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arrowfan

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Greets all,

So concerning the international broadcasts... will they be in English with subtitles, or local language dubbing?

I imagine it will depend on the country and what they decide to do with it. Really hoping it's with subtitles. My Czech mother in law has already read the books in Czech and is excited for this HBO production too.

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In Italy, it's always dubbing. Our dubbing voices are wonderful, but I hate the dubbing direction; it seems they miss all nuances and tell the voice actors to read it as though it were the Yellow Pages. My opinion, of course.

Also there are many glaring translation mistakes, and attempts to "dumb down" the lines if They, from Up High, decide the populace will not understand them. For example they deleted all "Man from UNCLE" references from NCIS (with David McCallum = Illya Kuriakin in UNCLE). But I guess this might be the same anywhere else.

For myself, nothing is better than the original with subtitles. I know English, but watching without subtitles distracts me a lot, since I'm so focussed on understanding what they say rather than enjoying the show. I watched BSG's first season without subtitles and I don't feel any urge for watching the rest (our BSG DVDs do not have English subtitles, how crazy is that?)

I don't even know whether we'll get GOT in Italy, unless it's late at night at random times on some exoteric network.

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In Italy, it's always dubbing. Our dubbing voices are wonderful, but I hate the dubbing direction; it seems they miss all nuances and tell the voice actors to read it as though it were the Yellow Pages. My opinion, of course.

I think dubbing is the preferred option in most countries. Even in countries with no tradition of dubbing and even less tradition of getting TV series in a different languages, for instance Britain, dubbed Japanese TV series once they decided to air them (with horrendous results).

Also there are many glaring translation mistakes, and attempts to "dumb down" the lines if They, from Up High, decide the populace will not understand them.

Besides that, the dubbing process changes the original dialogs for two reasons:

one, some expressions (like popular sayings) don't make sense in a literal translation, so they have to go for a native equivalent. The equivalent one can come across right, but many times its use make the dialog to lose some of its edge. That's particular true with comedies that use a lot of word play and double meanings.

two, they have to adjust the delivery of the dialog with lips movement of the actors. That forces to change lengths of sentences and swapping words. Countries with no tradition of dubbing do a horrible work of this when they decide dubbing, when you see continuously, speeches coming from mouth shouts or silence when the actor is still speaking.

On top of that, you can come across of wrong translation at times. Spain has a big tradition of dubbing films and series. It's a professional industry and they're very good at it. However, translation mistakes happen from time to time. Some are deliberate, for censorship reasons, prone to happen in the Dictatorship years. Casablanca's Rick never fought for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War and, infamously, Grace Kelly and her film spouse weren't husband and wife but brothers in Mogambo, trying to avoid the adulterous nature of the actress relationship with Clark Gable and intentionally producing a lot of puzzled expressions in the Spanish audiences witnessing the "too close to comfort" interactions of the supposed siblings. That kind of mistranslations had been corrected nowadays.

And then, you have honest mistakes like the one I caught recently watching my DVD of Once upon a time in the west. When Jason Robards character reveals he's deadly wounded and explains that the train tycoon is the responsible (nicknamed by him Mr. Tut-tut), that rang a bell, because reminded me that in all my years watching the film in the Spanish TV I never knew who killed him. So I replay the scene with the Spanish dubbing this time and to my amusement, Robards declares that he was shot by Mr. Churchill. Needless to say, that was the first -and only- appearance of Mr. Churchill in the movie.

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It depends entirely on the country. In Scandinavia, it's subtitling for all things but children's programs, basically. Wikipedia has an article discussing dubbing practices. The Czech Republic appears to generally dub, from what this says, but whether this shall be the case for HBO Central Europe, I do not know. I suspect not, actually. Best way to find out is to ask anyone you know who gets HBO if the American original dramas like Boardwalk Empire or True Blood are dubbed or subtitled.

Not sure if you've seen, but the early word is that HBO Central Europe plans to air the first episode on the 18th of April, the day after the U.S. premiere.

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In Italy, it's always dubbing. Our dubbing voices are wonderful, but I hate the dubbing direction; it seems they miss all nuances and tell the voice actors to read it as though it were the Yellow Pages. My opinion, of course.

I've always been told that dubbing in Italy is particularly well done, although I've never seen a movie that way since my Italian isn't good enough. I like that they have voice actors who are actually well known for always dubbing a particular foreign actor. I was amused to hear that the same guy has made a career out of dubbing both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and (I'm fairly sure this is true) actually did both voices when they co-starred in Heat.

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I've always been told that dubbing in Italy is particularly well done, although I've never seen a movie that way since my Italian isn't good enough. I like that they have voice actors who are actually well known for always dubbing a particular foreign actor. I was amused to hear that the same guy has made a career out of dubbing both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and (I'm fairly sure this is true) actually did both voices when they co-starred in Heat.

Funnily enough, in Spain the same actor used to dub bot Robert de Niro and Al Pacino too. But I'm sure the same actor didn't dub both in Heat.

What I find particularly amusing is that actor used to dub Stallone as well.

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With subtitles here in Norway, as Ran said. Norway doesn't have a tradition for dubbing, because the cost is much higher, and there aren't enough actors to ensure variation. Animated movies that are dubbed use the same actors over and over again.

I make subtitles for a living, and I do work for the people who handle subtitles for Canal+ in Norway. Oddly enough, this hasn't struck me until now...

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I think the subtitles vs dubbing question for each country comes down to how prominent English is spoken as a 2nd language. Having been to Croatia 5 or more times, I've noticed much of the English/American films have subtitles. Also my friend from Sweden said the same for Sweden. Both are countries where English is a (if not THE) second language of choice.

Here in Czechyland... outside of Prague it's not spoken very much, especially by people over 40. So yea, I have to suffer through some brutal dubbing. However, there was one film that had great dubbing... Borat! But, I've a feeling that was because the VO team simply identified perfectly with Borat : )))

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I make subtitles for a living, and I do work for the people who handle subtitles for Canal+ in Norway. Oddly enough, this hasn't struck me until now...

Crazy! You should get in touch with the production folks there... who better to write the subtitles than someone 1) fluent in both languages, 2) already has a pro background in subtitles, AND 3) is a big fan of the books.

Probably they're already written :( but maybe they'd like to have a ASOIAF superfan to review the translations...

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Crazy! You should get in touch with the production folks there... who better to write the subtitles than someone 1) fluent in both languages, 2) already has a pro background in subtitles, AND 3) is a big fan of the books.

Probably they're already written :( but maybe they'd like to have a ASOIAF superfan to review the translations...

I don't think Canal+ gets the video files until after the episode has been aired in the US, which means that the subtitlers don't get their hands on them either. Canal+ may want to air the show ASAP after obtaining their copy, though, which means the subtitles will have a short deadline. So it's likely that these translations will be handled by small teams of translators in the central office in either London or Oslo, which excludes me. (I'm a freelancer, and work from home - ill suited for a rush job like that.) Or they'll be subbed into Swedish first, and someone in the office then translates that into Norwegian.

But that's assuming they're in a hurry. If the air date is one week or more after receiving the copy, I might get a go, so to speak.

ETA: Oh, and I think subtitling rather than dubbing is the reason why the countries that have it speak better English than the ones who don't. But that's my guess.

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It's Broadcast Text here as well. They have a pretty big market share, with the Discovery channels, BBC channels, more than a few domestic channels, etc, in addition to the aforementioned Canal+ channels.

And as a freelancer, I also work for Biovisjon, who mainly do the Norwegian TV2 channels. NRK makes all their subtitles in-house, as far as I know. They might actually pick up GOT eventually as well, since they have sent HBO shows in the past. True Blood, Generation Kill, John Adams, In Treatment, Band of Brothers and The Pacific at least, off the top of my head. They're usually a year or more behind the original release, though, to lower the cost.

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Yeah, I expect SVT will pick up GoT to air next year. They used to be in-house, but their in-house translators basically spun out a new company, Svensk Medietext, which now handles them.

Broadcast Text nabbed Discovery from SDI, more's the pity. Linda could get in with them, but they required a week or two of training in Stockholm, and that's too inconvenient at present.

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A week of training, for someone who is already active? That seems excessive, I had only one day of training when I first got started for Biovisjon, and none at all when I also started for Broadcast Text. Maybe I'd need more if I had to learn to use a new software.

BTW, what software does SDI use?

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I've only been working for them since November, because they had too few freelancers at the time, and a friend of mine who works there basically dragged me in.

Maybe that's why they felt Linda needed training, because of the software. I use EZTitles, and Broadcast Text uses SWIFT. I've never tried GTS, but if it's proprietary, I expect there are some differences, although your link says it uses .PAC files, same as EZTitles and SWIFT, so I'm not sure why one couldn't use GTS for Broadcast Text work.

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And then, you have honest mistakes like the one I caught recently watching my DVD of Once upon a time in the west. When Jason Robards character reveals he's deadly wounded and explains that the train tycoon is the responsible (nicknamed by him Mr. Tut-tut), that rang a bell, because reminded me that in all my years watching the film in the Spanish TV I never knew who killed him. So I replay the scene with the Spanish dubbing this time and to my amusement, Robards declares that he was shot by Mr. Churchill. Needless to say, that was the first -and only- appearance of Mr. Churchill in the movie.

Ouch. My sympathies, Dennai. I've had the same experience several times while watching the original version of something I only knew in the dubbed version. I can't remember a specific example now, they were probably too traumatic.

I've always been told that dubbing in Italy is particularly well done, although I've never seen a movie that way since my Italian isn't good enough. I like that they have voice actors who are actually well known for always dubbing a particular foreign actor. I was amused to hear that the same guy has made a career out of dubbing both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and (I'm fairly sure this is true) actually did both voices when they co-starred in Heat.

Yes, exactly what I meant! Our voice actors are actual actors and/or have had years of experience in their roles. A well-known comedian dubbed Aragorn in LOTR. He was very good and entirely unrecognizable, at least to me.

The problem, at least for what I've seen, is that there is no real connection between the actual translators of the dialogues (I've been a freelance translator for Star Trek, briefly), the adaptators, and the direction. Each does their work like a cog in the machine. I translated the scenes trying to keep in mind the length of the phrases and the movement of the lips, but I knew very well that someone more skilled than me would have to revise them entirely. So I added little notes and suggestions and questions for future translations. I was lucky to be in touch with one adaptator (the head of the Star Trek Italian Club), but for the rest they never got back to me about this. I just kept doing my job mindlessly.

Another instance. Last year, at a science fiction and fantasy convention, we had the director of the dubbing of the classic Star Wars trilogy as a guest. Our Star Wars is full of dubbing mysteries that made people go "huh?" even back in 1977. So this time we had the chance to ask the dubbing director WHY??? He answered: "No idea, the adaptation people did that," I swear, my reaction and that of most of the attending people was: "Then why the hell did we invite HIM? We should have invited the adaptators."

Note that this dubbing director has also done the Mel Brooks masterpiece "Young Frankenstein." That one is FULL of word-plays, and the Italian version is incredible, they kept all of them and maybe made them even better! Some even got into our everyday slang. I so wanted to ask the dubbing director about those choices, but I realized it was useless - they were a product of all the small cogs below him, which he didn't even acknowledge.

I make subtitles for a living, and I do work for the people who handle subtitles for Canal+ in Norway. Oddly enough, this hasn't struck me until now...

[snip]

I don't think Canal+ gets the video files until after the episode has been aired in the US, which means that the subtitlers don't get their hands on them either. Canal+ may want to air the show ASAP after obtaining their copy, though, which means the subtitles will have a short deadline. So it's likely that these translations will be handled by small teams of translators in the central office in either London or Oslo, which excludes me. (I'm a freelancer, and work from home - ill suited for a rush job like that.) Or they'll be subbed into Swedish first, and someone in the office then translates that into Norwegian.

But that's assuming they're in a hurry. If the air date is one week or more after receiving the copy, I might get a go, so to speak.

ETA: Oh, and I think subtitling rather than dubbing is the reason why the countries that have it speak better English than the ones who don't. But that's my guess.

Lacuna, you have my :thumbsup: on everything. It seems that in Norway it works better than in Italy - give me subtitles any time. However I understand that you have the same problem I stated above, that translation is seen as a menial job to be given to whoever is available, instead of a great team effort which would produce a really good result.

Broadcast Text nabbed Discovery from SDI, more's the pity. Linda could get in with them, but they required a week or two of training in Stockholm, and that's too inconvenient at present.

I root for you, Elio and Linda! You're like a couple ot friends of mine, the "Star Trek Italian Club" leaders I mentioned above. I really hope you manage to obtain a decent dubbing and/or translation, even though you live up there in the North and I'll never see it. :D

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In Italy, it's always dubbing. Our dubbing voices are wonderful, but I hate the dubbing direction; it seems they miss all nuances and tell the voice actors to read it as though it were the Yellow Pages. My opinion, of course.

Also there are many glaring translation mistakes, and attempts to "dumb down" the lines if They, from Up High, decide the populace will not understand them. For example they deleted all "Man from UNCLE" references from NCIS (with David McCallum = Illya Kuriakin in UNCLE). But I guess this might be the same anywhere else.

For myself, nothing is better than the original with subtitles. I know English, but watching without subtitles distracts me a lot, since I'm so focussed on understanding what they say rather than enjoying the show. I watched BSG's first season without subtitles and I don't feel any urge for watching the rest (our BSG DVDs do not have English subtitles, how crazy is that?)

I don't even know whether we'll get GOT in Italy, unless it's late at night at random times on some exoteric network.

Blackfish, I'm italian too, and I'm worried they may give GoT the Rome treatment... Censoring a lot of the show...

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