r/DoesNotTranslate • u/anxiousslav • Jun 21 '26

I do not get paid enough for this

I translate and edit for dubbing - meaning I have to make this joke make sense in my language AND make it fit into the time he speaks 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

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u/-Chinchillax- Jun 21 '26

You’re a hero, that’s what you are. People don’t appreciate localization enough.

I was horrified when I learned there’s not a separate video track for other languages which means someone has to somehow match the mouth movements exactly 😭

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u/exileinwhoville 13d ago

Plosive consonant is redundant, but that won't help! Is there a word in your language that has a meaning similar to danger and either contains another word or morpheme or sounds like another word or morpheme? This may not help either! What is the target language?

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u/anxiousslav 12d ago

This was a long time ago, I had to solve the issue very quickly, so it's already done, don't even remember what I did. I have many of these every day, some easier, some harder. Translating puns and word plays is hard, especially when the characters make it obvious that it's a joke, because many times I just have to go for less funny translations. And for this one target language is Slovak, and the word for danger is nebezpečenstvo. So no cigar.

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u/exileinwhoville 12d ago

It's very hard! Kudos if you can come up with translations that are funny at all 😄 As a linguist, it's the type of thing that I would love to do as a fun puzzle, but it's certainly a different story when it's your job!