English songs in foreign language

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

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30 Sep 2006
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Ok, i've often wondered this;
how do songs translate from english to other languages and still rhyme.....or even sound right?
eg, was just listening to a foreign version of 'Angels' by Robbie Williams.
"she offers me perfection,
A lot of love and affection"
Not every foreign language will have words for 'perfection' and 'affection' that (effectively) rhyme.

So how does it all work then?

Discuss............. :D
 
Go listen to a french song and read an english translation. It rhymes in French but the English version just looks retarded.
 
Jono said:
Worst disguised "hit me up, I'm gay too" reply ever. ;)
Click to expand...

Lol, thanks, that was a funnier reply.

Ok, the point about the Angels song was that whatever language i heard it in, those specific lines rhymed.
So was it just luck that the foregin words rhymed with each other or do they sub them with garbage to just make them rhyme?

Kinda weird, i would have maybe thought that when translators came up with...well...the translation from one langauge to another then they would have made the same rhyming connections where possible?

ie. English
house, mouse
French
maison, souris

That would mess up any song with those two words in a rhyming lyric.
 
That's pretty much the entire point of good translation.

It's all well and good directly converting "It's raining cats and dogs" into French, but that's not going to mean anything. Good translation is the art of finding the idiom that means "it's raining a lot" in French.

I've actually come across this issue with the Miffy children's books. They were originally written in Dutch, but are translated into English. Sometimes the rhymes work, sometimes they don't. The art is in finding a sentence that means something similar but still rhymes.
 
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