Stumbled on the article a week ago and I immediately laughed out loud at that sentence. Apparently, Edward-the-sparkly-vampire novels had been translated into the Malay language. Senjakala; that's Twilight for you (New Moon is Cinta Baru.)
In case you don't know, pontianak means a female vampire. In Malay lore, pontianak is a woman who died during childbirth and all the Malay horror movies portray a pontianak as a pretty woman in a kebaya during the day and a creature with long black hair in a long white dress with a hideous face by night.
Bella did not fare any better. Her reference to the Indian reservation was translated as "penempatan masyarakat Red Indian." Sounds so lame, don't you think?
These remind me of the Malay title translations or subtitles for non-Malay movies in the cinema. Some of the title translations are downright hilarious! Sometimes I wonder if they put the text into some translation software and just reuse the results without even a second look. Imagine if you were to hear a handsome character confessing his love to the female protagonist; "I love you with all my heart" being translated into "Saya cinta kamu dengan sepenuh jantungku" ! True , heart literally means jantung but most of the time hati is used to represent the heart (Though this brings us to a similar case of translating from Malay to English - hati means LIVER in English!)
According to the article, Harry Potter series too have been translated into Malay. However at least instead of coming up with some word that did not make sense, a new word was added. An example given was centaur (English) and sentora (Malay).
Ever encounter such funny translations? Share them ;)
In case you don't know, pontianak means a female vampire. In Malay lore, pontianak is a woman who died during childbirth and all the Malay horror movies portray a pontianak as a pretty woman in a kebaya during the day and a creature with long black hair in a long white dress with a hideous face by night.Bella did not fare any better. Her reference to the Indian reservation was translated as "penempatan masyarakat Red Indian." Sounds so lame, don't you think?
These remind me of the Malay title translations or subtitles for non-Malay movies in the cinema. Some of the title translations are downright hilarious! Sometimes I wonder if they put the text into some translation software and just reuse the results without even a second look. Imagine if you were to hear a handsome character confessing his love to the female protagonist; "I love you with all my heart" being translated into "Saya cinta kamu dengan sepenuh jantungku" ! True , heart literally means jantung but most of the time hati is used to represent the heart (Though this brings us to a similar case of translating from Malay to English - hati means LIVER in English!)
According to the article, Harry Potter series too have been translated into Malay. However at least instead of coming up with some word that did not make sense, a new word was added. An example given was centaur (English) and sentora (Malay).
Ever encounter such funny translations? Share them ;)
7 tots:
action movie, i think it was Diehard 4.0...
english,"...chopper on the way..."
malay,"...parang mari..."
New Moon should be Bulan Baru wat...
haha booboo, go ask pelangi :P
lol parang mari..cepat LARI!! XD
i saw 'superman' in the cinema and the title for the show in malay is called 'jantan berkuasa'. :P
and another...erm..lord of the ring...'mountain of doom' is called 'gunung celaka'...
muahahahahhaa
o_O jantan berkuasa?! so geli LOL
oh celaka is doom in Malay? haha lame lame
In Terminator 2, Sarah Connor says "I'm out (of bullets)" but the Malay subtitles say "Aku keluar".
Keluar apa? XD doesn't make any sense
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