The advantage of watching children’s programs on VCD or DVD as compared to those shown on TV is that there are subtitles available on CDs. This is especially useful when the programs involve a lot of singing and you want to learn the songs so that you can then teach your children the lyrics.
Since Ryan is hooked on watching Barney these days, we’ve gotten him a lot of DVDs and VCDs on Barney. Yesterday we were putting on the CD for him as usual but somewhere along the way, the daddy accidently pressed on some button on the remote control and the subtitles got changed from English to Malay.
Curious, I started to read the Malay subtitles that had come on and see how they would do the song lyrics translations. Since my Malay language command is not excellent, I guess I can’t really complain about the translation. But one thing made my eyes pop and sent me in a state of shock.
In the show, a character by the name of Baby Bop is a sister to another character called BJ. Whilst Barney and the kids address Baby Bop by the name, BJ calls his little sister by an endearment. He refers to her as Sissy for sister.
So guess what the translator decides to term “Sissy” in Malay?
PONDAN!
This poor little thing can’t possibly be known to kids as Pondan!
How on earth could this get through the censorship board, when this show is for young viewers?!
Shock aside, I do find this hilarious. Don’t you? Come on Miss or Mister Translator, what were you thinking when you did the translations?!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
OMG! hilarious… but seriously worrying..
Haha, really? OMG! No wonder the English command is so bad! Sissy = Pondan! Haha, ok, the next time Ryan watches Barney, I will switch on the subtitles for a laugh.
Definitely worrying and not a laughing matter. Imagine if the kids can read it…they’ll be so confused. Or maybe they’re just smarter than that to realise that the translator needs help