Since I grew up in the US, I rarely know international movie names here in Brazil. Sometimes even when I go to the movie theater, I’ll even get confused because I won’t know what tickets to ask for because I looked the movie up in English on a movie critic site or something.
And the best part is, some of the translations have nothing to do with the original title!
Here are some funny translations of “classics.”
This is how we’ll write these out:
English Title = Brazilian Title = Brazilian to English Literal Title
The Shawshank Redemption = Um Sonho de Liberdade = A Dream of Liberty
The Godfather = O Poderoso Chefão = The Big Powerful Boss
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly = Três Homens em Conflito = Three Men in Conflict
Pulpfiction = Pulpfiction, Tempo de Violência = Pulpficion, A Violent Time
Goodfellas = Os Bons Companheiros = Good Company (or Men that make for good company?)
Silence of the Lambs = O Silêncio dos Inocentes = The Silence of the Innocent
The Usual Suspects = Os Suspeitos = The Suspect
It’s a Wonderful Life = A Felicidade Não Se Compra = [You] Can’t Buy Happiness
The Departed = Os Infiltrados = The Infiltrated
To Kill a Mockingbird = O Sol é Para Todos = The Sun is For All
The Prestige = O Grande Truque = The Big Trick
The Green Mile = A Espera de Um Milagre = Waiting for a Miracle
The Apartment = Se Meu Apartamento Falasse = If My Apartment Could Speak
Snatch = Snatch – Porcos e Diamantes = Snatch – Pigs and Diamonds
Cool Hand Luke = Rebeldia Indomável = Unconquerable Rebellion (fun fact = put the full Brazilian title in Google translate and you get “Cool Hand Luke” as a result)
Strangers on a Train = Pacto Sinistro = Sinister Pact
Million Dollar Baby = Menina de Ouro = Golden Girl
Groundhog Day = Feitiço do Tempo = Time’s Charm (or Time’s Spell)
Good Will Hunting = Gênio Indomável = Unconquerable Genius
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There’s a decent enough list! Do you know of any more funny movie title translations?
Comments:
Matthew Mcfadden:
So I noticed the crazy translations of even the dialogue in movies last time I was in rio with minus esposa carioca. Hence the reason I am learning the language. Some things were fairly close or right on.
I’d like to comment however on the way even the brazilian author of this article decides to translate the translation and how it dosent actually follow the “true” translation”, or at least the way I with and American background would expect it to be. Example: A espera de um milagre. Again though the translation is nearly the same I would read it as… The wait for a miracle.
This is a very subtle difference in this example but I watched Carrie the horror flick on Halloween in rio this past month and it was crazy how far off they can be. Even in advertisements aimed at English speekers it can take a tone or follow some odd vocabulary that is not used in day to day speach in America. Just wanted to comment.
Matthew Mcfadden:
*minha
Cândida:
Well, it seems that you would only consider it to be a good translation if it would be a literal one, but the thing is that you are forgetting one important thing about languages: they are part of the culture in which they are spoken. I’m Brazilian and I honestly don’t think I would watch a movie called: “O padrinho” (The Godfather), or “O bebê de um milhão de dólares” (Million Dollar Baby), specially because you don’t call a girl “baby/bebê” here… it would just sound really weird and, on the movie context, just “not right” in our culture.
I could say something about every title, but I will just finish my reply saying something about The Silence of the Lambs which was the movie that brought me on your blog and I was thinking that they did a really good job translating it, since that a “lamb” is a symbol of innocence, if you think about a wolf x lamb dichotomy…
Anyway, you should read more about translation theories and all that they imply (I recommend Translation Studies, by Susan Bassnett for start)… a literal translation is hardly ever a good one.
Daniel:
But it makes it difficult to translate it. One thing I’ve learned about Brazilians, there more “matter of fact” where as, us Americans have a deep sense of expression.
Daniel:
By the way, speaking of title translations, here is an example that worked out well for me. My reasoning for ending up here was that, I was searching for a particular movie titled Dear John by Channing Tatum. I went for the denotation, i.e. word for word translation and, guess what? turns out word for word, which is Dear John = Querido John. Got lucky!
Where can I find a list of the most famous movie’s titles, given IN BRAZIL AND PORTUGAL ?:
Please, STOP calling it “translations”.
Movie titles, ARE NOT “translations” !
They are GIVEN NAMES ! !