I know there are people here who are not native English speakers. I was wondering if you prefered to watch the show in your native language or in English, and if you've seen both versions which one is better for you?
If you speak more than one language...
- Thread starter Sophie74656
- Start date
Yes, and don't we non-native speaker suffer here? 
I remember one gentle member form the UK telling me very rudely to learn english because I said "last episode" and not "previous episode". 
May I have a cookie? 
I always watch stuff that's in english in english, which I do since I have the internet. My first episode from TNG was "All the best things" during a vacation in Wales in 97 (long before), the first TOS was the Nazi episode and I had the frist four episodes from Voy on VCR long before it came out. The last time I watched anything from Star Trek in german is more than ten years ago. We had an american exchange student in the 90s who watched Star Trek in german with me and who first informed me about Shatner's speech pattern and Troi's accent.
You lose all of that in translation and there is the occasional error but the main advantage is that the original is more authentic. Synchronisation sometimes has the tendency to give stereotypical characters to speakers who enforce the stereotypical aspect of the character (like "childish voice"), which makes people like Neelix even worse. The speed difference between the PAL and NTSC (or how it's called) made things sound funny too. And I learned most of my english from watching tv shows (I even watched TOS in italian to learn italian irregular verbs).
Janeway has a different, softer voice in german which works too but I prefer Mulgrew's original voice.
I remember one gentle member form the UK telling me very rudely to learn english because I said "last episode" and not "previous episode". May I have a cookie? I always watch stuff that's in english in english, which I do since I have the internet. My first episode from TNG was "All the best things" during a vacation in Wales in 97 (long before), the first TOS was the Nazi episode and I had the frist four episodes from Voy on VCR long before it came out. The last time I watched anything from Star Trek in german is more than ten years ago. We had an american exchange student in the 90s who watched Star Trek in german with me and who first informed me about Shatner's speech pattern and Troi's accent.
You lose all of that in translation and there is the occasional error but the main advantage is that the original is more authentic. Synchronisation sometimes has the tendency to give stereotypical characters to speakers who enforce the stereotypical aspect of the character (like "childish voice"), which makes people like Neelix even worse. The speed difference between the PAL and NTSC (or how it's called) made things sound funny too. And I learned most of my english from watching tv shows (I even watched TOS in italian to learn italian irregular verbs).
Janeway has a different, softer voice in german which works too but I prefer Mulgrew's original voice.
I always wondered about little things that get lost in translation. I speak more than one language myself so I know that when you translate things you do tend to loose some things.
Well, not with Voyager, because English is my first language, but in general with films, I tend to watch in the original language. Some I have to have subtitles on because I don't know (enough) of that particular language
Dubbed films can occasionally be entertaining, but the lipsync tends to distract me. (On the other hand, comparing the dubbing to the subtitles can also be funny as I've seen cases where they seem to be reading from different scripts)
Dubbed films can occasionally be entertaining, but the lipsync tends to distract me. (On the other hand, comparing the dubbing to the subtitles can also be funny as I've seen cases where they seem to be reading from different scripts)
German has (like Italian, French) two forms of adressing someone. A familiar one (du) and a polite one (Sie). Like first-name-basis or not, but more complex. You can be polite and use the first name, which is a bit closer than using the surname. So there are lots of nuances. If you're new in a job you use the polite form till you or the other offer the "Du" (the familar form) to you.
That's always a problem when you translate something from english because that never happens on shows in english of course.
So in VOY they all used the polite form as standard which made things silly when Tom and Harry were on the holodeck but still used the polite form. I don't know when they started to use the familiar version for Tom and Be'lanna.
Also not everything is translated. For some words (mostly techno babble) they use the original word and some they translate, which can be odd.
English has some words that we don't in German. Other words like "people" have three different words in German, so the result can be awkward (at least). Some shows like doctor who lose everything in German.
That's always a problem when you translate something from english because that never happens on shows in english of course.
So in VOY they all used the polite form as standard which made things silly when Tom and Harry were on the holodeck but still used the polite form. I don't know when they started to use the familiar version for Tom and Be'lanna.
Also not everything is translated. For some words (mostly techno babble) they use the original word and some they translate, which can be odd.
English has some words that we don't in German. Other words like "people" have three different words in German, so the result can be awkward (at least). Some shows like doctor who lose everything in German.
Last edited:
Would that be what the equivalent of the the title of TNG's finale All Good Things....?
Lol, yes. I guess I had "Best of both worlds" somewhere in my mind but I mean "All good things".
I prefer to watch the show in Hungarian but that's got nothing to do with whether the original or the translation is of a better quality. This simply has to do with the fact that in Hungarian I understand every single word, which is not the case in English. And if I don't catch as much as half a sentence in English, this is annoying so I don't even risk watching it English.
Having said that, I've seen like twenty episodes in English - with the subtitles on. Whenever I did this, I always focussed on the language, and not on the story - I had seen the story like twenty times before anyway. My attention was distracted from the story because first I had to get used to the voices, and second I was concentrating on how to say in English all those sentences that I had practically known in Hungarian by heart.
When I draw a comparison, there are interesting observations to be made. First, the voices. Some of the voices are much better in English (Seven), some are much better in Hungarian (Janeway), some work for me in both languages (Tommyboy's voice is very masculine in English and it is boyish-mischievous in Hungarian) and some are simply different (Kes for example).
When they dubbed Voyager into Hungarian, the channel that originally aired it had made a huge mistake: they failed to notice that there was a seventh season!
Now how stupid do you have to be to do that? I'd like to remind you that here in Hungary we had never even heard about Star Trek practically before 2000 so by the time it came to a TV channel buying Star Trek shows, all the seven seasons had already been ready in English.
This had a positive consequence: characters are lent the same voices in Hungary throughout the entire seven seasons (TNG, DS9 and VOY), as opposed to some countries like Italy, where they kept buying the show season by season and e.g. Tommyboy had three different voice-over actors.
But like I said, the channel failed to notice that there was a seventh season, so they stopped on UNIMATRIX ZERO Part one. Fans became angry, urged for the continuation of the story and wrote a lot of letters. The people in charge realized their mistake, so they bought the seventh season. But for some obscure reason - I strongly suspect it must have been for money reasons - they didn't ask the original voice-over actors for the seventh season but asked an amateur theatrical company to do the dubbing.
My God, the chaos it resulted in! It was bad enough people had to get used to different voices but to add insult to injury, all the technobabble was translated in a different way and people were confused like hell. So fans soon blocked watching it, which is interesting if you consider that in Hungary of all Star Trek series Voyager is by far the most popular one. Nevertheless, fans were really persistent and ultimately achieved their goal and the TV company asked the original actors to do the dubbing for the last season, too.
But it had to be done in haste, so I'm afraid there are some problems with the last season. But we were happy to get the original voices back and I think we are fine now with what we have. I was definitely very happy to get my Janeway back, whose voice was lent by one of our top 5 voice-over actresses - her voice is so reassuring and very pleasant to listen to.
I know that in some languages, the humour gets lost in the translation and I'm not saying that some of it doesn't in Hungarian but it seems to me that the show is actually a lot funnier in my language than in the original! What happened was that although some humour got lost, they more than made up for it by introducing funny translation in places where there's no humour in the original English version so the show is extremely funny in Hungarian - no surprise it is by far the best loved Trek in this part of the world.
And although dubbing sometimes is not perfect, it has some advantages over the original: some of the recurring characters on Voyager were played by different actors but you don't even notice that in Hungarian: Naomi Wildman, Tuvok's wife, Captain Braxton, Admiral Paris all have the same voice no matter what episode you are watching. That's a good thing.
Sometimes, however, stupid mistakes were also made. It seems that no one among the people in charge noticed that Barclay appears a lot earlier than season 6 so in PROJECTIONS his Hungarian voice is different from that in later seasons. The same goes for Q and Seska, whose voices are different is the seventh season from previous seasons, although I strongly suspect this has something to do with what I've told you above about the mess surrounding the dubbing process of the last season.
Here's Janeway, the Doctor, Tom and Michael Sullivan for you in Hungarian:
Or you can try the Angry warrior story from RESOLUTIONS:
Having said that, I've seen like twenty episodes in English - with the subtitles on. Whenever I did this, I always focussed on the language, and not on the story - I had seen the story like twenty times before anyway. My attention was distracted from the story because first I had to get used to the voices, and second I was concentrating on how to say in English all those sentences that I had practically known in Hungarian by heart.
When I draw a comparison, there are interesting observations to be made. First, the voices. Some of the voices are much better in English (Seven), some are much better in Hungarian (Janeway), some work for me in both languages (Tommyboy's voice is very masculine in English and it is boyish-mischievous in Hungarian) and some are simply different (Kes for example).
When they dubbed Voyager into Hungarian, the channel that originally aired it had made a huge mistake: they failed to notice that there was a seventh season!
Now how stupid do you have to be to do that? I'd like to remind you that here in Hungary we had never even heard about Star Trek practically before 2000 so by the time it came to a TV channel buying Star Trek shows, all the seven seasons had already been ready in English.This had a positive consequence: characters are lent the same voices in Hungary throughout the entire seven seasons (TNG, DS9 and VOY), as opposed to some countries like Italy, where they kept buying the show season by season and e.g. Tommyboy had three different voice-over actors.
But like I said, the channel failed to notice that there was a seventh season, so they stopped on UNIMATRIX ZERO Part one. Fans became angry, urged for the continuation of the story and wrote a lot of letters. The people in charge realized their mistake, so they bought the seventh season. But for some obscure reason - I strongly suspect it must have been for money reasons - they didn't ask the original voice-over actors for the seventh season but asked an amateur theatrical company to do the dubbing.
My God, the chaos it resulted in! It was bad enough people had to get used to different voices but to add insult to injury, all the technobabble was translated in a different way and people were confused like hell. So fans soon blocked watching it, which is interesting if you consider that in Hungary of all Star Trek series Voyager is by far the most popular one. Nevertheless, fans were really persistent and ultimately achieved their goal and the TV company asked the original actors to do the dubbing for the last season, too.
But it had to be done in haste, so I'm afraid there are some problems with the last season. But we were happy to get the original voices back and I think we are fine now with what we have. I was definitely very happy to get my Janeway back, whose voice was lent by one of our top 5 voice-over actresses - her voice is so reassuring and very pleasant to listen to.
I know that in some languages, the humour gets lost in the translation and I'm not saying that some of it doesn't in Hungarian but it seems to me that the show is actually a lot funnier in my language than in the original! What happened was that although some humour got lost, they more than made up for it by introducing funny translation in places where there's no humour in the original English version so the show is extremely funny in Hungarian - no surprise it is by far the best loved Trek in this part of the world.
And although dubbing sometimes is not perfect, it has some advantages over the original: some of the recurring characters on Voyager were played by different actors but you don't even notice that in Hungarian: Naomi Wildman, Tuvok's wife, Captain Braxton, Admiral Paris all have the same voice no matter what episode you are watching. That's a good thing.
Sometimes, however, stupid mistakes were also made. It seems that no one among the people in charge noticed that Barclay appears a lot earlier than season 6 so in PROJECTIONS his Hungarian voice is different from that in later seasons. The same goes for Q and Seska, whose voices are different is the seventh season from previous seasons, although I strongly suspect this has something to do with what I've told you above about the mess surrounding the dubbing process of the last season.
Here's Janeway, the Doctor, Tom and Michael Sullivan for you in Hungarian:
Or you can try the Angry warrior story from RESOLUTIONS:
Thomas Eugene, what a interesting story! Thank you for the "Warrior speech" in Hungarian. I like the Janeway voice here very much, but not the Chakotayvoice. For me the voice sounds too old for the character.
I`m not a native English speaker. I think most of you noticed that because of my bad English. Which language do I prefer?
Sometimes I watch the show in English on DVD to improve my English skills. Sometimes, when I`m tired, I prefer the German language (or when I watch it on TV). I like the German voice of Janeway much more than Kate`s, but the German Chakotay- voice is terrible. The other voices are ok.
I`m not a native English speaker. I think most of you noticed that because of my bad English. Which language do I prefer?
Sometimes I watch the show in English on DVD to improve my English skills. Sometimes, when I`m tired, I prefer the German language (or when I watch it on TV). I like the German voice of Janeway much more than Kate`s, but the German Chakotay- voice is terrible. The other voices are ok.
@Thomas Eugene , I think the actress they have dubbing for Janeway sounds close, at least not jarringly different.
Have you ever run across instances where there were jokes that made sense in English but did not translate well in Hungarian.
Have you ever run across instances where there were jokes that made sense in English but did not translate well in Hungarian.
Yes, Vass Gábor's voice sounds (and is) definitely older than Robert Beltran's. Works fine for me, it gives the character a much more masculine personality than the original.
We disagree there ... very much. Menszátor Magdolna's voice is simply beautiful - this is something that 90% of Hungarians would agree with. I find that Kate Mulgrew's voice is harsh, even masculine to a certain extent.
But of course, each to their own.
What I know is that most Voyager fans I know would say that both Janeway's and Chakotay's Hungarian voice is spot-on.
Opinion's differ on Tom's voice, a lot of people would prefer the original. Seven's is horrible when you hear it for the first time but I think we've got so much used to it by now that we don't even notice it any more.
I personally love Kes's Hungarian voice, I like Tuvok's (whose Hungarian voice is the same as that of Daniel Jackson from Stargate), I'm fairly indifferent towards the Doc's, Neelix's and B'Elanna's voice and after 35 viewings I sometimes still have to chuckle when Harry speaks because his Hungarian voice-over actor is basically known in Hungary for the voice of Shaggy Rogers from Scooby-Doo ...
Like I said ... I haven't watched too much Voyager in English. Sometimes when you guys talk about Voyager on these fora, it turns out that you're talking about something humorous. When I manage to identify the extract, I realize that the text in question isn't funny in Hungarian at all.
But that has happened very rarely so far and like I said, there's a lot of humour on Voyager in my language. For example, I can't even imagine what the whole riddle in RIDDLES might be about in English but both at the beginning and at the very end of the episode, it sounds super hilarious in Hungarian.
She does sound gravelly sometimes, but once in a while she speaks softly. Maybe you have a better ear for voice tones than I do.
So the same voice over actor dubs Tuvok and Daniel Jackson, that's neat. A little off topic, but did you know that Michael Shanks, who played Daniel also did the voice of Stargate command's Asgard ally Thor. And of course the Asgard were actually the Roswell Greys. Personally I wouldn't have guessed it myself, but it was in the closing credits.
Is the riddle you are talking about the one that Neelix asks. Is it the one that goes something like, "You won't go hungry if all you have is a calender". The answer being you can eat the Sundaes (Sundays) and the dates?
That's not necessarily the case but I know that Ms Mulgrew has often been criticized for her voice whereas Ms Menszátor's voice is generally considered to be very pleasant. She is a very frequently heard voice in pretty much everything in Hungary and most people like her.
BTW, Neelix's Hungarian voice is also often heard: he is "the voice" of National Geographic in Hungary. I guess more than 30% of their documentaries are dubbed by Kassai Károly so whenever I decide to sit down and watch something on NG, I always think "let's see what Neelix has to say to us about the universe today" ...
Yes, Stargate SG-1 is my second favourite TV-show of all time and although I don't know it half as much as Voyager, I am aware of this little piece of information. Also, the other Asgard guy's voice was Teryl Rothery's, aka Doctor Fraiser.
Yes, that's the one. The Hungarian equivalents are very different but sound equally funny in our language.
Thankfully dubbing is virtually non-existent in my country, outside of cartoons.
I just can't stand it.
I have seen in Star Trek in my language (not my regional version though) and it was ridiculous.
On the other hand, Star Trek is quite an easy show to watch in english, even without subtitles, with its theatrical dialogue and pronunciation.
I just can't stand it.
I have seen in Star Trek in my language (not my regional version though) and it was ridiculous.
On the other hand, Star Trek is quite an easy show to watch in english, even without subtitles, with its theatrical dialogue and pronunciation.
I would have been so angry if they stopped after season 6. Besides not getting a resolution to the cliffhanger, I think some of the best episodes are in season 7.
Although perhaps some of the best stories were in seasons 8, 9 and 10? It's a pity we will never know ...
That's true, we don't know what would have happened if they kept going. I always felt that in general the stories got better as the show went on, so if they kept going it would have gotten better and better (I hope). Will have to just settle for the novelsAlthough perhaps some of the best stories were in seasons 8, 9 and 10? It's a pity we will never know ...
Well each actor certainly adds their own to the character, their own speech patterns and inflection. So if something is dubbed you would be getting a different character.
Similar threads
