Translation is creation

Top movie translator Lee discusses his craft and language


Should a translation be considered a creation?

“Of course,” answers Korea’s No. 1 movie translator, both in quality and quantity.

“Translating a movie is a process of creation. Hence it is more than delivering word-for-word language but it is a work that requires the translator to blow in a fresh new meaning into it,” Lee Mi-do told The Korea Herald.

Known as the “certified check for Hollywood box office hits” in Korea, Lee has so far translated more than 470 overseas movies into Korean over 18 years. His most renowned works include “Shrek,” “Armageddon,” “As Good As It Gets,” and his first ever work, “Trois Couleurs Bleu,” a winner for best picture at the Venice Film Festival in 1993.

As he gained confidence through repeated successes, he re-started the translator’s real-name system during the ending credits of the movie, which had ceased after the ‘80s with the death of the nation’s only existing translator. Lee suggested that translators’ names should appear at the end of movies, thus giving more authority to movie translators.

Despite his contributions, Lee has been blamed for monopolizing the market, and for his movie choices.

“I did try to choose the scripts with excellent storylines, and they just happened to be successful Hollywood movies. But most of all I did not choose, the works, but I was requested to do so. For all I know, it may be the other way around, since many people watch blockbusters, I just happened to have translated the most-seen movies.”

From the beginning of his career, he dubbed himself Hollywood’s ‘raw fish’ cook. He explained that it was a catchy metaphor describing the freshness of words. ‘Hwal-eo’ is the word for raw fish, but it’s also a synonym for live-language ― Lee implied that translations should be done as to be something of a ‘lip sync’ to the actors, or else the language will lose its liveliness.

He is more than a bilingual translator. Although he is not well-acquainted with foreign languages other than English, his name appears on films originally shot in Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and other languages. Lee explained that he is often asked not to translate the language but to liven up the meaning and to spice it up.

“As much as language study is important, the skills and training to become more creative and imaginative takes up as much of the effort in a meaningful translation,” Lee said. 

Movie translator Lee Mi-do gives his opinions on language in Gwanghwamun, Seoul. (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)

Mikhail Bakhtin, in 1929, criticized the splitting of langue (words) and parole (meaning) and developed a “dialogic” theory of utterances where language is understood in terms of how it orients the speaker/writer to the listener/reader. Lee Mi-do would strongly agree with this.

For him, language is strongly affected by social context, and therefore its “trendiness” has been apparent in his works.

Lee is on a role in the industry. He has, however, fears and regrets.

“Translation naturally has its limits, yet what I try to do is to overcome those limits despite its difficulty in portraying the exact meaning from the original author.”

Though generally confident in his works, he does have regrets about his earlier work. “For instance, on ‘Good Will Hunting,’ I wish I just had more room for more explanation, I mean the actors had a lot to say but I couldn’t portray all that on the screen, due to the limit on words on one screen.”

He said he necessarily has to avoid certain genres of movies. “I try to avoid as much as possible the traditional comedies, and original pieces of great authors, like Shakespeare because they are too hard,” he said. In these cases, when the company makes the request, he suggests that they use dubbing rather than subtitles, or allow a lengthy line across the screen.

“But they rarely apply my suggestions,” he said.

He even has “anti-fans” who criticize his translations as being “too trendy,” resulting in “over-translation.”

Lee receives such criticism as a compliment. “People who know how to enjoy my subtitles would not get distracted but will enjoy twice as much of movie, both with the audio and the subtitles.”

As to the trendiness, he said he has an ironclad rule. “I never try to use in-words from TV that are a creation, I try to blend in my imagination. To bring in the exact in-word slang that someone has already used, I consider that just being lazy, so I try to create my own trendy word within the translation.”

However, recently, the number of his translated pieces has been decreasing.

He said it is because a lot of translators “jumped in together” into the industry, and also because he has managed to branch out from just translating movies, to writing a book and newspaper columns. “I have adopted so many children until now I had decided to have a child of my own.”

When asked whether he could expand his career into the Korean-to-English movie-translating market, he refused without hesitation, “No, I believe, (Korean-English translators) should be protective of their own territory. It’s their pie, I need to secure whatever piece of pie I have now first; I do not want to corner the market by myself.”

Lee also touched on the amateur translators that practice through illegally downloaded movies online. “We must pursue excellence in all areas of life. Film directors and writers produce movies of excellence, but through some people who find mere ‘pleasure’ doing it, I’ll just have to say that they are harming the value of the movie, and the viewer’s rights. I demand it stop immediately.”

On the recent cases with mistranslation on government level documents, Lee said: “Translation should not be disregarded as something easy, shallow and insignificant, as it can have a major impact in economy, and even social matters. If we had put in more consideration, we could have prevented some of the mistakes we made through translation in the past.”

“If creation is giving birth to an enwombed baby, translation is like giving birth to an unwombed baby.”

By Hwang Jurie  (jurie777@heraldcorp.com)