Fun with localization!
February 1, 2025 10:49 AM Subscribe
I want fun examples of how media gets tailored to various countries, languages, and cultures. For example, in Toy Story 3, Buzz Lightyear gets reset into his Spanish-language mode, and none of the other characters can understand him. For the Mexican release, they changed this to him switching from Mexican Spanish to Castilian Spanish. In Spain, they changed it to him switching from Castilian Spanish to Andalusian Spanish.
I'm also interested in times when regional or culture-specific jokes are changed for other countries.
I'm also interested in times when regional or culture-specific jokes are changed for other countries.
In the anime Fushigi Yuugi, there's a scene where Chichiri, a monk, is pursuing a bad guy down a tunnel. But, the tunnel has been closed off! Chichiri exclaims, "Shimete!" (Japanese for "Closed!") but his intonation implies he meant, "Shimatta!" ("Dammit!"). Another character comments, "Are monks supposed to swear like that?"
The English subtitle Chichiri's exclamation was, "Aw, shut!"
posted by SPrintF at 11:21 AM on February 1 [26 favorites]
The English subtitle Chichiri's exclamation was, "Aw, shut!"
posted by SPrintF at 11:21 AM on February 1 [26 favorites]
Kubrick filmed several foreign language versions of the "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" typescript for The Shining.
posted by Lemkin at 11:36 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Lemkin at 11:36 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Polygon recently ran a series of articles on how video games are localized. Not necessarily jokes, but interesting nonetheless.
posted by subocoyne at 11:41 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by subocoyne at 11:41 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
You might enjoy the website "Legends of Localization".
posted by etealuear_crushue at 11:45 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by etealuear_crushue at 11:45 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]
There's a Chinese new year version of the nutcracker ballet. It's interesting seeing some of the different choices made
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 11:45 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Higherfasterforwards at 11:45 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
At the beginning of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Steve gets out a list of things he plans to catch up on after being frozen in ice since WWII. The list is different in different countries.
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:55 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:55 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
https://www.slashfilm.com/727914/why-inside-out-changed-so-many-scenes-for-its-overseas-release/
Inside Out had broccoli (western-toddler-yucky-food) swapped for green bell peppers, because broccoli isn't disgusting to Japanese toddlers. There are other examples in that article. Hockey -> Soccer, or re-animating a s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g scene for right-to-left reading audiences.
posted by adekllny at 12:49 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
Inside Out had broccoli (western-toddler-yucky-food) swapped for green bell peppers, because broccoli isn't disgusting to Japanese toddlers. There are other examples in that article. Hockey -> Soccer, or re-animating a s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g scene for right-to-left reading audiences.
posted by adekllny at 12:49 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
https://thelanguagenerds.com/2020/how-different-languages-say-it-is-greek-to-me/
ALSO, you can't say "it's all Greek to me" in Greece, so what do you say? "It's all Chinese to me." But in Mandarin they say Martian :)
posted by adekllny at 12:52 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
ALSO, you can't say "it's all Greek to me" in Greece, so what do you say? "It's all Chinese to me." But in Mandarin they say Martian :)
posted by adekllny at 12:52 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
I'm also interested in times when regional or culture-specific jokes are changed for other countries.
There's a Monty Python sketch about a person who can't say the letter "c", so he substitutes the letter "b" for it. His interlocutor asks if he can say the letter "k", and he says "Oh yes... khaki, kettle, king, Kuwait ... Keble Bollege, Oxford..."
For their performance of this sketch in "Live at the Hollywood Bowl", instead of "Keble Bollege, Oxford", he says "Kellogg's Born Flakes".
posted by Daily Alice at 1:04 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
There's a Monty Python sketch about a person who can't say the letter "c", so he substitutes the letter "b" for it. His interlocutor asks if he can say the letter "k", and he says "Oh yes... khaki, kettle, king, Kuwait ... Keble Bollege, Oxford..."
For their performance of this sketch in "Live at the Hollywood Bowl", instead of "Keble Bollege, Oxford", he says "Kellogg's Born Flakes".
posted by Daily Alice at 1:04 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
I remember the Zootopia newscasters being localized was a big thing on Reddit for whatever reason.
posted by dick dale the vampire at 1:14 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by dick dale the vampire at 1:14 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
I remember watching an episode of The Simpsons when I was living in Paris years ago. I unfortunately don't remember the name of the episode, but as is generally the case with American or other foreign TV shows, it was dubbed in French. One of the characters, who may have been an oil tycoon from Texas, was wearing a cowboy hat. In order to convey the fact that he didn't have the same accent as the rest of the characters, he spoke with "l'accent du Midi", which is to say the accent one would traditionally encounter in the south of France, as opposed to the usual non-regional diction. It seemed incongruous and made me laugh, but it also occurred to me that conveying different accents and dialects in a foreign language presents a challenge.
Speaking of The Simpsons, in Québec the characters speak with Québécois accents. You'd think that would be a given, but for certain foreign shows French-Canadian audiences wind up watching the version dubbed in European French. So this was an attempt to make the show more relatable and palatable to them.
posted by DavidfromBA at 1:14 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Speaking of The Simpsons, in Québec the characters speak with Québécois accents. You'd think that would be a given, but for certain foreign shows French-Canadian audiences wind up watching the version dubbed in European French. So this was an attempt to make the show more relatable and palatable to them.
posted by DavidfromBA at 1:14 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]
Yes, The Simpsons is famous for this, especially in Mexican Spanish and Quebecois French. Cultural references, expressions, celebrities, all kinds of things are changed rather than directly translated.
posted by ssg at 1:41 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 1:41 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
In Extraordinary Attorney Woo, the main character habitually introduces herself and points out that her name Woo Young Woo is a palindrome. English translation reads “Kayak, deed, rotator, noon, race car, Woo Young Woo.” as her introduction. The original Korean is, apparently, "기러기, 토마토, 스위스, 인도인, 별똥별, 우영우, 역삼역", which literally means "wild goose, tomato, swiss, indian, shooting star, woo young woo, yeoksam station.”
I’m curious if they do a bespoke localization for other languages for this show.
posted by vunder at 3:40 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]
I’m curious if they do a bespoke localization for other languages for this show.
posted by vunder at 3:40 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]
This isn’t that interesting or surprising, but in the UK in the early 90s, the movie “Encino Man” was shown under the title “California Man”.
posted by SomethinsWrong at 5:08 PM on February 1
posted by SomethinsWrong at 5:08 PM on February 1
German translation of Seinfeld:
When it came to Dolores, of course, Sebastian had to work extra hard. Finally, she hit upon a distinctly German solution: she substituted Dolores (rhymes with "clitoris") with Uschi (rhymes with "muschi," slang for vagina). Uschi is a relatively common German name, short for Ursula. Perfect.posted by gregr at 6:31 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
On mobile, and can't find it now, but somewhere there's a list of Asterix character names and localized versions, ie, Dogmatix in English is ... Ideefix? Or something in French. It's an amazing work of translating the puns.
posted by quinndexter at 8:25 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
posted by quinndexter at 8:25 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
There are other examples in that article. Hockey -> SoccerIn case anyone else did a double take at this (given that hockey is a key part of the movie's story) the localization there was for a scene were the dad watches it on TV. They didn't, like, rework every moment of it into a different sport, which would have been bonkers.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:48 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Also came in to mention Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge's amazing work on rendering Asterix in English. My late mother taught French, and she told me several times that she thought Bell and Hockridge were even better at their jobs than Goscinny and Uderzo were at theirs.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
For Hogan’s Heroes in German, the dialogue was shaped so that the Nazis were even more ridiculous. They also referred to unseen characters such as Klink’s cleaning lady.
posted by Melismata at 5:22 AM on February 2
posted by Melismata at 5:22 AM on February 2
On mobile, and can't find it now, but somewhere there's a list of Asterix character names and localized versions, ie, Dogmatix in English is ... Ideefix? Or something in French.
English translations of Asterix, primarily the Bell Hockridge version as mentioned by flabdablet.
There’s the gloriously old school Asterix Annotations if you’d like more details on the major English translations.
posted by zamboni at 9:24 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
English translations of Asterix, primarily the Bell Hockridge version as mentioned by flabdablet.
There’s the gloriously old school Asterix Annotations if you’d like more details on the major English translations.
posted by zamboni at 9:24 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
More broadly, you might be interested in the Cultural Translation trope or other related localization tropes.
posted by andrewesque at 11:02 AM on February 1 [2 favorites]