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I used to read them in Spanish in Mexico, and I'm sad to say the early Spanish translations were pretty awful. A lot of them were done by Spaniards that apparen
by jordigh 7y ago
I used to read them in Spanish in Mexico, and I'm sad to say the early Spanish translations were pretty awful. A lot of them were done by Spaniards that apparently did not understand the puns, so they would just repeat the French names without offering any kind of translation. A lot of other jokes were translated without being apparently understood to the point where it was completely nonsensical in Spanish. It wasn't until I later learned French that I could appreciate the jokes in the names.
There was also a problem that the Spanish translations were very inconsistent and between one book to another characters would have different names.
For a while I envied the superior English translation. I wish we had gotten something as good in Spanish.
- copperx 7y agoI have the entire Asterix collection in Spanish (perhaps the most prized inheritance my mother left me), and I don't think the translations are as bad as you say they are. Do you have an example of a French or English pun or a name that got lost in the Spanish translation?
- jordigh 7y agoAbraracurcix, Asuranceturix... As I recall, those are the Spanish names, which make no sense. The Roman camps were called Petibonum or sometimes Hombrecitum depending on the book (inconsistent). I remember it was also always Babaorum, which makes no sense either. Just so many missed opportunities to actually bring the jokes into Spanish. There are a lot of examples that you wouldn't even realise are wrong because you wouldn't even notice that there was supposed to be a joke there.