Firefly Lost in French Translation

The Message

This article is part of a series of reviews analysing the translation work for the French dubbed Firefly series and movie(s). It is intended for anyone who would like to know a little better how a French audience would perceive Joss' wonderful creation.

Introduction to this series
Previous review: Trash
Next review: Heart of Gold

General comments

This is, like the last episode, a very faithful translation. The main difference is that, this time, they kept some Chinese! Just when I'd given up all hope! The last time I heard Chinese was on episode 8, "Out of Gas".

For an unknown reason, St. Albans has been changed to Saint-Almo.

In a typically French manner they translated "alien" with "alien", an alien word in French, which alienated me quite a bit! All kidding aside, the first time we hear this word in the bazaar, it was translated by "vie extra-galactique" (extra-galactic life). This is fine. There's no short substitute for "alien" in French and they didn't fall into the trap of using "extra-terrestre", the usual substitute. For the other two occurrences of the word, it was not translated. It's probably for a lips synchronization reason. All is forgiven.

Translation score: 5/5
Chinese score: 3/7

The Chinese roster:
Kept - When Kaylee leaves Simon with the cow foetus.
Kept - The Chinese in Jayne's letter.
Omitted - Woman on speaker.
Omitted - Womack's "Dong ma".
Omitted - Mal swearing to Tracey after he woke up.
Kept - When Kaylee talks about Zoe during the war.
Omitted - Wash reacting to a close explosion.

Chosen Excerpts

The various excerpts analyses are formatted like this:
In red is the original line.
In blue is the French translation replacing the original lines.
In green is my English translation of the French lines.
In regular text is my personal comment on the translation work for the excerpt.

FREAK SHOW BARKER
Forget the lies of our oppressive, cabalistic Allied governments!
Oubliez les mensonges de nos gouvernements, ceux de l'alliance capitaliste.
Forget the lies of our governments, those of the capitalist alliance.
This is funny! One is left to ponder if there's a real difference between the capital and a cabal!

RIVER
My food is problematic.
Mon bonbon ne veut pas que je le mange.
My candy doesn't want me to eat it.
Different but as funny.

TRACEY (when he takes a break during the battle)
(Indistinct muttering.)
Il faut manger un peu. Allez, ouvre-toi. Ouvre-toi, bon sang!
One has to eat a little. Come on, open. Open, damn it (or gorram)!
This is another example of translators putting translation where none is required. I don't care one way or the other, but it is a strange habit.

ZOE (when Tracey says that he won't be caught off-guard again)
It does, I'm just gonna watch.
Oh! Si! Je vais faire la garde.
Oh! Yes! I'll go on guard.
Evidently, they misunderstood the meaning of "watch" here.

TRACEY (talking about Mal protecting the lieutenant)
That's more that he'd do
Moi, j'aurais même craqué avant.
Myself, I would have cracked up before.
We can see that he would not. He's taking the war very well. This is the biggest mistake of this episode.

KAYLEE (reacting to Simon's offer to perform an autopsy)
Robot!
Mutant!
Mutant!
It nicely adds a link to the cow foetus. I like this.

WASH
What do I do, shadow puppets?
Mais qu'est-ce que je fais? Je récite des poèmes?
But what do I do? I recite poetry?
Again, this is different but almost as funny.

JAYNE
Not unless this crate's made of magical wish-granting planks.
Rien du tout. Sauf si c'est des planches magiques ou des clous en or blanc.
Nothing at all. Unless these are magical planks or white gold nails.
Because this episode's translation is so faithful, I decided to note down differences that I would have normally ignored.

WASH
Ow.
Mais pourquoi moi?
But why me?
Another trivial difference.

MAL
I just carried the bullet a while.
Jamais j'aurais tiré le premier.
I never would have shoot first.
It's less poetic and we miss the allusion to the battle scene. At least, it's in character.

Thanks for reading!

Michel

Previous review: Trash
Next review: Heart of Gold