Engrish LOTR: The Two Towers Captions

Cyclometh writes "Someone has put together a set of screengrabs from an Asian bootleg of LOTR:TTT, which are totally hysterical. The subtitles are apparently the genuine article, which definitely should bring the phrase caveat emptor to mind for anyone who buys bootleg DVDs. For a definition of Engrish, see here (apparently it's a no-smorking zone.)"

Comments

Maybe I'm not getting this...

[nordicfrost]

But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text. Futhermore, I can understand that funny mistakes occur when you translate e.g. Japanese into English, but when transcribing English? You'd have to be a complete moron...

Or am I just not getting the humour?

Re:Maybe I'm not getting this...

[srmalloy]

But the text doesn't seem to be a real subtitle. It's too large to be a standard DVD caption text. Futhermore, I can understand that funny mistakes occur when you translate e.g. Japanese into English, but when transcribing English? You'd have to be a complete moron...

In the comment log, the author of the website explains what he did to produce the images:

For all you sceptics out there: The reason the images are so crisp, is because they're taken from an Xvid DVD-rip. The text was ripped from the bootleg and inserted into the Xvid for the best possible image quality. This still means what you see on the captions are what you see on the screen. I could've written this on the front page, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea. If I ever get hold of a camera, I will take pictures of the TV when playing the bootleg. I'd imagine *that* would be pretty hard to fake. Anyone who has seen an asian bootleg will testify to that the BLs *do* have english subtitles.

Now why did you have to go and post that here ???

[xeniten]

We finally have some piece and quiet around here from the last time someone posted a piece about engirsh. For a whole year it was nothing but all your base this, and make your time that.

Now it's going to be a whole year of "You should make fun" and "we are not oaks we are hobiks."

Arrrrghhh!

Re:hehehe

[jejones]

The best Engrish in a manual I've seen was for an ABIT Socket 7 motherboard manual. I don't have it at hand, so I can't point to the precise one, but it is pre-super Socket 7. In the section on installing RAM, it says "All you have to do is insert RAM, without help from God. Isn't it wonderful?"

1962 Korean LOTR bootleg translation

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother-in-law's boss spends a lot of time on business in South Korea, and recently he was given an amazing gift by a friend there: his friend's dad's 1962 Korean translation of LOTR. What a hoot! Old Pa's English wasn't so good, and although he loved the book, he grossly misunderstood and mistranslated it. He actually sold about 100 copies to fellow students, although if there are any others extant, I'd be surprised. As the bootleg Korean version is only 250 pages long for the entire trilogy, obviously a great many scenes have left out. But a few new scenes were slipped in, as you shall see.

1) "Hobbit" is translated either as "baby ghost" or "barefoot ghost"

2) "the Shire" is translated as "Baby Ghost Prefect"

3) "orc" is translated by a Korean slang term used in WWII as a pejorative for Japanese soldiers

4) when the hobbits bathe in the house at Crickhollow, the translator added a scene involving a bathtub farting contest (won by Sam)

5)another addition by the translator has Sam expressing regret that his long quest will keep him out of Rosie's bed for many months

6) in this version, when Frodo puts on the Ring at Weathertop, he shoots lightning bolts out of it to chase away the Nazgul; there is no Morgul-knife and no wounding

7)the Balrog is simply referred to as "the enemy of God"

8) best of all, Frodo and Gollum battle Sauron face to face in the Chamber of Fire, with Frodo pushing the other two into the Cracks of Doom when Sauron is being distracted by the crazed Smeagol. The Ring then passes to Aragorn, who as King can weild it for good, and one of the things he does with it is make "fruitful the wombs of barren women."

I told my bro-in-law to try and get that copy translated fully; it could be funnier than "Bored of the Rings."

smells fishy

[Simon Garlick]

Can someone explain how a film with English dialogue can have English subtitles?

Or how a 16:9 widescreen-format movie can require subtitles in the body of the movie instead of BELOW it?

I think it's a hoax.

Re:Hehehe

[pyros]

your sister?! Bring your pussy face to my ass.

threat

[Xpilot]

Sounds like how you would threaten an evil sysadmin:

RELEASE HIM OR I SHALL CUT YOU OFF ROOT!

I guess Gollum was a Unix sysadmin back in the day. Which would explain why he's a shruken, miserable little creature who hates sunlight.