Strange Language in S4 E16 Academic Octathalon

tedwilder

New member
hello.
I was wondering if any of you know what language is that at 09:21. As a matter of fact this is when some clever guy talks to malcom's class.
It sounds like he's talking in french.. but it's not..
As they are no VO/VF sub I'm not able to check that. anyone knows?
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
hello.
I was wondering if any of you know what language is that at 09:21. As a matter of fact this is when some clever guy talks to malcom's class.
It sounds like he's talking in french.. but it's not..
As they are no VO/VF sub I'm not able to check that. anyone knows?

I've managed to identify (attempts at) German and Dutch in other episodes, but I don't know about this one. I'll give it a try!

Rich
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
Well, I think it's definitely supposed to sound French, just like the German, Slavic (former Yugoslavian) and Dutch bits used in MITM are more about conveying the idea of the language than about being correct.

It sounds like "Nous ne nourrissons une propre entrée y philivement plus".

Would that mean anything to you?!

Best,

Rich

P.S. I have attached two mp3's, the original and one slowed down by half
 
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tedwilder

New member
hello ( I didnt see my question has been moved here ). Well It means.. nothing at all thats why I'm wondering and why I put that in " goof " at first.. because if it's supposed to be french then.. it's a goof :)
 

MITM_Fan

Member
I believe it's French, Richie.

And that means "We do not nourish a clean entry there philivement more" just used "freetranslator".

French isn't near to German, because I listen and watch to French channels and also go over to France.

This isn't relative what I'm gonna say. Italian, a person that knows Portuguese or Spanish can easily know what they're saying because the words/meaning is almost the same, however a Spanish/Portuguese person cannot talk to an Italian if they're talking in ES or PT.

lol, that just came out because of some dude in the net said, "Italian is the language of love" or some crap, funny guy.
 

tedwilder

New member
MITM fan : well we know that : I'm french ! :) problem is : It means nothing.. German parts are ok (half my family is german so I do understand it).
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
Well, all I was trying to say that it was an intentional goof to make it sound like French, while it wasn't actual French. It's like Grandma Ida's vague Slavic background, which was never meant to be true to life, although they made use of some Croatian symbols and stuff - see another thread for that.

It's like having an 'English' character in a French movie say "I think we brush is fleece to moat the quirkies" - enough to give the idea of English.

There's a long history in comedy of people speaking gibberish or pidgin languages. It's done for a laugh, but also because 'ethnic comedy' is mostly deliberately kept vague, in other words, politically correct, so as not to offend specific races or nations. There's a pattern of that in American comedy, from the toning down of the Mexican stereotype in "Chico and the Man", to the vague ethnicity of Andy Kaufman's character (Latka Gravas) in "Taxi', and the Greek-or-so background of Balki Bartokomous in "Perfect Strangers".

I have to agree too, in spite of what I said before, that the German was mostly meant to be correct, although there is nonsense too, as when Otto describes what the artificial insemination of the cow is about. I think he says: "The bull will put his Schwarzenkopfen in the Hühnenkütz". This is a lot like the language humour in the movie "Top Secret" (by the Naked Gun/Airplane guys). It's meant to evoke the idea of German, and of something like a "black head" and "a "chicken cunt" (pardon my French) in fake German, which is actually a nice way of working around censorship too!

I'm Dutch, but have a hard time understanding the Dutch bits in MITM. More about that at a later time. More Reesearch!

Rich
 

tedwilder

New member
hum I do not agree but well. ok. Now what I 'd really like is to see the french version episode of this one. Any link for it? thank you.
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
hum I do not agree but well. ok. Now what I 'd really like is to see the french version episode of this one. Any link for it? thank you.

Are you active on the French board we link to down this page?

http://forums.malcolm-france.com/

They don't even mention Cyrano there, by the way. :D

The French version of the episode is called "Les grands esprits se rencontrent". A fair warning: in Germany, Otto and Gretchen are turned into Danes to maintain the distinction, so I don't know what you're in for! :p

There is a torrent download for it. I don't know if this link works:

http://isohunt.com/download/89574453/malcolm+in+the+middle+saison.torrent

Rich
 

tedwilder

New member
well I checked it .the line is : " il parait que bien heureux sont les simples d'esprits et heureux sont ceux qui en ont". I dont like adapted version so I have no interest in french forum.
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
well I checked it .the line is : " il parait que bien heureux sont les simples d'esprits et heureux sont ceux qui en ont". I dont like adapted version so I have no interest in french forum.

Hm, so they didn't bother to change it to English, or do something else clever with it, but just paraphrased the Bible with a twist! I agree that isn't very helpful or smart. It's like this phrase "Lois Common Denominator" of episode Home Alone 4. French dubbing: "Lois, le dénominateur très commun de la famille". That's not a nickname (surnom)! I mean, this totally misses the pun of "lowest common denominator"! Not that it's easy, but that's a translator's job.

I guess you're better off with us then ;)

Rich
 
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tedwilder

New member
thanks ;)

Yes translation is very bad. it ruins jokes most the time and the worst is the tone the original actor use can be completly detroys by the french actor. I have some example with that like the tone is ironical in orginal version and not in french version.
Also the voice itself doesnt match the personality of the character sometimes ( thats really important for "heavy characters" like Snape , Lucious malfoy, ( yeah i saw HP 6 so I'm thinking about this :) Dubbed voice are not oki. Besides the script itself is modified and even worse : the translation in the subtitle does not match the vocal translation ! Of course sometimes they are good reason like labial match and local joke that have to be adapted. But most of the time the reason is a lazy guy.
On the other hand translators have very few time to do their work and compagnies like dubbing brothers are just -censored-. The reason is now translator are no more authors of their work. A translation is an adaptation. But now guys sign a contract that says: you provide us a translation, you have 2 days and you have no copyrights on it, you are paid one time, but then you will never get any royalties. So for shows like that then the translator...just dont care if it's not really ok.
I saw how much they are paid once. I dont remember exactly now but I do remember that was really really not much.
Now thanks to digital TV some shows are brodcasted with original soundtrack. But those are execptions because the "dubb" lobby is really strong.. then only solution is to ... download..
( makes me think about MTV2 : thats a cool UK channel.. and that was broadcasted in France but then the big french compagny decided it was not ok to have channel here without control over it : they just forbid it .. We are supposed to be at least in Europe, live all together etc. but .yeah well I'm gonna stop here coz I'm off topic and I could write about that for hours lol ).
 

Richiepiep

Administrator
It's good that you brought that to my attention again, Ted! Shows that similar tendencies are happening the world over. I have a number of friends working as translators, and on top of what you're saying about loss of authorship, they get paid less and less because the tough competition between any number of commercial channels, which cut on costs with cheap reruns of series in syndication and other budget cuts, plus the fact that more and more translations appear on the Internet for free. Many of them used to be able to make a living out of translating, but it's getting tougher. All of which leads to the shoddy translations you mentioned.

In one detective series, two investigators said 'I think we have a match', and 'Let's get those prints', meaning the same fingerprints found at the scene of the crime as in a database. This was translated in Dutch as if they were making paper copies of something, and they were looking for a match to light a cigarette!

Talking about Harry Potter, in Germany, they were apparently worried about the level of violence and suspense in what is essentially still seen as a children's book (though kids are supposed to grow up along with the character), so they dubbed 'I will kill you' as 'Ich werde dich kriegen!' (I will get you), a 'nice' example of dubbed censorship.

In a drama series, they were talking about how a guy was so well educated, he knew all the Romance languages. This was translated as if the guy was such a romantic!

I thought this was funny. Funny haha, but also funny peculiar (and funny sad):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1579932/Caption-confusion-mangles-The-Queen.html

Rich
 
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