RealZeroFeb 23

As I talked about language and Dot Warner (Animaniacs), I wanna say something positive about languages and translations:

The original Animaniacs, now that I know English and thus know both versions, had a fantastic German translation!

Animaniacs used MANY puns and wordplays. These would just not work translated directly. So they made fitting, similar jokes in German, and they worked REALLY well.

One example:

"This is the sistine chapel!"
"Sixteenth chapel? What have you done with the other 15?"

This would not work in German, because the building's first part, "Sixtinisch" sounds too different from "sechzehn", the German word for 16.

BUT: we also use the same word for chapel (Building) and chapel (group of musicians), both being "Kapelle".

Thus: (next Toot)

#Animaniacs #Translation

Show threadRealZero

They instead went with (translated to English):

"If this is a chapel, where are all the drummers and such?"

That way they could basically make a very similar joke by using the second word of "Sistine Chapel" instead of the first.

And as someone who often tries to explain or translate puns, I'm really impressed how well the translation team for Animaniacs did MANY jokes like that back then.

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Compare that to Simpsons, where even some basic words were translated like translators totally lacked context.
(Translating "tear" in spacetime (fabric tearing) with the word for "tear" (crying), for example.

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So, yeah, good translation is an art in itself!

#Animaniacs #Translation

Feb 23 at 6:04pmWeb
Show threadLegion495Feb 23
@BryanGreyson I know that for the game series Deponia which got a ton of such things the dev commentary mentioned that the translators really busted their brains out on some riddles which worked around wordplays.

Truly mastercraft work. Underrated such translators.
Show threadRealZeroFeb 23

@Legion495 Oh, talking about point and click games, but older: "Toonstruck".

Your main quest was to combine items to make up words (combine an ice and a cube for ice cube and such).

Of course all of that would be totally different words in German, so they actually changed the items where necessary to keep the combined words working.

With the work involved, I understand why such things are sadly often just skipped or explained in subtitles or something.

(Monkey Island using an actual monkey as a "monkey wrench" just doesn't make sense in the German translation and thus that puzzle's solution seemed very random.)

Show threadLegion495Feb 23
@BryanGreyson I have a GOG version of Toonstruck. I never played it since like ages. I got it on GOG for my mother.

I patched it to German. I did not know about this^^
Show threadRealZeroFeb 23

@Legion495 It's a lovely game in both languages! Such a pity we never got the planned second game.

Funfact: In English, Fluffy Bun Bun (and Miss Fortune) is voiced by Tress MacNeille, the English voice actor of Babs Bunny and Dot Warner, among many others.)