My hobby is finding translation mistakes in movie subtitles. I'm a native English speaker and I also speak Japanese.
Essentially every show on Netflix seems to have some lines which are translating 100% incorrectly. They're not just issues of interpretation, they are full blown mistakes. Let me give a few of examples:
The West Country (an area in England) was translated as "America" in the subtitles.
"Boogie board"(a small surfboard-like toy) was translated as "electronic memo pad"(there is an electronic memo pad with the brand name "Boogie Board").
"Middle of the road" (not good and not bad) was translated literally.
Most of the mistakes I see seem to stem from the fact that the translator didn't understand the original content. I assume they are an individual Japanese native speaker, or a team with no English native speakers.
The article also mentions Trump's tweets, one of which triggered a very strange phenomenon in Japan. The famous "grab her by the pussy" tweet was deemed "untranslatable" by professional translators and the news repeated as such. It won't surprise you to learn that Japanese has plenty of words to describe genitals, both vulgar and not. The translators were essentially lying. There is a huge gulf between "can't" and "won't".
Essentially every show on Netflix seems to have some lines which are translating 100% incorrectly. They're not just issues of interpretation, they are full blown mistakes. Let me give a few of examples:
The West Country (an area in England) was translated as "America" in the subtitles.
"Boogie board"(a small surfboard-like toy) was translated as "electronic memo pad"(there is an electronic memo pad with the brand name "Boogie Board").
"Middle of the road" (not good and not bad) was translated literally.
Most of the mistakes I see seem to stem from the fact that the translator didn't understand the original content. I assume they are an individual Japanese native speaker, or a team with no English native speakers.
The article also mentions Trump's tweets, one of which triggered a very strange phenomenon in Japan. The famous "grab her by the pussy" tweet was deemed "untranslatable" by professional translators and the news repeated as such. It won't surprise you to learn that Japanese has plenty of words to describe genitals, both vulgar and not. The translators were essentially lying. There is a huge gulf between "can't" and "won't".