Lost in translation

While I, as an honest, upstanding British citizen, have nothing but absolute respect for international copyright law, you may be aware that some truly evil people actually copy DVDs. Disgusting, I know. But they are so readily available in China that I'm not sure I've ever seen a genuine DVD over here - I guess there isn't much of a market for them: Who would bother buying a real one when the fake is right next to it for a tenth of the price?

Anyway, I can reluctantly confirm that, on rare occasions, not-entirely-authentic DVDs have been known to accidentally enter my field of vision. Browsing the local shops and markets, it is easy to find the latest releases from around the world, often within days of the official release date. But as a general rule, the longer you are prepared to wait, the higher the quality of your viewing experience. If you buy too soon, you'll end up with one recorded from a cinema screen with a camcorder. Wait a few weeks and a much higher quality copy can often be found.

But sometimes even more entertainment can be gleaned from a DVD purchase in China, simply because the people responsible for the piracy often have a poor grasp of English. First of all, there is the fun of deciphering the film title. To produce the DVD sleeve, I assume they perform a quick internet search and use whatever they can find. Any non-Chinese that is found obviously must be perfect English, and exactly what is being searched for. This can sometimes make for an amusing description of the film on the back of the sleeve. Take this one for example:

Quickly googling some of the text reveals that it has been swiped directly from the user comments on IMDb. It seems clear that whoever did this has little or no grasp of English - though I'd like to believe that isn't true, and they just have a wicked sense of humour ^_^

But the thing that most frequently leads to various combinations of hilarity and utter confusion is the translation that comes along with the film. Again, as a general rule, waiting a few weeks will result in a higher quality viewing experience... but if you simply can't wait, you must be prepared for the consequences. English subtitles (of an English-language film) are often ridiculously bad - seemingly having been translated to Chinese and then back again (possibly several times). A string of English words will appear onscreen, but bare no relation whatsoever to what is actually being said. Switching to Chinese subtitles offers a different experience. Here, a native Chinese speaker has written the subtitles so they are at least coherent. The problem/source of amusement is that the translated dialogue may not necessarily follow what is being said onscreen. This has lead to some odd conversations regarding plot development when watching an English-language film with Chinese subtitles, with Chinese people. Entire relationships are changed (for example, husbands and wives become brothers and sisters), plotlines radically diverge, jokes become hideously inappropriate or just disappear completely.

While this can be a little frustrating, its not all bad. Perhaps a slightly different situation, but what would childhood be like with a properly translated version of The Magic Roundabout?

Multiple choice

Hurrah for multiple choice examinations - the saviour of lazy students the world over.

Chinese people often talk about 'being lucky' in life. If you are a lucky person then you'll go far. If bad things happen to you, or you are generally unsuccessful, then maybe you are simply just unlucky. Having a scientific background, I didn't consider the topic any further, since its just superstition, right?

I've recently had the misfortune of looking at some exam papers that were given to Chinese students as a means of deciding whether or not they can graduate with a degree in English. Many of the questions involved selecting a correct answer from a choice of four. Sound familiar? Fairly straightforward, you might think. But what if there is no correct answer? What if there is more than one correct answer? Unfortunately I spotted several questions like this - oh dear.

I asked a Chinese person about this. She told me that all the answers to the questions can be found in the coursebook. Study the book, answer the questions - simple. (In China, 'studying' often means 'memorising' a textbook, word for word.) As it turned out, the answers to the questions could indeed be found in the book. But, sadly, the coursebook also contained mistakes. It seems that sometimes the way to pass exams here is to memorise the correct wrong answers.

Some were wrong in an entirely different way... One question even read: 'In which year was the textbook published?' How, precisely, is that going to test a person's knowledge of a foreign language? If you consider that it only takes a single mark to determine if a borderline student is going to pass or fail... A double thumbs-aloft to whoever decided to put that on the exam.

I turned to the front of the book to find the authors' names. Chinese. 'Isn't it at least edited by a native English user?' I asked. Apparently not. The books are full of outdated words and phrases, the likes of which would puzzle most English-speaking people (though not if you were about 120 years old), and are in dire need of modernisation.

One of my personal favourites involved an excerpt from a story, followed by some multiple choice questions. The final question read: 'In your opinion, what happened next in the story?', followed by four possible answers...

Does answer C imply answer D? (Actually, that's a whole different topic, more on that another time...) Does answer B imply that time will come to a standstill? And what about secret option E, which is what actually might have been in the examinees' imaginations?