “pieces of go-se.”



No gorram!? O_O You're kidding!

Quote:


All these words are translated to Spanish directly from the Chinese.

The translation also affected some character names. The most obvious is Mal, which changed to Mel. Strangely enough, Malcolm stays the same. I understand that this is because “mal” [pronounced mahl] means bad in the Latin as River pointed out; this holds true for Spanish as well. Still, all they had to do was to keep the original pronunciation, and problem solved. Also, it is curious to note that Jayne’s name changed to Jay-nee which makes no sense since it only adds a syllable to the name, and makes things a little more difficult for the Spanish-speaking actors to lip sync.



...you're kidding. WHY? You'ree right, it makes no sense at all.

Quote:


The worst of the name changing, however, is River’s. Her name stays the same, but is pronounced in Spanish, making it sound exactly like “Reaver.”



That's too funny! My god, what a horrible translation decision.

Quote:


Now in some episodes the word Reaver keeps its English pronunciation, so the River/Reaver use is quite confusing. In other episodes, such as Bushwhacked, “Reaver” is translated as a derivation of “to rip” or “to tear” so this isn’t a problem. But it does confuse people who had first heard of bad guys called Reavers and then suddenly started hearing of “Rippers.”



Heh. Reminds me a whole lot of the English Sailor Moon dub. One of Sailor Jupiter's magical attacks, "Jupiter Oak Evolution", during the third season was translated about six different ways, one of which was actually her transformation phrase! The amusing part?

The original attack was in English, even in the Japanese version. :P

Quote:


Sloppy translation is rampant. As examples, the “Tam Estate” in Safe is the “Tam State.”



Wow, they're richer than we thought! :P

Quote:


“Captain Tightpants” becomes “Captain Formal” in Shindig.



...daaaaang. That's... mal para Mal, no?

Quote:


Zoe’s famous line “I think you have a problem with your brain being missing” becomes “I think you have an enormous brain tumor.”



Which sorta might work, but isn't half as witty. :(

Quote:

There are mistakes in just about every scene- the ones that bother me the most are fundamental changes in the script. For example, according to the Train Job- Spanish version, Inara has been on the ship for 18 months, not 8, as in the original version.

Badger loses his accent, so the moment in Shindig where River speaks like him is completely lost on the audience.



NOOOO! That's like, one of my favorite parts ever!

Couldn't they have given him a Northern Spain accent or something!? Come on, I can barely speak anything more complicated than "Hello, how are you? Good, yes, I'm fine. I'm from America. I speak English, and a very little bit of Spanish. I'm nineteen years old and feel really happy today!" or "The library is in building three" from memory, and I could do a Mexican accent and a Costa Rican one, just from having two different teachers... surely a native speaker who is a professional actor could do the same. :
Quote:


All the words that have become part of the Browncoat lingo are ignored or changed. Things aren’t “shiny,” only “excellent.”



WHY? :\ Makes no sense.

Quote:


Train heists aren’t “easy as lyin’,” only “simple.” There are no “purplebellies,” no one is “bound by law,” and the “hands of blue” are just hands.



...dare I ask what they did to the "nursery rhyme" River sings?

Quote:


The list goes on and on. It isn’t a matter of there not being a good word to use in Spanish for the jargon- to me this smacks of pure laziness and unprofessionalism from the translators.



Indeed. Especially with "shiny" and "gorram". :\ I mean, "Shut the gorram door" is perfectly understandable; shiny didn't have the context in English that it did in the series, yet English-speakers still were able to work out that it meant "cool/nifty" from context. You're right. Those are some damn lazy translators.

Damn. Now I'm tempted to do a fan dub. Hey, they do it for anime. :P

Quote:


I haven’t had the heart to keep watching much in Spanish after Shindig. Who knows what further sacrilege I might find?



My God... I can't imagine what would have been done to "The Hero of Canton". O_O

Quote:


As a fan of the series and as a native Spanish speaker, I hate what was done to Firefly during translation, and can almost certainly predict we won’t be converting any exclusively Spanish speakers based on this mediocre dubbing job. After all, I think most of us can agree that one of the best parts of Firefly is the dialogue- to ruin that is to ruin the whole show.



Indeed.

Quote:


Finally, as I was writing this it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen any episodes with the Spanish subtitles on. Therefore, I put on my favorite episode, Shindig, and read my way through it. Thankfully, the written translation does NOT match the spoken one. I am happy to report that although there are several mistakes (e.g. “water planets” are “watery planets” and the short Chinese phrases get ignored again), for the most part it is translated well and its quality is way above that of the translation used for dubbing. Shiny is actually “shiny” and although Captain Tightpants is Captain Fittedpants, this actually works.



Yay! I'll have to try it with subs then.

Captain Fittedpants... hee!

Quote:


So, if you ever lend out your converter set of DVDs to a Spanish speaker, tell them to watch it using the subtitles and to ignore the dubbed version- you’ll be doing them a favor and possibly bringing another Browncoat to the fold.



So far, the only Spanish speaker I know turns out to already own it - and he's completely bilingual, and had watched it (unsubtitled) in English originally. He also happens to be my current Spanish teacher, so if I see him on Monday, I'll talk to him about it.

Quote:


Thanks for letting me rant!



Oh, no problem! I do the same thing with crappy English dubs sometimes. And this lets me know what to expect, and which version (subtitled) I should go with if I want to practice my Spanish.


Quote:


I'd be interested to hear what the native French speakers have to say about the dubbing on Firefly.
***********



Me too.

Completely unrelated sidenote: the people who make The Sims seem to have created a "Movies" game or expansion...

I only mention it because I just saw an ad for it, and it has a scene/reference to "you can even film a western in space? Why? Because you can!". The scene has the ol' black, and a moon with cowboys riding horses all dramatic-like. I'm so obsessed. I immediately thought of "Serenity pt. 1 and 2" and the horses on Whitefall! Because... it was a moon. I dunno. Heh.

Quote:


Oh, and RUNA27, since you made such a nice effort on translating that article, here are the full translations of your quotes. Nice work! I've taught Spanish so I can really appreciate a hard-working student. So, just for you:



Aw, thanks! I hope to someday be reasonably fluent in both Spanish and Japanese. Well, and to speak some Romanian, but that's because I'm weird (though Romanian IS pretty! Genuinely shiny, I say! Like Italian meets Spanish, Latin and Russian. SO pretty!). :P

Quote:


***
"Y ahora... los chalecos marrones."
And now... the Brownvests.

I'm not sure about Spain, but over here in the Americas, a chaleco is a vest. A coat here would be abrigo. Hmmm... maybe we can use Abrigospardos? Too long... I'll have to think on that one.



Hehe... yeah, I asked my Spanish teacher about it, and he said "chaleco" isn't "coat". I thought that was amusing. Then again, he's from Costa Rica originally, so this could very well be a cultural thing. Or... just a weird translation. :P

Quote:


***
"Durante años, se podía ser trekkie, jedi o incluso echar de menos al profesor Robinson de Perdidos en el espacio."

For years, you could be a Trekkie, a Jedi or even miss Professor Robinson from "Lost in Space."



Hmm... echar... ecahar... *looks up in her libro de los verbos*.

Wow. It means "to pitch, to throw, to hurl, to fling". That's... definitely an idiom of some sort there. No wonder wasn't able to translate.

Don't suppose you could explain the idiom there? It'd be mighty helpful.

Quote:


***
"Ahora, existe una nueva tendencia, todavía desconocida en España: los chalecos marrones."
Now there's a new trend, as yet unknown in Spain: the Browncoats.



So... ¿Tendencia egualmente "trend"*?

(*How was that? Comprehensible?)

Quote:


***
"Así se autodenominan los fanáticos de la serie Firefly."
That's how fans of the Firefly series call themselves.



Yeah, I thought it was something along those lines, though the verb conjugation got me a tad mixed up. When I took Spanish in high school, my second year teacher didn't do too well at teaching us verb forms, and when I got to college, I started off with Spanish 1 again, which only goes into present tense. So... I'm great on present tense, but anything else can be a mite difficult...

Hee, I just realized how much I've been talking like the "Bid Damn Heroes" today. My family and I watched two episodes of Firefly tonight ("Our Mrs. Reynolds" - which only I had seen at that point - and "Jaynestown", which I hadn't seen yet until tonight... probably my favorite episode so far! Hee!), and I've been talking like them ever since (minus the Chinese). I just realized I'm still doing it. *giggle* I'm sure none y'all mind, though.

Quote:


***
"Su presión y su unión consiguieron que saliera adelante el proyecto de Serenity. ¡Frikis al poder!"
Their pressure and unity made the Serenity project possible. All power to the frikis!"

"Frikis" is tricky. I'm pretty sure it comes from the word "freak" so it could be translated as a really, really devoted fan.



Neat! I agree that it sounds like it's a Spanish-ified English word, "freak". Mostly because I still get a kick out of reading the menus in our local IHOP, which have the names of the food translated into Spanish on them... and has such terms has "panqueque" for "pancake", and "hamborguesa" for "hamburger". You just know those are Spanish-ified English words, because "panqueque" in particular doesn't make etymological sense otherwise (seeing as it pretty much translates as "bread-that-that" ). On an (to me) interesting side note, Romanian tends to do the same thing with foreign words, apparently.

Quote:


Keep up the good work! ¡Buena suerte!



¡Muchas gracias!


-Runa27



Can't Stop The Signal

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Sunday, December 11, 2005 4:27 PM

WORKWORKWORK


I'm having fun tracking down the different dubbed versions of the BDM trailer.

I took some German and Italian in school so I grabbed those first. But thanks to this discussion I've got the French and Spanish versions.

Compulsive? Yes, but I have to do *something* while I'm waiting for the DVD!



Jayne: "Instead of us hanging around playing art critic till I get pinched by the Man, how's about we move away from this eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

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