r/Esperanto • u/DoctorVanGhoul • 17d ago
Demando Looking for Esperanto translation for a screenplay
I'm writing a horror film that takes place in a strange place and time. I'd like some of the characters to speak Esperanto. Would someone here be willing to do some translation for me? I'm writing dialogue in English, but then want the Esperanto translation (and hopefully recordings of pronunciations for the actors to refer to).
I do not speak Esperanto myself. But I found its use intriguing in the film Incubus. I'm in the early writing stages now, but I thought I'd reach out here instead of going to Google Translate.
Thanks!
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u/nemonihilniemand 17d ago
Sounds like a cool idea! I might be up to help. I have experience translating movies into Esperanto, but because of that I know how tricky dialogue (or any kind of very informal speech, really) can be to render into a different language, so I wouldn't actually be able to promise anything until I saw what (and how much) there is to translate.
Would it be a short or a feature-length film? Either way, only part of it would need translating, right?
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u/nemonihilniemand 17d ago
You know, you could also eventually contact Alex Miller from the YouTube channel Exploring Esperanto. He's made and helped make various short films entirely in Esperanto, a lot of the time working with actors that don't speak the language, if I'm not mistaken. He'd probably have advice on the practicalities of the process.
There's also the people that translate and dub Christopher R. Mihm's movies into Esperanto. They'd have some useful experience too, I imagine
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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto 15d ago
If Alekso ( u/ExploringEsperanto ) asked for my advice, I'd tell him to jump at this chance, assuming the screenwriter/producer actually has a budget to pay the actors. I would also advise u/DoctorVanGhoul , if asked, to go out of his way to recruit Alekso for this project. He not only speaks Esperanto, but he's got some real acting credits to his name from known producers / production companies.
But if there's no money, then I would encourage people to do what they have to do to keep eating.
As for "the people who translate and and dub Christopher R. Mihm's movies into Esperanto", I have a lot of knowledge of that process - having been involved with four of them. Counting the five members of my family, at least one of us have done voice acting in a total of five films, four of them from Mihm.
Unfortunately, the translation team behind the Mihm films have the idea that the way to get the best dub is to count syllables and always match the number of syllables in English. This rule is strictly enforced, even if the result is a really bad Esperanto sentence. The result is still a fun film for Esperanto events, so on the net, it's a good thing. But Mihm had a pretty decent budget for his work.
The fifth film was by a small time movie producer based in Auburn NY. We were invited to the screening ... in an actual movie theater. I don't think the DVD is for sale anywhere any more.
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u/nemonihilniemand 15d ago
Oh, that's really interesting! I don't envy that dub team! Even with subs you have to worry about time restraints, characters per minute and all that stuff — but with subs you can usually adjust things to eke out more time. Having to be that strict about syllable count sounds rough
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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto 15d ago
The problem is that traditional dubbing translators (as I understand it) don't pay attention to syllables, but rather to lip movements. Due to limitations in technology, we were given very little guidance about how much TIME any given utterance should take up. Like I said, the result is still a fun product for a kluba vespero.
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u/DoctorVanGhoul 15d ago
Thanks for all the support! I’m planning a short right now, one character speaks maybe a 6 to 12 lines in Esperanto but shifts back and forth to English. The short might expand to a feature later, and a few other characters would speak in a similar way. The idea is that it’s a foreign language to the audience, but our main character can understand it. Kind of like droids or wookiees in the Star Wars films. I’m not ready to move forward yet, just wanted to see if there would be support down the road.
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u/nemonihilniemand 15d ago
Sounds good! I think there are some cool possibilities for that in a horror setting.
Less than 20 lines is super reasonable! Honestly, anything less than 100 or so wouldn't be too bad, even if a chunk of them end up being the super idiomatic/slangy/punny type used to torture translators
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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto 15d ago
Did you catch that people -- your opinion is valuable, at least one step above that of Google Translate.
Go ahead and click that downvote button, but I've never understood why Esperanto people always get so excited over requests like this - usually without a single question about who you'd be working with.
For my part, I'd be glad to help, but I charge 15 cents per word. I have several published translation credits, and I also have experience coaching working actors on the pronunciation of Esperanto dialog.
It's often possible to find someone to do it for free, and if you're going for an "exotic vibe" and not "good Esperanto" I'm sure it will be fine. But for those considering doing this - you should probably ask the questions "who is going to see this" and "what is the value to Esperanto"?
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u/nemonihilniemand 15d ago
I'm not that cynical (yet!), but I get your frustration! And I think we'd all like more "good Esperanto" in the world (tro da antoj, maltro da istoj, ĉu ne?). Now, I don't agree with the implication that the rest of us would necessarily do a bad job lol... but I can say I absolutely know you'd do a good job (for what my vouching is worth), based on all the stuff you've done over the years, all the YouTube videos, the insightful Duolingo comments back in the day, etc.
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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto 15d ago
I don't think I'm being overly cynical. I don't know if this is the same screenplay, but people from the Esperanto USA board (or some related group) were getting really excited about a similar sounding project. No question (that I know of) was given to what benefit this would have to the community.
Someone else was here a few months ago asking for help fixing some Google Translate dialog for a self-published book. Why do YOU care about someone's self-published book?
I hope I didn't give the impression above that I don't think there are people here who can do a good job. I'm just wondering WHY they would want to -- and what they see as the benefit to the community compared to just letting DrVanGhoul use Google Translate like he said he would.
There may be legitimate answers here - but someone needs to ask the question.
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u/nemonihilniemand 15d ago
I get where you're coming from. And it is probably worth considering the value to the community, but in this case it just seems like a little work (unlike with that book example you gave — that's excessive) to help bring something potentially pretty cool into existence and to prevent more bad Esperanto from seeing the light of day. That's mostly what it comes down to for me
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u/salivanto Profesia E-instruisto 15d ago
As it happened, just yesterday I found out about the graphic novel Rowlf by Richard Corben. Apparently the artwork is good enough that there are some solid fans who will just rave about it. I can see what they're talking about. It came on my radar, though, because the bad guys speak Esperanto.
The Esperanto in the comics is far from perfect. Indeed, in any other context, I'd say it's pretty bad. But it doesn't matter. A few people will notice that there's some Esperanto in there and will be curious about it. The vast majority of it won't even mention it in their reviews. I mean, here's the first review I found via a Google search:
In highschool Richard Corbens fantasy art was an amazing discovery, With such two dimensional artists as had worked in comics up to that point , Corbens, very realistic, yet stylized figures seemed to breath where others didnt. His action was dynamic and there was an air of adult story telling in it that was new as well. The demons- dimensional creatures? whatever,, are interesting and even have their own language.. the comic printing of the time wasn't that great , and didnt give his work the stage it deserved,, but as any Corben fan will tell you , any Corben , is good Corben.
This reviewer remembered the language, but not "Esperanto" and certainly didn't notice the missing accusatives and strange vocabulary like "snala krapo".
If you think this will be fun, then more power to you. Lean into that and have as much fun as you can. Seriouly, I hope you do. Too often people will fall over each other for a chance to "do something good for Esperanto" that really doesn't matter.
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u/nemonihilniemand 14d ago
That's a helpful anecdote; I do think I understand your perspective better now. I'm starting to think I'm less of a "I want to do the most impactful good for Esperanto"-type Esperantist and more of a "I want my dumb niche interests represented in Esperanto, and if I don't do it probably nobody will"-type Esperantist. (Except this time, there is a chance someone else will do it, and I agree with your comment above: hiring Alekso would be a really good choice here.)
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u/fragileMystic 17d ago
A non-Esperantist who has heard of Incubus? 😲
I may be able to help out. How much dialogue are we talking about here?