Lost in Translation

It's raining. Big surprise. I notice it more at this house since my room has a skylight, and even when it's just drizzling it sounds like it's raining hard. Looks like we're in for a bit more rain:

I didn't start a blog post just to tell you it's raining though. That's not exactly big news here. I just wanted to talk a bit about translations and english in Norway.

Since everyone here is so good at english, I haven't seen any hilarious examples like this:

or this:

or this:

More of those here.  :)

Even without menus advertising "rude and unreasonable chicken", there's still smaller translation quirks that can be funny.

Most tv here is in english with norwegian subtitles, but they often translate the title to norwegian in the guide. This just makes it confusing to browse through and know what's actually on, since I tend to assume it's a norwegian show if the title is in norwegian.

I came across My little Norway last year when I was looking for sites to learn norwegian, it's a great site about an Australian woman and her family living in Norway. It has a list of some funny movie title translations into Norwegian and back; here's a few funny ones:

-The Pacifier
-Norwegian: Operasjon barnevakt
-Back to english: Operation Babysitter

-Opportunity Knocks
-Norwegian: Hjelp, jeg er blitt sjef!
-Back to english: Help, I've Become a Manager!

-Airplane
-Norwegian: Hjelp, vi flyr!
-Back to english: Help, we're flying!

-The World's Fastest Indian
-Norwegian: En høyst uvanlig mann
-Back to english: A Highly Unusual Man

-Meet the Parents
-Norwegian: Slekten er verst
-Back to english: Family is the Worst

It isn't just movie titles that can get strange translations; the Harry Potter characters are another example. I don't know what these name changes accomplished:

Albus Dumbledore - Albus Humlesnurr

Dudley Dursley - Dudleif Dumling 

Vernon Dursley - Wiktor Dumling

Hagrid - Gygrid

Gilderoy Lockhart - Gyldeprinz Gulmedal

Neville Longbottom - Nilus Langballe

Professor McGonagall - Professor McSnurp

Tom Marvolo Riddle - Tom Dredolo Venster

Slytherin - Smygard

Severus Snape - Severus Slur

Dolores Jane Umbridge - Venke Dolorosa Uffert

You know who - Han de vet (he they know)

The translator must have been bored with their job or something, they definitely had fun with those! "He they know" doesn't sound quite as ominous as "you know who." The names didn't really become any more Norwegian though, no Olav or Ingeborg or Torbjørn to be seen.

Norwegians use a lot of english in everyday conversation, without seeming to notice it. If I tune out the norwegian and just listen for english, it's surprising how many words and expressions they use. Without understanding any norwegian it would be babble with completely out of context english statements thrown in. I don't actually remember noticing this too much when I understood less norwegian though; it's still nowhere near enough to understand the conversation.

I think I had more to write, but got distracted and forgot I was writing this. So that's all for now.

In art class we have to illustrate a small text, so here's my rough first drawing of Frøken Bisk Glefs:

Happy Groundhog day