Translation help needed (just consulting)

[SasQ 1,379]

Hi. I'm working on translations of MLP:FiM episodes (subtitles) for my countrymen. I always try to make sure that everything is translated carefully and accurate. I also try to translate song lyrics in a way that they rhyme in the translated text, too, still holding to the original meaning. (It's quite a hard work, but it's worth the effort.)

 

Sometimes I got stuck on some colloquial phrases or idioms, though, since I'm not a native English speaker, and my experience with English language so far may not be enough in some cases, and then a help of other people might be needed, because I don't want anything to be lost in translation (as it usually is the case with careless translators).

 

That's why I decided to start this thread. Native speakers, I need your help. Not the help with the whole translation (that's what I can deal with myself), but with those little fragments I sometimes have trouble with. I don't expect you will help me with the actual translation (unless you also know Polish), but maybe you can somehow explain me the meaning of these fragments in plain English or rephrase them so that I could understand their meaning and find a proper translation myself. I think this way of solving this problem would be also useful to other translators, using different languages than mine.

 

OK, so here are the phrases I had problems with in some episodes from Season 4:

 

S04 E04: "Daring Don't"

 

1. How to understand the title? Does it mean something in the lines that Daring Do is not so Daring anymore? Or that she shouldn't be so daring? Although I pretty much understand that this is a play of words with "Daring Do" to negate it, I have trouble with understanding it grammatically and how to translate this negation. So far I ended up with something which could be translated back literally from Polish as "Not so Daring anymore". Is it OK?

2. "Or would she fly at him, full bore, knowing full well against all odds, that the greatest challenge ever faced was still surely no match for..."

Does "knowing full well" mean that she knows very well what she's doing, or what she's getting involved into?
What about the "against all odds" part? I already figured out that "odds" can mean the chances (beyond the usual meaning of "something out of place", "weird", or a type of number which parts don't pair up with each other, which seems to be a derivative of that original meaning). There appears to be also one more maning for "odds": the circumstances that are against you, the obstacles. So I still have some trouble with this part, because I don't know which of these meanings is more correct here. Does it mean that she's she's trying to fight with all the obstacles and she knows very well what they are? Or does the "knowing full well against all odds" means something in the lines that she knows it beyond all doubt (that is, against all reasons which could tell her the opposite)? Or, if "odds" means "chances", then maybe "knowing full well agains all odds" means that she weights all her chances?

S04 E08: "Rarity takes Manehattan"

 

1. The fragment of the song lyrics:
"But this is how I play my cards
I'm not about to fold"
What I understand literally by "to fold" is to bend something, to make one part of it appear over another. But here it appears to be some idiomatic meaning. Do I understand it correctly that it means "to give up"? That Rarity says that this is how she usually performs and she doesn't plan to give up easily of doing it? I wonder if "to fold" is somehow related to playing card games (mentioned in the preceding line). Maybe it means that she won't cheat with the cards? (though I consider this option as less probable for being correct)

2. "Generosity, I'm here to set the bar"
Is "generosity" used here in vocative? (like in "Oh, mighty Generosity! I'm speaking to you.") Or something else?
And what about being there to "set the bar"? Do I understand correctly that this is a metaphorical way of saying that she is establishing a new standard in a competition? (as if she said "Look how generous I am! Try to top that!")

3. "Where I see a frown, I go to town
Call me the smile patrol"
Is "going to town" a metaphor for "putting herself into action" or "stepping in"? (The "smile patrol" seems to suggest that, but I'm not sure. BTW Pinkie Pie feels jealous ;-J )

4. What's "Gloomy Gus"?

The Opening Song

Do I understand correctly that it's purposely being sung by the Mane Six, and not jus some reuse of voice actresses? I mean, the part "I used to wonder what friendship could be, until you all shared this magic with me" seems to be sung by Twilight (as if she said "Once I didn't know what is friendship all about, but you showed me all those features which follow, and now I get it."), since it fits the story from Season 1. Then, her friends starts to sing their parts, describing what each of them introduced to their relationship, right?
But I have some ambiguity with the grammar. There are two options, I guess:

a ) Rainbow Dash says that she introduced "Big adventure" (that's the Magic she shared with Twilight). As if she said "I shared with you some big adventure". Then Pinkie sings that she introduced "Tons of fun", etc. So all those are accusatives, right? But then there's the most problematic part, when Fluttershy sings "Sharing kindness ─ it's an easy feat": I cannot tell whether that "-ing" means that this task of sharing kindness is so easy to do, or that she continues the pattern of singing about what she introduced to the relationship (as "I shared with you the... the sharing of kindness :-P, and, by the way, it is an easy thing to do").

b ) "Big adventure" is in nominative, and so is with the rest of the features mentioned. Especially the Fluttershy's one: "sharing (a/the) kindness" is here used as a noun, not a verb, as a description of some task.

c ) "sharing kindness" is a present participle, as in "By sharing my kindness I become a better person."

I'm asking about that because, contrary to English, in Polish there are different suffixes depending on the grammatical form, and they change the meaning completely depending on which one I choose (whether it is in nominative or accusative). So I wouldn't want to use the wrong one and change the meaning of the lyrics.

So? Is it a description of the features they introduce do the relationship (nouns in accusative)? Or just a list of features (nouns in nominative)? Or the third one with the Fluttershy's part being a verb, a present participle?

Maybe I seek a hole where the hedge is whole, but I'm a perfectionist and I care for my translations to be accurate.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

I'll post more questions here if I find something more I'd have problem with.

Edited January 6, 2014 by SasQ

[longgone 873]

S04E04

2. You were more right with your former statement, it means she knows what she's getting into, even though the odds are against her (She's not likely to succeed)

S04E08:

1. Usually in games such as cards or poker, "to fold" means to give up, so this is how she preforms and she doesn't plan to give up.
3. Yes, I believe "going to town" means getting into action to do something

Opening song:

a). -ing would usually indicate something that's currently happening, though it could be both. She still does continue to show kindness, so I guess if you had to pick only one of the options, I would suggest saying that she is still showing kindess.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about accusative, nominative, and all that. I kinda wish I did, as not knowing it makes learning other languages incredibly hard. I'm currently trying to learn German, I don't even know what accusative and nominative are, let alone the German 'neuter' and 'dative', so I tip my hat to you for beating me in foreign grammar XD

Hope I proved to be of assistance :3

[Fhaolan 4,484]

English is difficult as it is very dependent on idioms, as you've discovered.

 

S04 E04: "Daring Don't"

The way I interpreted the title was a negation of the character 'Daring Do'. Meaning that once Rainbow Dash encounters the real Daring Do, it will not match the character she had imagined. So 'Daring Do' isn't really 'Daring Do'.

 

2. "Or would she fly at him, full bore, knowing full well against all odds, that the greatest challenge ever faced was still surely no match for..."

'Kowing full well, against all odds" means that she completely understands that the chance of success is very low, and she is doing it anyway despite the risk.

 

S04 E08: "Rarity takes Manehattan"

 

1. The fragment of the song lyrics:

"But this is how I play my cards

I'm not about to fold"

In many card games, to 'fold' is to give up.

 

2. "Generosity, I'm here to set the bar"

Yes, she is speaking directly to Generosity in the vocative. "Setting the bar" is an idiom from various sporting events where a bar is 'set' at a certain height to jump or vault over. She's basically invoking the spirit of generosity, telling it that she will be considered the new standard of representation of that spirit.

 

3. "Where I see a frown, I go to town

Call me the smile patrol"

Is "going to town" a metaphor for "putting herself into action" or "stepping in"? (The "smile patrol" seems to suggest that, but I'm not sure. BTW Pinkie Pie feels jealous ;-J )

"Going to town" is considered to be a bit more aggressive than simply going into action. She's going into action *enthusiastically*.

 

4. What's "Gloomy Gus"?

Someone who is always depressed and depressing to others.

 

The Opening Song

 

Do I understand correctly that it's purposely being sung by the Mane Six, and not jus some reuse of voice actresses? I mean, the part "I used to wonder what friendship could be, until you all shared this magic with me" seems to be sung by Twilight (as if she said "Once I didn't know what is friendship all about, but you showed me all those features which follow, and now I get it."), since it fits the story from Season 1. Then, her friends starts to sing their parts, describing what each of them introduced to their relationship, right?

Yes, that sounds correct.

 

 

But I have some ambiguity with the grammar. There are two options, I guess:

a ) Rainbow Dash says that she introduced "Big adventure" (that's the Magic she shared with Twilight). As if she said "I shared with you some big adventure". Then Pinkie sings that she introduced "Tons of fun", etc. So all those are accusatives, right? But then there's the most problematic part, when Fluttershy sings "Sharing kindness ─ it's an easy feat": I cannot tell whether that "-ing" means that this task of sharing kindness is so easy to do, or that she continues the pattern of singing about what she introduced to the relationship (as "I shared with you the... the sharing of kindness :-P, and, by the way, it is an easy thing to do").

In this context Rainbow Dash introduced Twilight to the concept of 'Having Big Adventures', while Fluttershy introduced to Twilight the concept of 'Sharing Kindness'. The 'having' (the accusative) is being assumed in the lyrics to better fit the pacing (meter) of the song. Each thing the five friends brought to Twilight is four musical beats in length, I believe, so they had to trim some of the statements and expand others to match the meter.

 

Technically the 'it's an easy feat' could be sung by all the ponies in harmony, but it seems the production team decided it sounded better to be continued by Fluttershy alone than switching into all the ponies at that point. Although listening to it carefully just now, it might be Twilight singing that line, referring to how easy it was to learn these things from these specific ponies, because they represent those traits so well.