I intend this blog to be alive and kicking,
which means that its content relies a great deal on the recent news related to
films. Therefore, I feel that I need to write about a new film that has just
been released:
The Host. On one of my previous posts
I focused on another film whose title hadn´t been translated into Spanish: Silver Linings Playbook, however, the
English title was accompanied by a subtitle in Spanish: “El lado bueno de las
cosas”, which helps us to understand the title in English. This time, we may
think that we are dealing with a similar case, because the English title The Host is also accompanied by a
subtitle in Spanish: “La huésped”. On the posts centred on the Oscars 2013, the
word “host” appeared recurrently, that´s why it is included in the glossary.
Consequently, if you know or you have recently learnt the meaning of the word “host”,
you may be confused about the subtitle of the film: “La huésped ”, because, as you must know, the corresponding
translation of the Spanish word “huésped ”
is guest. In this case, the
translators of the film decided on a wrong translation for the title of the
film in English because they must have thought that the Spanish subtitle helped
the Spanish viewers to get a better picture of what the film is about. To sum
up, if you aren´t acquainted with the English language, the film doesn´t pose
any question, but if you are,
you can´t help feeling that the translation is a bit misleading, even baffling.
In your
view, why should the translators choose the wrong word to translate the title
of the film in English?
I think that it all comes down to the plot. Traditionally, English films have
been dubbed into Spanish and the titles used to be translated into Spanish,
which meant that we were not aware of the title in the original language; however,
the tendency not to translate the English title may prevent prospective cinema-goers from fully grasping the title,
which may eventually put them off.
The Host is a film based on a novel by
Stephenie Meyers, the writer of the famous Twilight
series.
In my opinion, the readers of this series and
the fans of the films must already be familiar with this novel which is meant
to be the first of a new series, consequently, the film should be recognisable
to them and not translating the title is the best way of doing so.
Nevertheless, the main concern of a good
translator is to convey the meaning of what is translated as accurately as
possible, so that must have been the reason for choosing the wrong translation
for The Host, that is, in their view,
“La huésped” offers a better
depiction of the film, because, after all, the existence of a guest implies a
host and vice versa, and as a matter of fact, we are referring to the same kind
of relationship from two different points of view.
I hope I´ve given you some food for thought, so
if you feel intrigued by the plot of this film so that you can fully understand
why the titles of this film are apparently so inconsistent, I suggest that you
should learn a bit more about this new sci-fi film which aspires to capture the attention of
younger viewers and become as successful as the Twilight series.
