Lost in French Translation, part 00: Introduction by fortinm

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Lost in French Translation, part 00: Introduction

POSTED BY: FORTINM
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 6, 2007 16:00
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VIEWED: 3571
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Tuesday, November 6, 2007 4:00 PM

Hello fellow Browncoats,

I recently introduced my 64 years old father to the Firefly world and I am happy to say that it is very much to his liking. Although he can follow an English conversation, he always prefer, for various reasons, to watch movies and television series in French. So, here I am, forced to watch Firefly in its French-dubbed avatar and, bless my breeches, it is something different!

Shortly after I began listening to these strange French voices, the idea of doing a kind of review of the translation work began to form in my brownish brain. Having witnessed the liveliness and Might of the Firefly community, I felt the urge to add my voice to it, if only in a small and insignificant way. So, I present you this series of reviews and analysis of the French dubbed Firefly world.

In the hope that it will interest some of you, let the French madness begins.

The spirit of the reviews
Translating is a noble work and a noble cause. But it's also a difficult one. Some do it better than others, for a multitude of reasons (money, resources, translator’s talent). For instance, I won't hesitate to watch an X-Files episode either in French or in English. Both are, most of the time, equally good. The voice actors are perfect and the translated text is very faithful, if not to the content, at least to the spirit of the series and characters.

Sometimes, a translated work is even better than the original version. Of course, in these cases, the original work is usually a piece of go se and has plenty of room for amelioration!

The reason I’m stating these obvious facts is to make it clear that I have a small idea of the hurdles behind such a task. The purpose of my reviews is not to belittle the French translators’ work. Furthermore, my own translations of the French lines into English incessantly, and very thoroughly, remind me how hard it is to do a good translation.

In short, I won’t nitpick. Or, at least, I’ll do my best not to. I will only report significant differences, good or bad, or insignificant differences that I find interesting.

To shorten and lighten the articles, I will assume that the reader knows very well the original dialogs and I will not add much context, if any, around the excerpts.

Broad overview
I’ll start immediately my analysis by a list of general comments that apply to all or most of the episodes. Here they are, in no particular order.

The Chinese lines have, for the most part, disappeared. Usually, the translators decided to replace them with French text in the spirit of the scene. But even when the Chinese was kept, and even though I have no experience with this language, I’m pretty sure that the French voice actors didn’t do as good a job with the elocution. They probably did not benefit from personal coaches... unlike the original actors. I’ll mention in each review the Chinese lines that were kept and I will tally up the score for each episode.

As a side note, the word gorram was also a victim of the translations and no unique substitute was chosen.

One thing that annoy me to a very high degree is the decision to keep, as-is, the term "shepherd" for Book. I’m finding it hard to believe that the translators did not realize that it was the character’s title, not his name. As they occasionally will use other titles like prêtre (priest), pasteur (pastor) and Père (Father), I see no reasons for having kept the English shepherd attribute. What’s worse is that the voice actors will sometimes pronounce it SHE-P-ERD and, other times, SHE-F-ERD.

Joss’ humour loses some of its wit and bite. This is, arguably, the greater loss of the translation. Sometimes, the humour will be kept more or less intact, sometimes it will diminish, sometimes it will disappear and, more rarely, a scene will be more humorous. I’ll point these differences as I go along.

The French voice actors are, on the whole, good enough. The French River is particularly talented, but I find the voice of Mal and Zoe too soft, in pitch and intonation, for the background and life experiences of the characters.

For a reason that escapes me, they’ve decided to pronounce Jayne’s name JAY-NEE. They perhaps estimated that the name Jenny was more liked than Jane in the French-speaking world.

Feedback
I would very much like some feedback from you. But even if I don’t have any, I’ll see this endeavour through. I can be a stubborn hwoon dahn when I want to. And I have to get this out of my system! What I’d like to know from you is this:

First and foremost, I want to know if this is the right venue (and area) for this series of articles. I am a newcomer to Firefly’s online community and I will surely disappear when my work is done. Is this the right home for my articles? Should I duplicate them in other venues?

Secondly, I would very much appreciate reports of any mistake and omission. English is not my primary language so I would particularly like to know of any grammatical and orthographic error.

Thirdly, don’t hesitate to suggest ameliorations in the presentation, content or other aspect of my articles.

I’ll post my first review in a few days. Stay tuned!

Thanks for your attention,

Michel

EDIT:
As a rule, I hate unqualified ratings - what's the difference between an 8/10 and a 9/10? - so here's my ratings explanations:

1/5: The translation has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I doubt I'll ever have to use this rating!

2/5: Not good. Too much mistakes or bad decisions have been made. It disfigures the original work.

3/5: Average. The spirit of the episode is, on the whole, kept. Contains nonetheless serious mistakes or inappropriate choices.

4/5: Good. Contains just a few mildly severe mistakes, but not enough to betray the original work.

5/5: Very good. Contains no major errors. Very faithful to the original work.

First review (Serenity, the Pilot): http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=4&t=31411

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