Comments on: [Movie Transcript] Crimson Tide Captain’s Speech in Japanese

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:36:26 +0000

Dude your sites insane I dont know where to begin… I’ve perused a few videos ( there was a series some years ago ! & 2 for learn Japanese I torrented them all ) they a re pretty good..

I dont really WANT to learn Kanji just Functional language skills…
where “should” I begin on your site to add it to my study materials…

thanks dude Congratz on landing a gig over there !!

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:07:26 +0000

Yes, I like your translation better magamo. The way the movie is translated, I don’t think a Japanese person would understand what the ship name is about. Since the point of that final speech is to pep up the crew before shipping out, perhaps like you said, the translator changed it so it would essentially accomplish the same thing, though the meaning is a bit different. (or perhaps they really didn’t get it and screwed up)

It’s interesting to think about how much freedom translators have when doing the dubbing. For the most part I think they do a good job, a million times better than the subs, but I’ve come across instances where it seems for no good reason, they will add/delete something from a scene, changing the meaning ever so slightly. Or perhaps I’m riding their case because I would kill to have their job!

By: magamo

magamo — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:23:14 +0000

I found a typo: 空軍には入って貰いたい should read 空軍に入って貰いたい.

As for the translation of “It represents fine people,” I think this is due to the typical flow of thought in English, i.e., “It represents fine people who live in a fine, outstanding state in the greatest country in the entire world.” is usually worded in a reverse way in Japanese: 地上でもっとも偉大な国にある、素晴らしい州に住む人民を表している。Since Ramsey split the sentence into clauses that work as pseudo-sentences, the translator couldn’t do sentence-by-sentence translation. So probably s/he came up with the alternative dialogue to make it flow well in Japanese. Anyway, if I were the translator, I’d translate the sentences like this:

コッブ君、この艦の名前を知っているな。
(You’re aware of the name of this ship, aren’t you, Mr. Cob?)

もちろんであります！
(Very aware, sir!)

誇り高き名前だとは思わんか。
(It bears a proud name, doesn’t it, Mr. Cob?)

誇り高き名前であります！
(Very proud, sir!)

立派な人々をあらわしている。
(It represents fine people.)

もちろんであります！
(Very fine people, sir!)

とても素晴らしい州に住んでいる、
(Who live in a fine, outstanding state.)

素晴らしい州であります！
(Outstanding, sir!)

地上で最も偉大な国の人民だ。
(In the greatest country in the entire world.)

最も偉大な国の人民であります！
(In the entire world, sir!)

This way the Japanese lines carry pretty much the same meaning and follow the same flow. It might mess up the lip-sync though.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:35:54 +0000

Or instead of “人民”　perhaps “州民”　

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:04:00 +0000

I could be wrong here, but I think who ever translated the movie screwed up a bit on one part of the speech. When the Captain is talking about the ship with Mr. Cob and he says, “It represents fine people,” the movie dubs this as, “乗組員は優秀であるか？”

乗組員 would refer to the crew, but I believe Captain Ramsey is referring to the people of Alabama state. The dub probably should have said something like, “人民は優秀であるか？”　

By: Mandazor

Mandazor — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:14:47 +0000

Bwah~ Thank you so much! I love this xD <3

By: Glowing Face Man

Glowing Face Man — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:11:26 +0000

Nice, this is pure gold for anyone doing sentence mining who knows the movie =P

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:02:22 +0000

ありがとうKatzu!　私もこの映画が大好きです。

By: KREVA

KREVA — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:40:54 +0000

Hey Khatz, thanks for the mini-script. I can already spot some useful words to mine.

My shot at the ones you couldn’t make out would be:
1) 艇長
2)　銘々

Correct me if I am wrong. 🙂