One of my pet peeves is bad French in American comics. Only one of many, I assure you, but important to me nonetheless. French characters spouting remedial French at best, and Babel Fish at worst. So here's a quick correction, if you will indulge me, or the otherwise entertaining Brave and the Bold #9. Master Waid and Mistress Buscema (I should think proofreading is part of "assistant-editing), attend:
So the trouble has to do with the two Andrés in the Blackhawk/Boy Commandos team-up, of course. Let's call them Big André and Little André. It all starts when Little André comes out of a pyramid shouting:
"Une maman a Brooklyn!" Ok, let's look at this, shall we? "Maman" is the equivalent of "Mom", so it's really a pun. A mummy has Brooklyn, in the "are you my mummy?" sense. Of course, it's not a pun in French, it's just nonsense. Mummy (the Egyptian undead extensive care patient type) in French is "momie". I'm giving Waid a pass here, hoping he knows he's making a joke.
What about Big André's French?
Ah yes, Big André has mangled syntax syndrome. He should be asking "Qu'est-ce qui s'est produit?", but he sidesteps the normal interrogative for a literal translation of "What has happened?" It's more like he's saying "The thing that's happened?" which gives it a demanding tone, but is ridiculously awkward. This is a fail. Now, what about Big André's translation?
It's a good thing he can read speech bubbles, because it sounds to me like Little André is saying "A mom in Brooklyn" or say we ignore the pun, "A mummy in Brooklyn". There's a homophone at work here, you see - "a" means "has", but "à" means "at" or "in", and they sound exactly the same. Given Brooklyn's a place name, Big André should probably be hearing the wrong thing. But he sees there's no accent on the "a", AND gets the pun, AND knows there's a Boy Commando called Brooklyn, so everything's fine.
Little André's story about the stone door, etc. is surprisingly clear, and Big André translates it well. (Well, there's a confusing pronoun use, but this is how a person would talk.) And then little André makes an unforgivable gender mistake. In French, you'll remember, all nouns have a gender. This is a particular difficulty to second-language learners because there's no real rhyme or reason to which are masculine and which feminine. "Pierre" (Stone) is feminine, by the way, so Waid correctly says "Cette pierre" using a feminine demonstrative adjective ("Ce pierre" would have been a mistake). However, he goes on to use the masculine pronoun "celui" to refer to that stone in the next bit, instead of "celle". Ah well.
Total score: 4/10. Mark will have to take the course again.
Counter Argument of the Gods
B&B #9 does have a lot of cool stuff on offer, so you shouldn't listen to Siskoid and his amazingly anal pet peeves (see, I can make French puns too!). Some of the best bits include:
-Robby Reed!!! (I'm a big Dial H fan.)
-Platinum reminding Mercury he's not the only liquid metal at room termperature.
-The Warlock of Ys! (I love it when pouring over my Who's Whos every night pays off.)
-The Atom narrating his story, just like in his own title.
-Between B&B and Booster Gold, the few series I'm reading at the moment are really giving me a tour of the entire history of the DC Universe. What's not to love?
So the trouble has to do with the two Andrés in the Blackhawk/Boy Commandos team-up, of course. Let's call them Big André and Little André. It all starts when Little André comes out of a pyramid shouting:
"Une maman a Brooklyn!" Ok, let's look at this, shall we? "Maman" is the equivalent of "Mom", so it's really a pun. A mummy has Brooklyn, in the "are you my mummy?" sense. Of course, it's not a pun in French, it's just nonsense. Mummy (the Egyptian undead extensive care patient type) in French is "momie". I'm giving Waid a pass here, hoping he knows he's making a joke.What about Big André's French?
Ah yes, Big André has mangled syntax syndrome. He should be asking "Qu'est-ce qui s'est produit?", but he sidesteps the normal interrogative for a literal translation of "What has happened?" It's more like he's saying "The thing that's happened?" which gives it a demanding tone, but is ridiculously awkward. This is a fail. Now, what about Big André's translation?
It's a good thing he can read speech bubbles, because it sounds to me like Little André is saying "A mom in Brooklyn" or say we ignore the pun, "A mummy in Brooklyn". There's a homophone at work here, you see - "a" means "has", but "à" means "at" or "in", and they sound exactly the same. Given Brooklyn's a place name, Big André should probably be hearing the wrong thing. But he sees there's no accent on the "a", AND gets the pun, AND knows there's a Boy Commando called Brooklyn, so everything's fine.Little André's story about the stone door, etc. is surprisingly clear, and Big André translates it well. (Well, there's a confusing pronoun use, but this is how a person would talk.) And then little André makes an unforgivable gender mistake. In French, you'll remember, all nouns have a gender. This is a particular difficulty to second-language learners because there's no real rhyme or reason to which are masculine and which feminine. "Pierre" (Stone) is feminine, by the way, so Waid correctly says "Cette pierre" using a feminine demonstrative adjective ("Ce pierre" would have been a mistake). However, he goes on to use the masculine pronoun "celui" to refer to that stone in the next bit, instead of "celle". Ah well.
Total score: 4/10. Mark will have to take the course again.
Counter Argument of the Gods
B&B #9 does have a lot of cool stuff on offer, so you shouldn't listen to Siskoid and his amazingly anal pet peeves (see, I can make French puns too!). Some of the best bits include:
-Robby Reed!!! (I'm a big Dial H fan.)
-Platinum reminding Mercury he's not the only liquid metal at room termperature.
-The Warlock of Ys! (I love it when pouring over my Who's Whos every night pays off.)-The Atom narrating his story, just like in his own title.
-Between B&B and Booster Gold, the few series I'm reading at the moment are really giving me a tour of the entire history of the DC Universe. What's not to love?
Comments
Death of the New Gods is actually quite good too.
I'm keeping a hopeful eye on Simone's Wonder Woman, but I've been burned by that title so many times over the years.
I'm giving WW a shot as well. We'll see if Simone can trump the JLU Wonder Woman as the best WW of all (for me, I mean).
Others, find this a source of great humor. Not only are things lost in translation but often things are added, distorted or reduced to gibberish. Using Babelfish to translate text and web pages is an unendless source of great amusement in this respect.
I have great respect for people in the translation business. It does not suffice to know 2 languages, but one has to master both of them in order to do the job well. You can't translate idioms or expressions. You have to know an equivalent in the other language. You have to be aware of the cultural differences between the two languages. This goes beyond just simple translation of words but toward complete adaptation of text in the other language/culture.
Below this standard, well, we all know that that gives...