Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Try a little

I've been watching a German series called Marie Brand (in the English Marie's Mind for Murder). It's pretty entertaining, and my German is just good enough that I can catch some things things the subtitlers don't give us (the "as always"s and "please don't"s and the "Ja" that gets rendered as "Come in").

And then there are those moments when the subtitles don't do them any favors. For instance, Jürgen Simmel, Marie's partner, finds a business card at a homicide scene. So we get this dialog:
Simmel: "Premium Escort"
Marie: It's an escort service.
No, really? What was your first clue, Marie?

Of course, what they actually say is:
Simmel: "Premium Escort"
Marie: Es ist ein begleitservice.
Which is far less stupid sounding.

They might have tried something like "Looks expensive," if you ask me.
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1 comment:

  1. Kathie5:16 PM, February 17, 2015

    On the other side of the coin, I've watched a variety of American TV shows -- from police procedurals and sit-coms to "The Daily Show," Oprah and Dr. Phil (ca. 10-day delay on the last three) as well as movies on Portuguese channels with Portuguese subtitles, and they do a surprisingly good job -- albeit sanitizing some dirty language ;-)

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