lost in translation

until recently, you couldn't get anything undubbed on French TV. and looking back, i realise why some things were so weird: it seems translators don't spend much time in the country the language comes from, cos they miss a hell of a lot of blatantly obvious expressions. to use the Buffy example again: Spike goes around calling Buffy 'luv' all the time in the current reruns. a specifically British term of endearment, although actually used by everyone of the older persuasion with everyone else (e.g. the bus driver, your mother, the shop keeper). clearly, the translators had never heard or seen this word, so it got translated literally into 'amour'. all fine and well, but it sounds weird as hell in French without a 'mon' in front (as in 'mon amour', my love). so there you have Spike and Buffy arguing, and Spike goes around saying 'amour', which sounds like he's about to embark on something philosophical, but all that comes out is something like 'where are you going?'.

i must remember to catch a French version of Lie to Me sometime, to figure out what Tim Roth says in French to replace 'luv'...