Comments on: Translation Mysteries

By: fred p

fred p — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:59:54 +0000

To me, the fact that the Danish for King Kong is Kong King appears mildly amusing. To a Dane, it’s probably just the name of a movie.

To this Dane at least it it news that King Kong should be Kong King in Danish, and Danish being a rather small language I think I would now it personally it if it was so.

Somewhat related I’ve heard that apparently the American ice cream Häagen Dasz was named that way in order to sound Danish. Funny thing is that all Danes think Häagen Dasz is either Swiss or German because of the obviously German/Swiss sounding name. The other funy thing is why anybody would want their ice cream to sound Danish, maybe because of the ice and snow that apparently also is associated with Denmark all though we have neither for more than two days a year.

And thüd does not sound Scandinavian. Thød and Hægen Dås do maybe a little.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:15:14 +0000

Tomorrow’s news today: Moonstruck: Making one giant thud for mankind

In my family, “clunk” and “clonk” were common terms, often used in pillow fights.

By: eddie

eddie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:00:12 +0000

For me, the problem with ‘Klonk!’ is that it has two hard consonants. It sounds like a double-strike and makes me think of bells, especially thse swiss mountain ones.
For the translation, I agree that simply adding an umlaut would have more elegance, and possibly have led to less photoshop fail.

By: novakant

novakant — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:17:45 +0000

In this context, one should definitely mention Dr. Erika Fuchs (RIP) - she was a genius.

By: John Meredith

John Meredith — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:37:47 +0000

“Don’t want to sound prissy but this otherwise inexplicable attempt to render the book ‘Thudenrein’ @7 is clever, but a bit crass, no?”

Yes, it made me wince too.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:43:43 +0000

“clever, but a bit crass, no?”

Probably so.

By: astrongmaybe

astrongmaybe — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:39:34 +0000

Don’t want to sound prissy but this otherwise inexplicable attempt to render the book ‘Thudenrein’ @7 is clever, but a bit crass, no?

By: alex

alex — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:23:18 +0000

It’s all those forests…

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:06:56 +0000

Hey Kenny, it’s very true about the Germans having a definite edge in board game technology.

By: Becky Grant

Becky Grant — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:09:30 +0000

Did you ever play the Sony Playstation Game “Disc World?” I has to be one of my favorites. Challenging, inspirational, emotional, and above all else, a very long game. I think the book resonates well with the game. You should check it out :P I know I’m such a nerd.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:25:23 +0000

I was recently interested in a title translation that changed in the other direction. As everyone knows, Germany is where good board games come from. One such game is titled (in German) “Jenseits von Theben”. (http://www.funagain.com/control/product/~product_id=017226) The box you can buy in the US has the title in around four languages on it, with the German, French “Au-delà de Thèbes”, Italian “Al di là di Tebe”, and English “Thebes”. The game is about archaeologists traveling around Europe, going to conferences, and holding exhibitions of the antiquities they dig up from ancient sites. I don’t know why most languages think you have to go “beyond Thebes” to do that, while in English you just have to go to Thebes itself.

(Actually, now that I found the link above, I see that Spanish also has the “beyond” part, while Dutch doesn’t. Who decides these things?)

By: R Gould-Saltman

R Gould-Saltman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:32:41 +0000

. . .and was Mad Magazine, in its heyday, translated for the German market? What became of those vaguely Germanic -sounding onomatopoeias which were all over Don Martin’s work, such as:

“GING GOYNG ” (Mask Flying Off Face) MAD #87, June 1964, Page 10
“GING POING SWAP ZIT SHTIK FLIK GLUT” (Frog Catching Fly) MAD #118. Apr 68, Page 14,15
“GISHKLORK” (King Kong stepping on somebody) MAD #262 April 1986 Page 22
“GISHKLURK” (Soup Parting as done by Moses) MAD #186, Oct 1976, Page 15

or
“GLADINK BZZZT KLADWAK SPROINK FWAK KAZIK” (Vending Machine Delivering Fresh Milk) MAD #206, Apr 1979, Page 48

(see http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/index-dmd.html)

By: ckc (not kc)

ckc (not kc) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:29:16 +0000

check out Don Martin – he had them all

By: Odm

Odm — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:02:12 +0000

30: So far as I’m aware, ‘klonk’ is not a word in German. Using German Google, I did find out that the ‘quaffle’ is called ‘klonken’ in Swedish…

Thüd would be pronounced ‘tood’ in German- no idea what sound that would represent.

I think ‘Wumm’ isn’t bad, except it’s too far in the other direction. It’s more like a soft thump than a thud.

By: Mutus

Mutus — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:52:58 +0000

mart @36

Pretty good takedown in comments here.

The comments where?????