Strawberry Shortcake International

[Kiwifruit Jam]

I see some of us have even met several dubs of Strawberry Shortcake. Here is the place to talk about them! What do you like or dislike in the translations? Or just post anything from Strawberry Shortcake in non-english!

I'll start with my observations about the Hungarian dub. I hope you'll find it interesting.


What I like:

• Strawberry's Hungarian name: "Eperke", in which "eper" means "strawberry", with "-ka/-ke" diminutive suffix. Such suffix is used to express littleness or cuteness. So the literal translation might be "little Strawberry" or "cute Strawberry". Though as I observed, she's always called as "Eperke", the "Shortcake" part is never translated, it is completely left out.
  
  
  
• Strawberry's typical usage of the word "berry" as an adverb (like "berry good", "berry amazing") is translated as "epresen". I won't go into the complicated analysis of this word, and because I don't have enough knowledge about linguistics, I would need to do some research myself.* An example of usage: "epresen jó" ("strawberry good"). From the positive nature of this word, it is never used with negative adjectives, so Eperke never says "epresen rossz" (that would mean "strawberry wrong"). (I told it because when I watched "Big Country Fun" in English, I was surprised when Strawberry has commented Carmel Corn's letter as "sounds like something's berry wrong".) Moreover, "epresen" is also used with verbs, e.g. "epresen köszönöm", which means something like "I thank it with strawberries". I've never encountered such usage in original English, but it should be like "berry thank you". (I should watch "Berry Brick Road" in English, that had an "epresen köszönöm", that's sure. I'm curious if Strawberry really says "berry thank you" there.)

What I don't like:

• The dumb translation of the refrain of the main title song. When the original lyrics says "That girl's so sweet, just like her name", the Hungarian says "Nem sért, nem bánt, ő jó barát", which means "she doesn't harm, she doesn't offend, she's a good friend". OMGWTF??? It just sounds really stupid. It's somewhat OK that they didn't keep the original meaning, but stating that she doesn't harm, etc. is just stupid. Like it was expectable from Strawberry to hurt you, so it should be told that she doesn't. It's like they'd expect kids to be so stupid that they need to be told that Strawberry doesn't hurt. If the series were about a little monster, then it would be fine - monsters hurt by default, but Strawberry doesn't. Anyway, this was the reason why I actually searched for the English version of the title, because I couldn't believe that the original says so, it must be an inaccurate translation. And I was right.
  
  
  
• The translation of the names of some characters are also poor. As I've already told, "Angel Cake" is translated as "Karamella", which means "caramel". But I find this particular name still acceptable. It can get away, at least caramel is sweet. Another one of this kind: "Crepes' Suzette" is "csokikrém", which means "chocolate cream". But the least are much worse. "Purple Pieman" is "Pástétom", which rather means "paste". Though the dictionary also lists "pie" as its meaning, generally it is not that kind of pie that the Purple Pieman is dealing with. "Huckleberry Pie" became "Puffancs", I can't even translate that word, most of the times it's used to refer to fatty things.

Neutral:

Neither I like or dislike the following things, I just list them as facts.

• The Hungarian title of Strawberry Shortcake is "Eperke és barátai" ("Strawberry and her friends"). As I previously stated, "Shortcake" is left out.
  
• The title song's beginning ("Straw-ba-ba-ba-berry[x3] Shortcake") in Hungarian: "Itt van, eljött Eperke[x3] hozzád" ("Here is, came along Strawberry" - just to correct the word order: "Strawbery is here, she came along"). I've seen the intro in several languages on YouTube, but none of them handled it without stuttering.
  
• Generally, the title song is translated so loosely that it's almost unrelated to the original. Considering the title, I think loose translation is OK - the point is that Strawberry is very nice and friendly - unless they take something really dumb. And they did something... just see the first point on my "What I don't like" list.

Finally, just for curious guys, here's the mentioned Strawberry Shortcake title song in Hungarian. (Note, the YouTube embedding code doesn't work for some reason.)

* Since Hungarian is an agglutinative language, it has 3 major types of suffixes. The word "epresen" has 2 suffixes of different types. We have a berry lot of berry awesome suffixes.

[Blackberry Bun]

Anything that can make this place livelier is welcome.

I'm Indonesian, so naturally I have seen Indonesian dubs. I also have seen Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Spanish dub because I studied in The Netherlands for a year and I bought all Strawberry Shortcake DVDs I could find there. It turned out those DVDs have multiple dubs inside. I'll just speak about the Indonesian dub for now


What I like:

• Character names are pronounced still in their original English names. Their names will sound just strange for me if translated (e.g. Strawberry Shortcake - Kue Stroberi, Angel Cake - Kue Malaikat, Ginger Snap - Jentikan Jahe)
  
  
• The songs keep their English dub, and they add subtitles instead. Believe me, Indonesian dubbers are bad at singing so this is a good move.

What I don't like:

• I should say first that there are three versions of Indonesian dubs. One for regular TV channel, one for VCD/DVD sold at stores, and the last one for cable TV. The latter two are well and accurately done, but the first one is terrible. Some character names are mispronounced, and some dialogues are mistranslated to the point I have to think deeply to understand the conversation.
  
  
• The Indonesian dub DVDs sold here are "real but fake". They're real because they're not pirated DVDs, but they're fake because the episodes are all they contain. No special features or music videos. Heh, pirated DVDs are more "real" than the official DVDs.

About the "Berry thank you" line, Strawberry usually says "Thank you berry much!" to express gratitude. If you can tell me which scene, I might be able to confirm it since I have all DVDs.

[Stella Grapes]

When the original lyrics says "That girl's so sweet, just like her name", the Hungarian says "Nem sért, nem bánt, ő jó barát", which means "she doesn't harm, she doesn't offend, she's a good friend". OMGWTF??? It just sounds really stupid. It's somewhat OK that they didn't keep the original meaning, but stating that she doesn't harm, etc. is just stupid. Like it was expectable from Strawberry to hurt you, so it should be told that she doesn't. It's like they'd expect kids to be so stupid that they need to be told that Strawberry doesn't hurt. If the series were about a little monster, then it would be fine - monsters hurt by default, but Strawberry doesn't. Anyway, this was the reason why I actually searched for the English version of the title, because I couldn't believe that the original says so, it must be an inaccurate translation. And I was right.


Purple Pieman" is "Pástétom", which rather means "paste". Though the dictionary also lists "pie" as its meaning, generally it is not that kind of pie that the Purple Pieman is dealing with. "Huckleberry Pie" became "Puffancs", I can't even translate that word, most of the times it's used to refer to fatty things.

These things seem funny to me. What is Sour Grapes' Hungarian name?

All that I can think of to add is that Charlotte aux Fraises has some weird sounding songs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5tDTOSk4Us[/youtube]

[Kiwifruit Jam]

These things seem funny to me. What is Sour Grapes' Hungarian name?

It's "Savanyú Szőlő". Exceptionally, it's a perfectly accurate translation for it means "Sour Grapes" - "savanyú" means "sour" and "szőlő" means "grapes". (Actually, "szőlő" is not plural so "grape" would be more accurate, but since we usually refer to a cluster of grapes by singular noun, while English usually uses plural for one cluster of grapes, it's totally correct to translate it as "grapes" and vica-versa.)

[Stella Grapes]

These things seem funny to me. What is Sour Grapes' Hungarian name?

It's "Savanyú Szőlő". Exceptionally, it's a perfectly accurate translation for it means "Sour Grapes" - "savanyú" means "sour" and "szőlő" means "grapes". (Actually, "szőlő" is not plural so "grape" would be more accurate, but since we usually refer to a cluster of grapes by singular noun, while English usually uses plural for one cluster of grapes, it's totally correct to translate it as "grapes" and vica-versa.)

Thank you! How on earth do you pronounce it, especially the last part?

[Blackberry Bun]

I don't know how to type a pronunciation, and I don't know if it's accurate either, but I tried Google Translate and the first word hears like how it is written (Pronounce the vowels 'a' like in 'Alpha", and pronounce the last syllable like pronouncing the word 'new'.) and the second word hears like "zoo-loo".

[Kiwifruit Jam]

Unfortunately, Google Translate doesn't want to pronounce anything for me - it must be a local problem, the pronounciation function at the online dictionary also doesn't work for me. So I can't verify whether Google's pronounciation is correct. I'm thinking, maybe I'll just record myself saying "savanyú szőlő", but I can't promise anything.

Anyway, Grapes, the clip you posted regarding Charlotte aux Fraises, is it an official Strawberry Shortcake song? If so, what is it's English title, and on which DVD is it released? For some reason I happen to like it. After all I found out that French sounds cute.

[Stella Grapes]

You don't need to go through a hassle for a name pronunciation.

Anyway, Grapes, the clip you posted regarding Charlotte aux Fraises, is it an official Strawberry Shortcake song? If so, what is it's English title, and on which DVD is it released? For some reason I happen to like it. After all I found out that French sounds cute.

It is an official Charlotte aux Fraises song only. The English translation of its title is "Only Happiness". No version besides the French version exists, however.