this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
707 points (98.9% liked)

Ask Lemmy

30863 readers
2035 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago

Oh they just didn't translate idiomatically. Alot of times they translated it literally and very badly. So a lot of puns just don't work at all. Not the worst example but one that I remember out of my head is when Rachel and Ross have their fight in the cafe right before their first kiss. I think they say that the shop has long sailed (which is a saying and works with relationship) but they also talk about ships in German. Which isn't too bad but it's not a saying in German, you would say the train has left. The German word for relationship also has no "ship" so them talking about ships was really random. You can take it as a metaphor still, so it was ok-ish, but why would two New Yorkers use ships as a metaphor out of the blue.

A lot of sexual innuendo that is more or less obvious in English just absolutely doesn't work in German. Like the dude with the watch who claims he has a dry spell (Monica's date) - when he starts talking about having no ink in his pen it just sounds super off. Not like in a well designed metaphor but just like "???" you get it but it's just not something that works.

There is also a scene that is so random that I can't even pinpoint it down right now. Monica asks Joey (or Chandler?) whether he will be good to some specific girl and he doesn't get the question. In English (and with context) it makes sense and it's funny why he doesn't get it, in German it is so random, you absolutely are on Joey's side because you do not understand wtf is going on and what he is supposed to answer and why Monica would ask that. As I said, I've watched the show a lot and I can't even tell you the context because it is so unfitting in the moment. I've watched the whole show like 15 times in German and about 5 times in English and I only got it when I watched it in English. If I remember what episode that was I'll let you know.

I wish I could provide you with more and better examples but it's been at least 6 years since my last rerun :(

As a side note, the Russian dub is so much worse quality wise, but they end up just summarizing more or less idiomatically what happens. Jokes are lost this way, but at least there is no confusion about what is happening.