我不跟陌生人约会

[zhouhana]

Hi guys,

I'm watching Toy Story 3 with Mandarin audio, and at one time in the beginning, 独眼巴特 (Mr. Potato Head), when introducing his wife, says "我不跟陌生人约会". In the original version of the movie, the phrase is "I'm a married man". I guess the Mandarin phrase is a known idiom? How would you correctly translate the expression word for word? ("I don't date a stranger" ...?) And is it only used for when you're married to someone, or can it be used generally to say your "taken" by a girl-/boyfriend) as well?

[skylee]

I don't think it is an idiom/set phrase. As to translation, consider "I don't date strangers".

[Glenn]

So I guess the decision to use 我不跟陌生人約會 was stylistic, and if they had wanted they could have just as easily said 我已經結婚了 or 我是個已經結婚的人. Or are my sentences not right or unnatural?

[陳德聰]

I don't remember the scene that well but I feel like Mr. Potato Head was joking about something? It is a lot easier to translate effectively with some context! If the English was something like "Hey Mr. Potato Head, I like your spuds, let's go out" and his response was "I'm a married man!", then I wouldn't think 我不跟陌生人约会 is such an odd translation.

Context context context.

[zhouhana]

Thanks. Since I thought it was a set phrase I didn't think more context was needed, but now I see it is. Go to http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TAsUp7tDwhI and watch the first 25 seconds. Keep an ear open for "I'm a married man". I find it weird that he would tell Woody about his dating habits in that situation. Otherwise the Mandarin translation in that scene follows the original word for word.

[zhouhana]

Oh, but now I realize ... Right before Mr. Potato Head says that, Woody says to him "you've got a date with justice", so obviously justice is the stranger referrred to. Duh. I always interpreted the "Too bad, sheriff - I'm a married man" in the English language version as a general "too bad for you that I've got a wife that'll kick your a$$" - not "too bad for you I won't go on that date you mentioned". Interesting that the translators chose this other wording, though.

[yeut]

Interesting that Mr. Potato head is named 独眼巴特 (lone eyed Potato?) when everyone knows Potatos have multiple eyes.

(As in the riddle, what has eyes but cannot see?)

[muirm]

I assume 独眼巴特 was just Mr. Potato Head's name for the opening sequence (One-Eyed Bart in the English version). What was his name in the rest of the movie?

[zhouhana]

You're right - the name 独眼巴特 is only used in the opening sequence. In the rest of the movie he's known as 蛋头先生 (Mr. Egg Head), or simply 蛋头 (Egg Head). I guess 土豆头 doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

There seems to be two different Chinese dubs of this movie - I've downloaded lots of different versions of subtitles (srt files), since I thought I would be able to just cut and paste words or phrases from one into Anki or Skritter, but all are for another dub, in traditional hanzi. Could you tell if the translations marked with * are in Cantonese?

钱，钱，钱

*钞票 ，钞票 ，钞票

Money, money, money!

你跟法官有个约会，独眼巴特

*今天你和正义有个约会 ，独眼巴特

You got a date with justice, one-Eyed Bart.

很遗憾，警长，我不跟陌生人约会

*真糟糕，警长，我已经结婚了

Too bad, Sheriff. I 'm a married man.

独眼贝蒂！

*独眼贝蒂！

One-Eyed Betty!

你好像掉了东西，先生

*先生 ，你的东西掉了

I think you dropped something, mister.

翠丝？

*洁西？

Jessie?

投降吧，巴特！

*束手就擒吧

Give it up, Bart!

你已经无路可走了

*你的犯罪生涯到头了

You've reached the end of the line!

我是不会随便投降的

*我总想和爆炸来场约会

I always wanted to go out with a bang!

Or are there perhaps two different dubs in Mandarin - one for the mainland and one for overseas? Is that common for Disney movies?

Anyway, now I'm watching each scene over and over, manually typing down the vocabulary from the dialog into this Skritter list: http://www.skritter.com/vocab/list?list=191857212 It's a work in progress, but feel free to study it if you want.

[Glenn]

They all look like Standard Mandarin to me. There aren't any characters that wouldn't be used in Standard Mandarin, and the transliterations work too.

[Edit] What made you think they might be Cantonese, by the way? The characters are all simplified, which I usually take as a clue it's not Cantonese...

[zhouhana]

Thanks. I don't know, I thought the characters were traditional (they probably were in another one of the srt files, otherwise I'm not sure where I got that idea from), and I didn't know if the differences between mainland and overseas Mandarin were big enough to have to make two different dubs. Maybe it has to do more with Disney/politics than with regional language differences.

[外国赤佬]

我总想和爆炸来场约会

I always wanted to go out with a bang!

Machine translation?

[陳德聰]

[edit] I think the first set of translations is much much better, and stay closer to the flavour of the original script.

[zhouhana]

Okay, so I guess the one marked with * is simply not based on a dub, but is just a text translation (apparently not a very good one) of the English dialog. It's all clearer now. Thanks.