Watching Sherlock (The Translation Edition)

All right.

Some people really don’t get marketing.

Some people should not translate anything.

I am angry furious.

I love Sherlock, and the series keeps getting better and better.

Since I’m “caught” between several cultures, I can watch the series dubbed in several languages.

Since I’m working across the small pond for the moment, I’m going to be able to watch the second series dubbed in French tonight on France 4, and seriously, I want to use a riding crop on whoever translated the titles.

If the one for the third episode is vaguely possible (The Reichenbach Fall into La chute du Reichenbach); Chute de Reichenbach (drop the first article and keep Reichenbach a place that doesn’t need a contracted article) would have been slightly better, I think.

However, the translations for episode 1 and 2 are, in my book, appalling.

The short story A Scandal in Bohemia was transformed into A Scandal in Belgravia. Apparently the average French viewer is just too stupid to know (or grab a dictionary, or even Google it) that Belgravia’s a district of London, because the translation is Un scandale à Buckingham (A Scandal in Buckingham). All right, not that (geographically) far, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut… What a disappointment!

Sherlock is a very intelligent, witty series, and dumbing down the titles doesn’t bode well for the dubbing.

From the novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, we got The Hounds of Baskerville. What’s the translation into French? Le chien des Baskerville, which gives (except if we’ve got a repeated massive typo throughout the France 4 website)… The Hound of the Baskervilles. Weirdly enough, translations on the Internet give the correct Les chiens de Baskerville.

Do they think that everybody will watch in French, and then swap to the English version? If people were that good in English here, I’d be out of a job!

Yes, translation is a tough job (been there, done that), but just seeing the translations of the titles is making me very afraid about the rest of the work (and yes, I’m aware that the translation for episode 1 could be seen as an adaptation – or even a shift of focus towards the ‘sweet little posh thing’, but I really think it’s a dumbing down of it. Sorry).

I’ve been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for too long to be nice about inaccurate, lazy, disappointing versions.

And since I’m the DVD-buying audience, I’m allowed to be growly.

I’ll post another message after the broadcast (either an apology, or a frustrated yell)……….