Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Lois & Clark Dubbing - Foreign Language Versions of L&C

Although I already participated in the Photo Quiz, I'm still a newbie, so:

Hello, Everybody !!

I did a lot of reading over the past view days and came to the - obvious and logical - conclusion that it is absolutely great here!


Okay, back ( ) to this post's subject:

Since I'm from Germany I first saw the show in German.
And it starts with the naming of the show, because they changed it to Superman - Die Abenteuer von Lois & Clark (Superman - The Adventures of L&C). They made it a(nother) superhero television show giving the impression that it would focus on Superman and not the personal interaction between Lois & Clark.

And worse, IMO they even tried to hold up to that in their way of dubbing some of the episodes.

In essence, I think it is a common denominator in most German dubs to concentrate on the A-plot - or rather to fixate on it, though I could never figure out why.
Perhaps they tried to make it easier for us - if you'd have to follow more than one plotline at a time ...


Last but not least: The Episode Title

There would be far too many to list here, so I'll just pick my favorites and you'll see what I meant by saying they concentrated on the A-plots and how little caring they had for the B-plots.
1) Individual Responsibility --> Das rote Kryptonit (The Red Kryptonite)
2) Through A Class, Darkly --> Die Kryptonier (The Kryptonians)
3) Big Girls Don't Fly --> Abschied von Superman (Farewell to Superman)

Especially the last one shows how much they cared about the B-plot: They just spoiled it(AHHHHRRRGGG).
Because you know he is going to go in the end, the inner conflict Clark has to fight, whether he should go or not looses a little bit of it's tension, which plainly prevents you from identifying yourself with what he's going through.

I think there are very view (german) episode titles I like:
1) Die Frau aus Stahl (The Woman of Steel) <-- Ultra Woman

2) Die Zeitmaschine (The Time Machine) <-- Tempus Fugitive

Of course, Tempus Fugitive is a much better title, but untranslatable, but it is a hint to Herb without giving everything away - and it is actually creative, whereas Das gelbe Licht (The Yellow Light) <-- Return of the Prankster obviously was not.

Okay, enough ranting!

Time for a final Question:

Did any of you had similar or hopefully different experiences regarding Foreign Language Versions of L&C?

-Bernd

PS: Although it doesn't look like it, I still enjoyed the show, even in German, but it was a real eye-opener (or rather ear-opener) to actually watch it in English - it just get's even better.

Not having had to suffer subtitles myself, I can't answer your questions, Bernd. But I know several FoLCs who've been equally frustrated - I'll leave it to Kaethel to mention the now infamous confusion French TV had with Lois' teddy.

The foreign titles do seem to be somewhat lacking, generally, in charm. <g> Or even deep thought. But I suppose they weren't paid to be creative there.

Anyway, all I really wanted to do was say welcome to our playground and I'm glad you're having so much fun and leaping right in to join us!

LabRat

Welcome to the boards, Kri-El

And yes, as LabRat mentioned, I've already groaned ad lib about the French version of Lois & Clark. Like you, my first brush with the show was in my first language, and I didn't see a single original episode until long after I was hooked and already writing fanfic. At last I found a tiny shop in Paris where the guy said he could order the tapes for me (I didn't even know they were available at the time) and I completed the collection thanks to some very generous German FoLCs, who agreed to copy their tapes for me.

I didn't truly know what I was missing until I saw episodes in English. Until then, I loved the show but I thought that some scenes were very badly played, and some lines made no sense. I didn't blame it on the dubbing until I realised what sort of ridiculous mistakes they had made. Rat mentions the teddy, and yes, I think it's their most outrageous one. In Soulmates, teddy got translated to the French equivalent of "teddy bear" - one might wonder why the heck Clark would feel *so* eager to fly back to Lois's apartment for a forgotten teddy bear!

There was also a lot of emotion that got lost through the dubbing process. It can't really be otherwise, I guess, since dubbers just stand in front of a screen and read their text without truly *acting* it. It's much harder to think of yourself as the character when you're not truly playing it. It was particularly obvious in emotional scenes of course, or even when they kissed (yes, they dubbed the kissing, too, which I think I find quite hilarious - you don't expect kissing to sound any different in a foreign language... though the mumbled words have to be translated, so I suppose that made sense ).

As for titles, looks like it's a department where we were lucky. They either tried to translate the meaning but use French colloquialisms, or they made small references to movie titles. For example, Tempus Fugitive became "Retour vers le Passe" (wink to the French title of "Back to the Future", which was "Retour vers le futur"). The Rival Became "Une Star est nee" (A Star is Born), which I think was a clever title. So it wasn't too bad.

Nevertheless, even though I still keep my French tapes for memory's sake, they don't appeal any more, and I much prefer the version in English. Lois & Clark reinforced my dislike of translated versions as a whole, whether it's in movies or in books.

Kaethel

In Brazil, the episodes are dubbed (not subtitled).

It was awful (I say was because I'm in the US now) to watch it and not understand the jokes. The voices were so different, and, watching the episodes in English, I realized that so much was lost in the dubbing, such as their tone of voice, typical American expressions (such as the teddy comment LabRat made: they translated as if they were talking about a teddy bear

Now, most of the titles of the episodes were pretty much the same as in English. For example, Ultra Woman was Ultra Woman , and Foundling was Criança Abandonada (Abandoned Child) . That didn't change much my point of view of the show, but what really irritated me was that they cut about ten minutes of each episode to show it in a smaller time slot, and the stories got confusing. One example was the episode And the Answer Is.... They cut the part where Martha gives Jonathan the wooden box with the stones, and Jonathan gives Martha the gift certificate. Then, they showed the part where Jonathan gives Martha the book in Italian and the plane tickets. I used to think: "What gift certificate? When did he give it to her?" It was so confusing!

Well, now I'll stop rambling!

malu

Here in Greece, the episodes were subtitled.

The translation of the ep titles was never given.

As for the scripts, although some long sentences had to be somehow shortened, to fit in a subtitle, they were worked out very well.

Example: (I'm not sure about the episode and I don't have time to look for it... sorry)
In English:
Lois: ...you're a vir... a vir... a very patient man.
In Greek:
Lois: ...&#949;&#943;&#963;&#945;&#953; &#960;&#945;&#961;... &#960;&#945;&#961;... &#960;&#940;&#961;&#945; &#960;&#959;&#955;&#973; &#965;&#960;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#957;&#949;&#964;&#953;&#954;&#972;&#962;.
(&#960;&#940;&#961;&#945; &#960;&#959;&#955;&#973; in Greek means really much, and the word for virgin is &#960;&#945;&#961;&#952;&#941;&#957;&#959;&#962;... see, what Lois says remains the same, and it sounds correct in Greek too.)

As for the jokes that had no chance to be exactly translated, they were still standing very well in the continuity of the show.

There were some nicknames that were not exactly translated, but somehow they were fitting.
For example, the villain's name in the Family Hour (whose name I can't recall right now) was translated as '&#922;&#949;&#966;&#940;&#955;&#945;&#962;' (a word which means a guy who has a big head and also sometimes is used as 'stupid'.)

Person's names were not translated, even when there were equal names in Greek. But the Daily Planet was '&#919;&#956;&#949;&#961;&#942;&#963;&#953;&#959;&#962; &#928;&#955;&#945;&#957;&#942;&#964;&#951;&#962;' (same thing).

So, generally, there was no problem here.

Although I have to admit I 'cheated' a little...
It's been two or three years that my English has become fairly well, so since then I never depend on the subtitles when watching an English series or movie. I look at the subtitles, but try my best to capture what I'm hearing too. So I wasn't losing anything, no matter whether it was translated or not. And this short, I admit, period of time I'm doing it includes L&C.

AnnaBtG. (very sorry to hear there were such problems with the other languages)

P.S.: I hope you can receive the Greek characters.

Hi!

Well just like Malu, I watched L&C dub in Portuguese. I don't know if the fact that I grew up watching those voices or other thing but I like the dub version even though it has some faults. Malu commented about the black teddy mistake and yeah I remember it got me confused when I watched it the first time.

Malu I don't know the time you used to watch L&C but when it was aired the first time here (Globo Channel) I didn't see any cut. We can still see L&C today in the Warner Channel here and we don't have cut at all. I just remember it was cut when it started to show in the mornings a time ago (Globo Channel).

The name of the episodes were pretty the same but yes we lost something when we talk about jokes and American expressions. I still feel sorry about this talk Lois and Clark had in VD:

You're saying you're a vir...a very patient guy. In portuguese: Você está dizendo que vc é...um cara muito paciente (you're saying you're ...a very patient guy) See no Freudian slip so we lost the "joke". This happened because the word virgin (virgem) doesn't match the word very (muito)so they couldn't use the "joke". And the other thing is that in Portuguese we have to put first the noum (guy - cara) then the adverb (very - muito) and the last thing is the adjective (patient - paciente) so that's another thing why the "joke" couldn't be used in portuguese...unfortunately because I always laugh when I watch it in English

One of the things I didn't like was when they had to change Clark's voice...I hate the "new" voice.

Anyway even though I like the original version more than I like the dub version. I still have my Portuguese tapes and I love to watch it anyway.

Raquel

This is an interesting thread! I've only ever seen the show in English, so I don't have any stories to add to those here, but it was fun reading yours!

I do have a question for those of you who watched in French or Portuguese. When Lois told Clark to go back for her little bear, you must have been confused. Later, Lois runs to the bag Clark was so eager to get, takes out a piece of black lingerie, and puts it on. Question: At this point, did a light go on in your head? Did you put 2 and 2 together and say, "Oh, now I know what she was saying in English!"? Or did you only find later, when you watched the show in English, or read about it here, etc.?

- Vicki (who gets never-ending enjoyment out of "back-translating". I think I just invented a new word. he he)

As far as I'm concerned, it remained a mystery until I read fanfic that referred to it. At the time I had no clue that the word "teddy" could mean anything but a fluffy little thing that kids hold at night, so I didn't put two and two together. I just shrugged it aside.

Kaethel

Hi Vicky!

Well just like Kaethel I didn't realize the difference until I start reading fanfic (that was before I watched the episode in English). I remember that I always got confused because the first scene and the last scene didn't make sense to me....they didn't match Lately when I could watch the episode in English I could see what the real mistake was and I remembered that I laughed and thought: Oh it's better if they start looking for new translators

Raquel

Well I agree with Hélène about the french dubbing/translation, it was weird from time to time. For example, about the teddy for the wedding night I thought it was the teddy bear that clark won for Lois in season1...I was just like : well you need teddy bear during your wedding night with clark, get a grip Lois !!!!

But the weirdest thing about the french dubbing it was hearing Chandler (from friends) saying to Buffy I love you or Will you marry me???? Because it was the same dubbers...But you are getting use to it. It's true that when you heard the english version, you don't want to go back to the french version.
Maybe someday in France we'll have series or movies in the english version...I know I'm dreaming!!!!

Lucie

And it was really funny hearing about the translation problems you encountered....

For once I'm grateful, a teddy is exactly that in German, the stuffed animal and the lingerie...
although I, too, briefly thought about the bear Clark won for Lois in Smallville, when I saw the episode for the first time...
which is really strange for an eighteen year old... shouldn't it have been otherwise???

well, that was years ago....

-Bernd