Movie studios are no strangers to putting out their films in many different languages in order to maximise box office revenue from as many different countries as possible. In fact one recent example, Pixar Animation’s “Cars 2″, was sent out to 44 countries when it was released this summer.
However as many translators have found it proves challenging to completely capture colloquialisms that do not transfer into other languages. If the main character in the film has a very distinct dialect, this is hard to translate for people outside of the America and the UK.
The subtle nuances in languages can be hard to get across in other languages – and this is especially challenging when it comes to comedy.
For countries that choose to use subtitles over spoken voice overs, they face their own challenges with language translation as they have to make sure that they condense what is being said so that there is not too much to read, whilst still conveying the message of what is being said.
The more slang and regional language that exists in the film, the more of a dubbing challenge that it offers to the translators. They also have to be careful with regards to offensive words, as some words can be rude in some languages but perfectly acceptable in others.
And for films that are set in a by-gone era the dubbers must find old fashioned language equivalents which can sometimes be a challenging and painstaking process.
In a film world where a large chunk of revenue is coming from over sees the process of dubbing has never been more crucial.

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