"Dangerous Planet-Girls" - Star Trek in other languages

[Eddie Roth]

You know what I've always found both interesting and amusing? The treatment foreign languages give Star Trek. Be that promotional material in that language...

... the strangeness of hearing Kirk, Spock et al. talk French, Spanish or my native German...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdC1SWVCtT4&feature=related

... new titles they came up with...

Especially episode titles can be funny when they don't try to just translate the original. Or when they totally go weird, or even completely misunderstand the episode's plot. Especially with TOS in German, this has always added to my enjoyment of the show when I first saw it. I'm thinking of gems like

Gefährliche Planetengirls ("Dangerous Planet-Girls")
Notlandung auf Galileo 7 ("Emergency Landing on Galileo 7")
Strahlen greifen an ("Rays attack")
Was summt denn da? ("What's humming there?")

Can you guess what episodes these were?

And what quirks did Star Trek display in your native (non-English) language? Did you maybe get special movie posters that were only used in your country? What were some of the episodes called (I know the Japanese were pretty out there with their titles..)? Did the dubbed versions in your country distort plots or characters?

Cause I'm thinking here of the legendary Weltraumfieber. In which our German network ZDF decided that the story of Spock's pon farr (We're talking "Amok Time" here, of course") was re-edited (or butchered, to be more precise) to tell the story of how Spock comes down with "Space fever" that makes him hallucinate a fight to the death with Kirk. No mention of any mating drive...

Let's swap stories from Star Trek's World Tour!

 

[Michael]

You know, I started a very similar thread once.

I guess great minds think alike, eh?

 

[miraclefan]

I'm going to geuss that (Dangerous Planet-Girls) is either ''Angel one'' or the episode where ''Riker'' falls for that Girlish/Boyish? Alien on that planet of those transgenderd creatures? and (Emergency Landing on galilao 7) I can only geuss, Skin of evil, unless there whas another episode that had a crashed shuttle craft I can't think of. And (What's humming there?) I don't know ''why'' this came to mind, but maybe the episode where data tryes to save the alien girl from a differant dimension ''or'' planet or something? I don't remember it too well. I really didn't pay too much attention those first two years. Wait a minute, are talking ''TOS'' or ''TNG''?

 

[Eddie Roth]

Oh, the redundance! But indeed interesting how we picked exactly the same examples... Even though German TOS has many more such "treasures"....

I would really like to see some of the Japanese titles again.They were in Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, I believe. Unfortunately, I sold mine. Those were really weird.

And since we are truly that international here.... there are so many countries...

 

[miraclefan]

Because if it's TOS then this is TOO easy! There real titles are ( in no order) ''Galilao 7'' ''Doomsday Machine'' Okay not as easy as I thought! Come on please tell us the title name's!?

 

[apenpaap]

Here in the Netherlands, shows aren't dubbed but subtitled, and the episode titles aren't translated, so I can't give you any funny translations.

 

[Eddie Roth]

miraclefan - these are TOS titles.

 

[miraclefan]

^Thank you. If you don't mind would you please Tell me if I got any of them right? I went with(Emergency landing galilao 7) ''Galilao 7'' (Rays attack) ''The Doomsday machine'' I don't have a clue what the others could possibly be? I admitt I havent seen ''EVERY'' TOS episode, sorry.

 

[Michael]

Here in the Netherlands, shows aren't dubbed but subtitled, and the episode titles aren't translated, so I can't give you any funny translations.

So they don't give the episodes any titles? How are they distinguished in TV magazines, for instance?

Other German translations I always found dubious include Der Zentralnervensystemmanipulator (The Central Nerve System Manipulator, which is an awfully long and dull title for Dagger of the Mind), Stein und Staub (Stone and Dust, the German version of the wonderful Shakespearean title By Any Other Name) and Rikers Vater (Riker's Father, the most obvious title they could have possibly come up with for TNG's The Icarus Factor). Other stupid ones are Der schüchterne Reginald, which means The Shy Reginald (TNG's Hollow Pursuits) and Ich bin Hugh (I Am Hugh), which totally destroys one of the ideas behind I, Borg.

It has to be said though, that since the days of TNG the translations became much better to a point where they were mostly one-to-one conversions.

 

[CorporalClegg]

So Trek is really called "Spaceship Enterprise"?

 

[David cgc]

Can you guess what episodes these were?

I'll take a whack at it.

Gefährliche Planetengirls ("Dangerous Planet-Girls")
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" but "Spock's Brain" is another possibility. I'm not really sure about this one.

Notlandung auf Galileo 7 ("Emergency Landing on Galileo 7")
"The Galileo Seven"

Strahlen greifen an ("Rays attack")
"Operation: Annihilate!"

Was summt denn da? ("What's humming there?")
Took me a minute, but it has to be "Wink of an Eye."

 

[apenpaap]

Here in the Netherlands, shows aren't dubbed but subtitled, and the episode titles aren't translated, so I can't give you any funny translations.

So they don't give the episodes any titles? How are they distinguished in TV magazines, for instance?

They use the english names for the episodes.

 

[Michael]

Dangerous Planet-Girls is TOS' That Which Survives. Angel One is just Planet Angel One in Germany. The other episode you mention (TNG's The Outcast) was called Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love).

Emergency Landing on Galilao 7 is – who would have thought – The Galileo Seven. The German title for Skin of Evil is Die schwarze Seele (The Black Soul).

What's humming there? is TOS' Wink of an Eye. The episode where Data saves a little alien girl (Nikki Cox, by the way) is Pen Pals, which they correctly translated into Brieffreunde (pen pals).

EDIT: Rays attack is actually TOS' The Lights of Zetar, by the way.

 

[Michael]

Here in the Netherlands, shows aren't dubbed but subtitled, and the episode titles aren't translated, so I can't give you any funny translations.

So they don't give the episodes any titles? How are they distinguished in TV magazines, for instance?

They use the english names for the episodes.

Wow, really? When do children begin to learn English in the Netherlands?

 

[apenpaap]

So they don't give the episodes any titles? How are they distinguished in TV magazines, for instance?

They use the english names for the episodes.

Wow, really? When do children begin to learn English in the Netherlands?

Usually the 7th grade (around the age of 10). Though they obviously pick up a few words of english before that through TV and stuff like that.