Something gets lost in those 'creative' movie subtitles

My English 101 came from the movies.

When the lights went dark and I sat alone, giving all my attention to the screen, I read the subtitles and listened intently to the actors' words.

At first, this helped me learn vocabulary and, before long, I got to learn grammar and proper pronunciation itself.

Now, years later, writing in English, I am beginning to question how good film translations really are.

Since I'm used to speaking English and Indonesian, I now understand that some of the translations in the movies, whether on the big screen or VCD, give a different meaning to what is really intended.

In plain speak, they are just plain bad.

After all, which is worse: seeing a bad movie and not being able to understand it -- or watching a good movie and having the same problem?

Well, it's the latter for me. And that's exactly what happened when several of my friends were left scratching their heads after seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on the big screen.

The translation was not done properly, so they were left trying to find a DVD copy to watch at home.

I have had many such experiences.

In one film I watched, the actor was browsing the Internet when his screen told him, "Sorry, no matches found," which was translated into "Tidak ada korek api ditemukan" -- "no cigarette matches found" in the subtitles.

There was not a cigarette in sight, needless to say, so I do not know how the translator came up with such a translation. A spark of creativity, perhaps.

Thankfully, it was not serious enough to change my enjoyment of the movie. Most often, it happens with idioms, where the phrase is translated literally, like "a piece of cake" or "I heard it from the horse's mouth." When those come on the screen, you either burst out laughing, or are left dumbfounded.

This phenomenon is by no means limited to the big screen. When I watched Erin Brockovich on VCD, for example, there must have been a different translator for the big screen version which I also saw, because the subtitles were completely different.

In one scene, Erin shouts at her boss that he should reconsider the ties he wears to the office. On the big screen, the translation was clear.

But, looking at the VCD version, the heroine suddenly admonishes her boss for treating himself "too tight!"

Fortunately, this doesn't happen quite so often on TV -- or perhaps I'm not watching enough TV to know.

The translators try their best, and they don't set out to give new meanings for the English words for which they do not have an Indonesian translation yet; instead, they put the exact English word but in italics to set it apart.

Then again, you still get some doozies, like a documentary about the murder of Gianni Versace where the expression "the PR for Versace ... " suddenly became Piarria Versace (Donatella's long-lost sister, perhaps).

So, do the translators actually see the movie first, or just read the screenplay? Or are they even qualified to write the subtitles in the first place?

That is, are they qualified translators, something that is an art in and of itself, and is a role that cannot be given to just anyone with basic language skills.

We know that the job of a movie translator is important because they are an important bridge between cultures.

Were it not for translations through subtitles, many movies would be segmented to specific parts of the world, instead of reaching out and touching different people across cultures.

But, when faced with the problem, viewers have no recourse at present. Maybe the cineplex owner should open a hotline, not only to give schedules (for we all know how accurate they are!) but to receive comments and suggestions.

That way they can pay better attention to this seemingly minor but important issue.

After all, we want to enjoy the movies and understand them, not laugh at a horror movies because of inept translation.

Or maybe the only solution for now is to learn as many foreign languages as you can, or grab a DVD with English subtitles, instead of going to the movie theater.

But who has the time, or money, to do those things? All we want is to go out and see a movie, and that also means understanding it without getting mixed messages. That's all.

-- Kenny Santana