What is Digg?61 Comments
- mumblingmynah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+67Would be nice to know what movies these came from.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+49I'm guessing porn.
But then, frankly, I always guess porn. - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27"Naked Killer" is the all-time best badly subtitled film.
"I want you to try the taste of danger. I won't open the door for you…"
"Bitch! Open the door or I will break your *****!" - floppyparty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26Quiet or I'll blow your throat up
- Mystyrys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24I've had this list saved for years. It has the movie titles for almost all the quotes.
English Subtitles In Hong Kong Films:
"I threat you! I challenge you meet me on the roof tonight for a duet!" -- The Iceman Cometh
"I will kill you until you are dead from it!"
"The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?" -- Lethal Panther
"I got knife-scars more than the number of your leg's hair!" -- As Tears Go By
"I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way." -- Holy Weapon
"Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep." -- Pedicab Driver
"I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!" -- Pom Pom and Hot Hot
"You are too useless. And now I must beat you."
"Gun wounds again?" -- Rich and Famous
"A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries." -- Brain Theft
"You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken." -- Pedicab Driver
"Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants." -- The Seventh Curse
"Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected." -- Saviour of the Soul
"Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?" -- Armour of God
"Quiet or I'll blow your throat up." -- On the Run
"You daring lousy guy." -- Satyr Monks
"Beat him out of recognizable shape!" -- Police Story 2
"How can you use my intestines as a gift?" -- The Beheaded 100
"Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!" -- Pedicab Driver
"This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat."
"Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination."
"Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some @$$ of the giant lizard person." - jcapogna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24This woulda been a lot more funny with screen caps as well as info about the movie. As far as we know, somebody simply made these up.
- Lanie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
- floppyparty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16It was a series of mild chuckles until:
"Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person."
That's Golden! - andsix, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Just in case
1. I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
2. Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
3. Gun wounds again?
4. Same old rules: no eyes, no groin.
5. A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries.
6. Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!
7. Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants.
8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
9. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
10. You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.
11. I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!
12. You daring lousy guy.
13. Beat him out of recognizable shape!
14. I have been scared ***** too much lately.
15. I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
16. Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected.
17. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
18. How can you use my intestines as a gift?
19. This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat. [sic, of course]
20. Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough examination.
21. Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person. - mc4_a, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Most of these were lifted from Steffan Hammond's book SEX AND ZEN & A BULLET IN THE HEAD. Some of them, I believe the last three are completely made up. They never appeared in any movie. I know for a fact "Beat him out of recognizable shape!" is from Jackie Chan's Police Story 2.
The reason for the awful subtitles is they were required in Hong Kong since it was a British province (colony?). Poor students were given a few dollars and only the audio to create the subtitles.
FYI: This list is probably 8-10 years old. - vudicarus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11uh...how about these people
http://digg.com/movies/21_Hilarious_English_Subtitles_from_Films_Made_in_Hong_Kong/who - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10this one had me in stitches
8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here? - slstsang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+94. Same old rules: no eyes, no groin.
It is traditional chinese martial arts competition rules. No poking eyes and no hitting the groin, anything else is fine. Yes i'm chinese - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+99. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
Hahaha, I'm going to start using that. - DrSkrud, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13This is useless without screenshots. No digg.
- ClassicJBC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The group Shivaree recorded a song called "Daring Lousy Guy" with a lot of these lines. It's actually a pretty good song. Never knew what the hell it was about until now.
http://www.lyricsdomain.com/19/shivaree/daring_lousy_guy.html - HardSide, on 10/12/2007, -2/+917. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
Probably one of the best known quotes from a WWII poem.
And it should read "The bullets inside me are hot, so why do i feel so cold"
This is taken out of context and it sounds dumb, well some of them. Digged down. - Serifos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Where is do not want?
- brianez21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@Nougat:
This one might be from pr0n...
"Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough examination." - damentz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5bah, too much gangelung for the money
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+621 = Blackzilla? "I'm from the streets, bitch!"
- riah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.
- dennbruce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Reminds me of http://www.engrish.com
- floppyparty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person."
I love that quote too. I don't know if this is a bad translation or an episode of Lost in Space - talmaximus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6What kind of 'use' were you expecting? It's just subtitles and they're pretty funny. People whining about the lack of screen captures or movie references need to lighten up.
- magical1492, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Quiet, or I'll burn you into a BBQ Chicken.
- talmaximus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm sorry but number 21 had me laughing more than all the others. I mean, many of the other were funny, but using 'karate feets' against the 'giant lizard person'...priceless.
- mc4_a, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The BBQ chicken one is from Underground Banker, not Pedicab Driver. It's actually a good subtitle for what occurs in the movie at that point.
- RandomSkratch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Agreed! All were mildly funny except that one that made me laugh out loud.
- victoryroadrage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is probably unrelated, but i found some screen caps of horrible Hong Kong translations from the anime One Piece. They're pretty hilarious.
http://www.skulltula.com/junk/HK.html - saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@johntan: my point was that the translators are not to blame. It's the people editing and culling the subtitles for minimum required reading time. If you read the link in my comment, you'll see it isn't unique to English subtitles either.
It is true that Americans are less likely to want to read. But it isn't about insulting the original language speakers -- you ascribe far too much malice to the editors. They just want it to be simple enough for even the biggest simpleton to consume. Sadly, that gets in the way of quality. - saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It usually has little to do with the skill of the translator and everything to do with the fact that subtitles for movies are cut down to the barest of translation in order to let people see the film.
Fantastic (old) writeup about subtitling films: http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/spsect/0106/sp1.php - EbenieRosa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Seriously would have been nice if there was a source of the original text, kinda makes me feel like they made this up and didn't want anyone to be able to disprove it, they in themselves are funny, but ZI cannot garuntee thier validity.
But it's seriously missing the obligitory backstroke to the west puns, that must be fixed.
"22. Mr speaker we are for the Big"
"23 he is in my behind!"
"24 The presybeterian church like enjoys you not" - Jackanapes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I just keep hearing All Your Base go through my head again and again
- SmokeChiba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My favorite, thats not on this list...
"You have so many Aces, you must have AIDS!" from Once A Thief. - jmchez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not Mexican but I do hear "maldita sea!" (cursed it be!) a lot.
- iOsiris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Its even funnier if you guys understood Cantonese (Chinese) because then a lot of these even makes sense. The person that translated them probably directly translated words on a per character basis which is why the translation seems so distorted.
Its like translating any language word for word without any regard for the sentence structure - undersky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2OH MY GOD, SUBTITLE GONE WILD!
I am a true bilingual and extremely fluent in both Chinese and English writing. I regularly write in both languages and help people on both sides to translate. Maybe that's why I found this list to be the most hilarious I have read on digg, ever.
I don't have to know where those lines come from, because every bit of them resembles the kind of mistake/habit an English-as-second-language-speaker/writer possesses. They are not necessarily wrong; in fact most of the time they were quite the [correct] literal translation. It's just all the cultural references were lost because the translator failed to understand the English language beyond the individual-word-meaning level.
In order to master such translation, one has to transfer the spirit of the original language into the recipient language appropriately. A literal translation (opposed to a functional translation) is no desirable in this case. - badken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The site looks like some lame marketing site as described in http://digg.com/tech_news/HOW_to_Rig_DIGG_CNet_Exposes
- johntan894, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These aren't as bad as the English subtitles in the Chinese movie "Fearless". Everything being spoken in the movie is simplified to sound like a Chinese fortune cookie. American translators are one of the worst I can fairly say, and most people don't realize or care anyway since they only know how to speak English.
- jd33, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Quiet or I'll break your *****!
- johntan894, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@saska: I don't totally agree with your point at least in the case of Fearless. Being born trilingual, fluent in both English/Mandarin writing/speaking and familiar with both cultural contexts, it's pretty obvious to me that the cut down of translations were unnecessary. You barely see that amount of sloppiness in English-translated foreign films. Then again, I found out that foreigners are very used to reading subtitles in movies while all my American friends kinda complain they can't focus their attention away from the subtitles when they were watching Grey's Anatomy on my TV. So maybe you are right, since Americans weren't used to subtitles, a cut down was necessary, but it's still pretty insulting viewing it as a person who understands the foreign language. Everything is being degraded into a "woo-ta-I-want-kill-you" primitive, one dimensional presentation.
- SilentScream, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is kind of a lousy post but it reminds me of a funny sub-title in the movie "El Norte". There is a scene where the boy's uncle or grandfather tells him (in Spanish) that if he is returned to Guatemala by U.S. immigration, then his life won't be worth anything ("no valdrá nada") because the rebels/vigilantes would kill him. The English sub-title reads "Your life won't be worth a rat's ass". I think these translators probably get bored and start getting "creative".
I also get a kick out of how movies sub-titled in Spanish often use the word "maldición!" (curse) for any profanity. I have lived and/or worked in Mexico now for over 20 years and I have yet to hear a Mexican say "maldición!". - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
- Phoenixfury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!"
This sounds like something Bender from Futurama would say. :) I love it! - saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These are just the well-known hazards of translation by people with dictionary-based knowledge of either the language they're translating from or translating into. Equally horrible subtitles appear in big-budget US releases of foreign films, they're just not as obvious because they're grammatically correct.
- staticneuron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would really like to know where this came from:
"Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person. "
This sounds way to far fetched to be true. - SJS111567, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. That was the best one of them all!
- jasonyates, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Yeah I agree. It's a shame we dont know.
- phillippe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Reminded me of this...
http://winterson.com/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html -
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