December 30, 2006

我一个哥们不知道地铁外面那些怀抱婴儿的妇女是卖黄碟的。前天他从2号线出来，一个老娘们儿就凑过去问，“看碟片吗？”我哥们想想说：“看，好久没看碟了！你这都有什么碟？”老娘们儿说：“你随便报名！”我哥们问：“《海底总动员》有吗？”老娘们说：“我们的都是在陆地上拍的，海里的没有。”我哥们接着问：“《狮子王》呢？”老娘们说：“我们没有动物的！”我哥们还没反应过来，就皱起眉头接着问：“《无极》有吧？”老娘们眼睛一亮：“我们这都是不分级的！”

上面这段小故事我们中国人看起来还是一目了然的，但是如何翻译成英语呢？我思考了一会，决定尝试一下。

William didn’t know those women, each with a baby in arms, were selling porno videos at the metro exits. The other day, he was stopped by one of them, who asked, “Wanna some DVDs?”

William paused and thought out loud, “Oh, yeah! Haven’t seen any for a while. What do you have?”

“All you want, all you know. Just give me a clue.” The woman grinned.

“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?” William asked tentatively.

“I’m afraid they were all shot on land!”

Frowning, William tried again, “How about the Lion King?”

Taken aback a little, the woman said, “Um, we don’t do animals.”

Brains addled and eyes slit, William pursed his mouth and said, “How about The Promise?”

The woman rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb over the shoulder, where a big poster of The Promise was stuck all the way on a wall like a big mural, and said with an antsy voice, “Oh, come on, man! The idiot Chen Kaige don’t know nothing about cunts!”

说明：

1、《海底总动员》英语名叫Finding Nemo，翻译成英语比较有困难，所以我就只有改成了《海底两万里》。你要是有什么好办法就留言告诉我！

2、最后《无极》的英语名叫The Promise。直接翻译过来也没有效果了，我本人不喜欢陈凯歌，就顺手把英语译文的结尾改了。如果你有什么好的点子也告诉我。

3、翻译完之后，仰天长叹：“电脑永远代替不了人脑。什么东方快车，google翻译软件，都是些没有脑的东西！”