The most unfitting translations of Star Trek novels

[Kilana2]

As there are many other German fans here or even people who read Star Trek novels in different languages, I´d like to know if there are novels where the titles aren´t translated properly. Sometimes a translation changes the meaning or has nothing to do with the content.

I will start with "The Battle of Betazed" by Susan Kearney and Charlotte Douglas.

The German translation is: "Die Rache des Dominion" which means "The Vengeance of the Dominion". This translation has nothing to do with the content. I would have translated it as "Die Schlacht um Betazed".

There are more examples I would think.

 

[SPCTRE]

Thanks for reminding me why I haven't read a translated novel in ages.

(With all due respect to the people working on them.)

 

[Kilana2]

Thanks for reminding me why I haven't read a translated novel in ages.

(With all due respect to the people working on them.)

May I ask in what language you would read them (if you would) Except English.

 

[Jeri]

German titles of things are jokes around our house. My husband and I met in Germany as university exchange students in the 1986 school year, the year Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home debuted. If we hadn't known it was coming out, we would have missed it by the title of "Back to the Present." I guess this was in the wake of the "Back to the Future" movie (1985), which as we know, is not a Star Trek movie... Clearly, German translation title makers just don't care.

 

[Kilana2]

German titles of things are jokes around our house. My husband and I met in Germany as university exchange students in the 1986 school year, the year Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home debuted. If we hadn't known it was coming out, we would have missed it by the title of "Back to the Present." I guess this was in the wake of the "Back to the Future" movie (1985), which as we know, is not a Star Trek movie... Clearly, German translation title makers just don't care.

I must admit, not a lucky translation, but not completely wrong. At least they left the ST IV included. "Die Heimreise" would be a literal translation, though.

 

[Kilana2]

I don´t think that is unifitting, but Mudd in your Eye turned into "Friedensstifter" in German (which means peacemaker).

I would have had my difficulties to find a proper title.

Oh, I did some research. My dictionary offers me "Hals und Beinbruch" as Mud in your Eye. You say that when you wish sb good luck.

 

[Kor]

^ But then you lose the pun with Mudd's name.

Kor

 

[Kilana2]

^ But then you lose the pun with Mudd's name.

Kor

That´s because there is no proper equivalent in German.

Hals und Beinbruch means literally "may you break your neck and leg" Ha!!!! Retranslated it sounds quite klingon Qapla´

 

[Kor]

That's similar to the English expression "break a leg", used in show business to mean "good luck."

It was possibly based on a superstition that outright wishing somebody "good luck" would actually result in bad luck.

Kor

 

[Kilana2]

For all Klingons here comes the worst translation ever, and I haven't read the German Dominion novels for a long time.

Obviously former German pubisher Heyne released Star Trek novels (according to a treklit fan it was one of the Dominion War novels) where they translated

WARNOG as KRIEGSBIER or even worse KRIEGSNOG
(War = Krieg)
I have to check my copies and confirm it, but if it's true, this time they really got it wrong, as Christopher would put it.

No one told the translator, that Warnog has nothing to do with Nog..... And with war?

War Nog is Nog fighting the Dominion.....

 

[Christopher]

Actually I always did sort of think that "Warnog" sounded like a warrior's version of eggnog. So it's an understandable error -- if it is an error.

 

[JoeZhang]

German titles of things are jokes around our house. My husband and I met in Germany as university exchange students in the 1986 school year, the year Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home debuted. If we hadn't known it was coming out, we would have missed it by the title of "Back to the Present." I guess this was in the wake of the "Back to the Future" movie (1985), which as we know, is not a Star Trek movie... Clearly, German translation title makers just don't care.

I must admit, not a lucky translation, but not completely wrong. At least they left the ST IV included. "Die Heimreise" would be a literal translation, though.

Do they do in German what they often do in french - have one voice over-actor who does the same actors over and over?

 

[Kilana2]

Do they do in German what they often do in french - have one voice over-actor who does the same actors over and over?

No. Although there are actors who do the dubbing for several characters in one series.
Or you come to recognize the voice in different series:

One actore speaks Dr. House and DS9 Yelgrun and so on.

German actor Udo Schenk speaks Shran, Weyoun and Gary Oldman on a regular basis. So watching Air Force One I used to think: Oldman sounds like Weyoun with Russian accent... He doesn't speak Brunt, but it makes sense.

But one actor speaking everyone - no. They must at least have a male and a female voice-over... I never heard about that.

 

[Idran]

Do they do in German what they often do in french - have one voice over-actor who does the same actors over and over?

No. Although there are actors who do the dubbing for several characters in one series.
Or you come to recognize the voice in different series:

One actore speaks Dr. House and DS9 Yelgrun and so on.

German actor Udo Schenk speaks Shran, Weyoun and Gary Oldman on a regular basis. So watching Air Force One I used to think: Oldman sounds like Weyoun with Russian accent... He doesn't speak Brunt, but it makes sense.

But one actor speaking everyone - no. They must at least have a male and a female voice-over... I never heard about that.

Oh, I think JoeZhang meant do they have the same voice actor that voiced Spock in TOS also voice him in the movies and in TNG, for example. Like, will they try to keep the same VA across multiple media for the same actor?

 

[Hando]

I would like to point out that most often a translator is not responsible for the names.

I know for sure that the names of movies are set by the producers.
I am not totally sure when it comes to episodes, a translator does provide a translated name, but an editor and/or a producer may change it.
It is similar with the books, where the editor or publishing house may set their own name.

 

[Kilana2]

Oh, I think JoeZhang meant do they have the same voice actor that voiced Spock in TOS also voice him in the movies and in TNG, for example. Like, will they try to keep the same VA across multiple media for the same actor?

It is not possible to have the same voice actor when the originally introduced one dies. It happened. The actress who did the dubbing for Nurse Ogawa died in the 2004 Tsunami.

And they changed the dubbing. Riker had the same voice-actor in the show, but not in the movies for instance.
I mentioned Jeffrey Combs. Brunt got a different voice-actor, but it is logical. I guess Spock had different actors.
Sulu had definitely different actors: one of them is Tommy Piper, who also was the voice-actor for ALF

As I said Udo Schenk is usually the Gary Oldman voice. He is simply not always available or the German dubbing company decides to take someone else.
It's odd, though, when Steve Buscemi sounds different with another voice-over. He usually has the Steve Urkel voice (Santiago Ziesmer)

 

[Christopher]

As I said Udo Schenk is usually the Gary Oldman voice. He is simply not always available or the German dubbing company decides to take someone else.

I think this is what JoeZhang meant -- not just one voice artist consistently dubbing the same character, but one voice artist consistently dubbing the same actor in most or all of their different roles. So not just having a consistent dub actor for Spock, but for Paris and William Bell and all of Leonard Nimoy's other characters (for example).

 

[JoeZhang]

Yes that is what I mean - For example, if you watch a lot of Bruce Willis films, this is his voice (goto 1.10):


[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERZJzJYVMM?t=1m15s[/yt]


Kirk Douglas really liked his Dub artist:

If you watch this from about 7.30, you can hear Kirk's dub artist and then Kirk (in french praising him):

http://www.ina.fr/video/I00011056

 

[Kilana2]

During the run of the series they changed the voice-actors for O'Brien, Picard, Beverly, Deanna Troi and Tom Paris among others.

The trick is that people don't recognize the change of a voice-actor. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Data had always Michael Pan as voice-actor. Michael Pan spoke also Dwight Schultz, Leonard Nimoy, Scott Bakula, Steve Rankin, John Billingsley, John de Lancie (but not in Star Trek roles). And he spoke Brent Spiner in Independence Day.
Data with a completely different voice-actor, how would you have explained it away?

 

[Christopher]

I guess I don't watch enough dubbed live-action foreign movies to know if this is done with English dubs of foreign film. Although I do know that Jackie Chan usually dubs himself in English, which is good, because I like his voice. (Michelle Yeoh has done the same on occasion, and I've been hesitant to watch the English dub of any film where she doesn't dub herself, because I really like her voice.)

But I remember how annoyed I was as a kid when the third season of Star Blazers came out and it was dubbed by a totally different cast than the first two seasons (it was taken over by the people who'd done Speed Racer's dub).