My final piece in this slot explores different names for films, TV series and books in different languages. Let’s start with what everyone’s famous Xmas film, Die Hard, is called in other European countries…
1. Very Hard to Die (Greece)
2. Difficult to Kill (Romania)
3. Tough Death (Turkey)
4. Die Slowly (Germany)
5. The Glass Jungle (Spain)
My absolute favourite, though, is the name for Die Hard: With a Vengeance in Denmark, which is Die Hard: Mega Hard. And here’s a bonus fact for you: Bruce Willis’s famous catchphrase from the films is, as we all know, “yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker”. To play on this, the tagline for the fifth film, set in Moscow, was “yippee-ki-yay, Mother Russia”. And they say the pun is dead!
In the Danish subtitles for Die Hard, Bruce’s catchphrase was adapted to “yippee-ki-yay, bror lort”, which means “yippee-ki-yay, shit brother”. In German subtitles, the rude bit was rendered as Schweinebacke (pig cheek), and in Finnish it was pulunnussija (pigeon fucker).
Not sure Die Hard is a Christmas film? Then let’s move on to something much less contentious, my favourite Xmas movie… Groundhog Day. Yes, it’s about a whole other holiday, but there’s lots of snow, and it’s always on TV on Boxing Day (so it counts). Here’s what it’s called elsewhere…
1. The Black Hole of Love (South Korea)
2. A New Day Threatens (Denmark)
3. Monday the Whole Week (Sweden)
4. Today Was Actually Yesterday (Turkey)
5. And the Marmot Extends Its Greetings Day After Day (Germany)
Believe it or not, And the Marmot Extends Its Greetings Day After Day isn’t even the best-ever translated title of an English language film in Germany, as this next list of assorted film titles in various countries will demonstrate…
1. The Terminator = The Electronic Murderer (Poland)
2. The Waterboy = Dimwit Surges Forth (Thailand)
3. Romancing the Stone = Two Scoundrels After the Booty (Venezuela)
4. Leaving Las Vegas = I’m Drunk and You’re a Prostitute (Japan)
5. Dragnet = Floppy Coppers Don’t Bite (Germany)
And this may be equally unbelievable, but I’m Drunk and You’re a Prostitute isn’t the greatest ever literal translation of popular media from Japan, again as evidenced in this list of titles of TV series from around the world…
1. Six Feet Under = The Customer is Always Dead (Russia)
2. The Big Bang Theory = Spectacles Fogged Up (Finland)
3. Breaking Bad = Total Suckage (Hungary)
4. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air = A Crazy in the Hood (Brazil)
5. Jersey Shore = Macaroni Rascals (Japan)
Let’s move on to something a bit more highbrow now, with literature – more specifically, the European names of Mr Men characters…
1. Mr Muddle (Spain) = Don Confuso
2. Mr Bounce (France) = Monsieur Bing
3. Mr Dizzy (Portugal) = Senhor Bobo
4. Mr Greedy (Sweden) = Gubben Glufs Glufs
5. Mr Bump (Norway) = Herr Dumpidump
This final list is more befitting of a serious paper like TNE, a list of translated titles of classic novels …
1. The Fault in Our Stars = Fuck Fate (Norway)
2. To Kill a Mockingbird = Don’t Hurt the Blackbird (Hungary)
3. Les Misérables = An Unhappy World (Japan)
4. The Great Gatsby = A Man Without Scruples (Sweden)
5. Animal Farm = Animals Everywhere! (France)
Adam Sharp is the author of The Wheel is Spinning but the Hamster is Dead: A Journey Around the World in Idioms, Proverbs and General Nonsense, out on September 28. Peter Trudgill is on sabbatical.
