The Round Stable

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:40 pm

As an almost graduated translation student, I am fascinated by the possibility of cultural exchange across languages, and candy-colored ponies are no exception.

The current international situation of MLP:FiM, as far as I can gather, is as follows:

- The first season of the show has been aired from start to finish in the United States. A second season is currently in production. See below.
- Strictly unofficial subtitles have been and are being made for a number of languages and distributed through the Internet.
- Samples of dubs in other languages have been made, mostly the intro but in at least three cases a full episode distributed through free DVDs. Regions for which these samples have been made have presumably started merchandising G4. See below.
- Fan-made dubs have been made of short fragments of the show. Full fan-dubbed episodes do not yet exist (?). There exist some full-episode fandubs. Some fandubs teams are working their way through season 1.

Update October 30, 2012:
- Season 1 has fully aired or is still airing in most or all of its intended markets outside of North America. Season 2 has started airing in some markets.
- Season 2 has fully aired in North America. Season 3 will premiere on November 10. For advance info on season 3, check out the season 3 spoilers thread.

If anyone knows any further details, notices unposted or incomplete dubs or episodes, runs into dead links/higher-quality copies, etc., you're welcome to post in the thread or PM me. Information on other forms of merchandise is also welcome. (In particular, the toys themselves are a whole other area I know nothing about.)

With that said, here are the juicy bits everyone was waiting for: an ever-growing and perpetually incomplete list of official dubs, fandubs and fansubs. Corrections are welcome, and feel free to contribute with any unposted findings.

Official
(This list was initially kickstarted from this post)

Québécois French

Greek

European French

Italian

Dutch

European Spanish

German

Danish

Norwegian

Swedish

Turkish

Arabic

Polish

Latin American Spanish

Brazilian Portuguese

Hungarian

Czech

Romanian

Serbian

Russian

European Portuguese

Mandarin Chinese

Finnish

Estonian

Fandubs

German

Latin American Spanish

Brazilian Portuguese

Hebrew

Japanese

Chinese

Fansubs

Spanish by Moidock
European Portuguese by Myke Greywolf (episode 14 here)
Brazilian Portuguese - season 1, season 2 by Equestria BR
Polish by ObsessionOctopus (episodes 1-18)
Russian by Grue
Finnish by ponisuomalaiset (episodes 1-32) - Ponijaksojen suomentamisen jatkaja (episodes 33-58)
Hungarian by X-Alterego (episodes 1-5 + 15)
Japanese by Stinken (partial seasons 1 and 2, full season 3)
French by Flolilol (episodes 1-10)
Italian by GrifenIze
Korean by windkun (only some episodes)
Thai - S1 S2 by LimeSherbetTH

(?) · by **ComradeCosmobot** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:06 am

I was following this a bit a little while ago, simply because the Greek Applejack voice (in the intro) is terrifying. (Or maybe it was Latin American Spanish. It's been a while since I saw them all)

Pinkie Pie seems to get the best foreign dubbers also, all things considered, with Polish being, if I recall correctly, a standout dub in terms of actors picked.

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:13 am

The Greek Applejack is pretty mannish, but the Polish one is even worse. That's only in the intros, though, and, as we know, the speaking and singing voices can be different. Speaking Dutch Spike sounds like an elf.

E: Damn, the Portuguese speaking and singing voices for Pinkie are totally different.

(?) · by **MochaBean** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:29 am

I kind of figure that out of all the characters, Applejack will wind up having the most varied voice, because they'll most likely substitute whatever passes as the "rural" accent for the language/region in question in place of her American country accent. If you aren't an English speaker or familiar with the language at least, staight-up copying her original accent won't make much sense.

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:39 am

MochaBean wrote:I kind of figure that out of all the characters, Applejack will wind up having the most varied voice, because they'll most likely substitute whatever passes as the "rural" accent for the language/region in question for her American country accent. If you aren't an English speaker or familiar with the language at least, staight-up copying her original accent won't make much sense.

Ideally, yes, but there are certain cases where this would be difficult. I can only speak for Spanish, but it's a pretty clear case of what I mean: what's the "rural accent" of speakers in 18 different countries? It will be different in each one. The "solution" is either to use the equivalent for the region where it's dubbed (for instance, for the first Shrek, Donkey had a really exaggerated, colloquial Mexican dialect and accent), or to use the same de-regionalized accent that all the other characters use. The market demands usually rule for the latter. In smaller regions or more unified territories (such as the Netherlands or the US), this is actually feasible provided there are no other conditions (e.g. depictions of "rural" accents considered "offensive" or something weird like that).

None of that helps to explain her raspy "Appleguy" voice in two of the dubs, though. That's just weird.

Update: Yesterday they gave us another possible solution to the problem of non-standard speech or jargon which involved the limited use of pan-Hispanic low-class markers and making up your own transparent derivations of standard words. None of the solutions remain 100% satisfactory, but you do what you can.

(?) · by **Throbulator** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:45 am

Oh god I imagined what Apple Jack would sound like in Danish, and it's not pretty! :ohgawd:

(?) · by **blonk** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:10 am

ComradeCosmobot wrote:Pinkie Pie seems to get the best foreign dubbers also, all things considered, with Polish being, if I recall correctly, a standout dub in terms of actors picked.

There's a little bit of Pinkie in all of us. Everybody loves a good party!

(?) · by **Dong Strongly** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:19 am

numsOic wrote:Fandubs

German

GreenPepper333
Intro

My cat is punny? Also, I think I heard bacon shtag.

(?) · by **reidransom** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:49 am

I kinda want to see a Japanese dub. It might actually be pretty decent. Or it could be a disaster. Or does Hasbro just not do asia?

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:11 am

reidransom wrote:I kinda want to see a Japanese dub. It might actually be pretty decent. Or it could be a disaster. Or does Hasbro just not do asia?

With their obsession about kawaisa, the Japanese are pretty good at doing cute as long as they keep it COMPLETELY separate from creepy stuff. Japan by itself would be a pretty huge market. Most of the voices would be incredibly high-pitched, if experience has taught us anything. :ohgawd:

E: Oh god Poland used to do this kind of shit. Skip past the intro, it's amazing

(?) · by **W.T. Fits** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:25 am

I'm willing to bet that the inevitable Japanese dub will feature Applejack with a Kansai accent. In general, whenever a character has that kind of accent in anime, it tends to be localized/dubbed as a U.S. Southeastern accent.

Or at least they used to. Don't watch much dubbed anime anymore. Or much anything anymore.

(?) · by **Klaus88** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:28 am

W.T. Fits wrote:I'm willing to bet that the inevitable Japanese dub will feature Applejack with a Kansai accent. In general, whenever a character has that kind of accent in anime, it tends to be localized/dubbed as a U.S. Southeastern accent.

Or at least they used to. Don't watch much dubbed anime anymore. Or much anything anymore.

I wonder how many repressed Japanese otaku will lust after flut- I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH.

CONTENT: I'm kinda at a lost as to how to translate Rarity's accent. I'm also wondering how much My Little Pony loses when it's presented to non-western cultures.

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:39 am

Klaus88 wrote:I wonder how many repressed Japanese otaku will lust after flut- I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH.

CONTENT: I'm kinda at a lost as to how to translate Rarity's accent. I'm also wondering how much My Little Pony loses along when it's presented to non-western cultures.

Fffffuck I don't wanna spam the thread, but...

I imagine someone has already made subtitles in Japanese, and if not, a lot of Japanese people speak English as a second language, so presumably a lot of them already do.

My Little Pony is at least or nearly as much of an institution in several countries as in the US, so the embarrassment subjected to young adult males will be about the same.

I don't know about non-Western cultures, but if the translators are any good, they'll find a way. Plus, European and now American cultural imperialism have dominated international entertainment for almost a century, and this show doesn't really have much that is incredibly specific, so I don't suppose it'll be that big of a challenge.

(?) · by **Momar** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:49 am

The Quebec intro dub is pretty indicative of why Disney no longer does their French dubs in Quebec.

(?) · by **Abby Normal** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:12 am

I never knew Dutch could sound so chipper. Is it normally this to easy interpret from a background of only speaking English or have I gained a basic understanding of every language when ponies are involved?
:starity:

(?) · by **DarkMatter** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:12 am

Boy, some of these official dubs are horrifying. :starity:

(?) · by **reidransom** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:27 am

Abby Normal wrote:I never knew Dutch could sound so chipper. Is it normally this to easy interpret from a background of only speaking English or have I gained a basic understanding of every language when ponies are involved?

Friendship is magic :pinkieshrug:

Also, Dutch is relatively linguistically close to English, as I understand it. Flemish in particular, though obviously nowhere near the point of mutual intelligiblity.

(?) · by **MochaBean** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:31 am

The thing I like about Dutch is that when they say "no" it sounds like they're saying "neigh". :yay:

(?) · by **Ramarren** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:33 am

numsOic wrote:E: Oh god Poland used to do this kind of shit. Skip past the intro, it's amazing

Used to, I wish. Except I don't care since I am not watching TV on TV anymore. But I just turned mine on, and it is still going on, and it was not some deep archival thing, since I caught a fragment of Smallville. And because apparently Poland never mastered the subtitles technology, for every foreign show or movie it was either full dubbing or "lektor", so the argument wasn't that it was targeted at children who can't read fast enough. I think they finally completely stopped using it in movie theaters at least.

Generally when effort is taken Polish dubbing is really good, with quite a lot of talented voice actors, but the Pony episode was clearly a minimal budget promotional job, so yeah...

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:41 am

Ramarren wrote:Generally when effort is taken Polish dubbing is really good, with quite a lot of talented voice actors, but the Pony episode was clearly a minimal budget promotional job, so yeah...

Too bad they didn't do voice-over translation on that one. Otherwise, it would've been... hilarious?

(?) · by **reidransom** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:48 am

Lol, I just had a thought. If I weren't feeling lazy and computerly retarded I'd fire up Vocaloid and try dubbing a scene.

(?) · by **WalrusWhiskers** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:04 am

Hahaha, the Portuguese ponies pronounce each others names in such a weird american accent. HOLA TWILIGHT! :v:

(?) · by **Grue** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:52 am

Might as well pimp my Russian subtitles (if only to make Google aware of them...)

http://mlp.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Grue3

Not knowing any languages in the OP, it's pretty hard to judge how good the dubs are, but I like Spanish intro and Dutch Ticket Master.

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:13 am

Grue wrote:Might as well pimp my Russian subtitles (if only to make Google aware of them...)

http://mlp.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Grue3

Not knowing any languages in the OP, it's pretty hard to judge how good the dubs are, but I like Spanish intro and Dutch Ticket Master.

If I ever get off my ass and look up downloadable subtitles in other languages, I'll make sure to add these to the list.

By the way, are there English subtitles for Stare Master around? I could make them from transcripts if necessary, but surely they're already there.

Edit: Fuck it, I made one off the Portuguese ones. And with that here's all of them.

(?) · by **DarkMatter** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:17 am

I'm curious to know what they do to translate lines like "buzzards that really buzz" and "wild west dances/mild west dances".

(?) · by **Grue** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:21 am

Yeah, it's weird, I don't have English subs for Stare Master either. They must exist somewhere, because this exists, but there's no option to download the original subs.

(?) · by **tdkgunghoul** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:21 am

DarkMatter wrote:I'm curious to know what they do to translate lines like "buzzards that really buzz" and "wild west dances/mild west dances".

"Noisy birds" and "authentic dances/casual dances"? :pinkieshrug:

(?) · by **Grue** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:28 am

"wild west" is "wild west" in any language. So basically, take an antonym to "wild" and run with it. As for buzzards, I just used another bird...

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:42 am

DarkMatter wrote:I'm curious to know what they do to translate lines like "buzzards that really buzz" and "wild west dances/mild west dances".

Damn you. Now I gotta make my own attempt. Explanation follows; those who are easily bored are encouraged to ignore this post.

A) The thing with buzzards is that they have several different names across Mexico and Central America. I'll go with the Mexican term, "zopilote". A hummingbird is a "picaflores", which literally means "flower-stinger", so the first part of the couplet is straightforward:

"Picaflores que pican flores," (Hummingbirds that (can) sting flowers,)
(The specific phrasing would depend on how I'd decided to list all the items.)

For the buzzard, I can think of either inventing a term for what "zopilotes" do, which would give us "zopilotear" (which has the added advantage of being a pun on "pilotear", to pilot, and keeps the parallel with the previous one, but is a made-up word, which is dubious), or just use the punny verb to begin with.

"y zopilotes que (zo)pilotean." (and buzzards that (can) "buzz"/pilot.)

It isn't nearly as funny as the original, granted, but the juxtaposition of the hummingbird and the vulture is still present.

B) Wild West dances. The usual term for the Wild West in Spanish is "el viejo oeste" (the Old West), but "el salvaje oeste" is also frequently used, and it keeps the joke about the dances being wild vs. mild, so I go with that.

"Éstos son los bailes del salvaje oeste, y éstos son los bailes del manso oeste." (These are the Wild West dances, and these are the Mild West dances.)

Grue wrote:"wild west" is "wild west" in any language. So basically, take an antonym to "wild" and run with it. As for buzzards, I just used another bird...

The concept of the Wild West may already have one or more established names in the kinds of languages that can reasonably get a dub of this show (i.e. languages that have been exposed to American media for a while). The preferred option would be to use the established name AND keep the pun, which I managed to do with my attempt. Other languages aren't so lucky; I leave the solution up to them.

The alternate bird option is perfect as long as the bird looks reasonably LIKE a buzzard. If you try to pass it off as an eagle or some such, it's not as ideal.

Edit: To be fair, I thought about it and I probably wouldn't use the first one, as posted, in a professional translation or an exam; I'd probably go for something like "with hummingbirds... and vultures!". Anything too far out and it's unacceptable.

(?) · by **diribigal** (?) » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:51 pm

reidransom wrote:Lol, I just had a thought. If I weren't feeling lazy and computerly retarded I'd fire up Vocaloid and try dubbing a scene.

The opening's been done:

Click here to view video.

Link

As far as I can tell though, there aren't any Japanese fandubs yet (and maybe only one fan video of any kind made by someone in Japan).

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 6:19 am

This one's kinda cool. Doesn't go on the list 'cause the singer's obviously not trying to imitate Pinkie, but here's Cupcakes in Russian.

(?) · by **Kitfox88** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 6:36 am

numsOic wrote:This one's kinda cool. Doesn't go on the list 'cause the singer's obviously not trying to imitate Pinkie, but here's Cupcakes in Russian.

Holy shit that sounds happier and bouncier than I ever thought Russian could. :starity:

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:48 am

Added subtitles for four languages. Caveat downloader: These files are of variable quality and may not work with all rips.

(?) · by **logicow** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:26 am

I'm pretty sure they've got Québec french and French french mixed up.
Not only does the accent sound a lot more familiar in the French french intro, but spike sounds just about the same as one of the powerpuff girls which airs here. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same VA.

Plus, Québec voice acting has a history of having deeper voices and being better in general. (At least, to us here.)

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:39 am

If someone made a mistake somewhere, it's on Hasbro, as the video on the French Canadian page corresponds to the one on YouTube. There's not much I can do to check beyond that.

(?) · by **Grue** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:46 am

numsOic wrote:This one's kinda cool. Doesn't go on the list 'cause the singer's obviously not trying to imitate Pinkie, but here's Cupcakes in Russian.

That was... terrifying.

(?) · by **logicow** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:47 am

To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if they just got... More French french people to dub it. Or just the wrong people.
Doesn't help that the timing's off.

It doesn't seem like there's a french canadian dub of Powerpuff Girls, and they all have generic french accents :pinkieshrug:

(?) · by **Kalkkis** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:51 am

There are finnish subtitles for episodes 2-5 and they can be found from ponisuomalaiset Youtube channel. Subs are made by Subinyymi. Here are links for subtitle files themselves:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13561797/MLP/%5BPonSut%5D_MLP_Friendship_is_Magic_02.srt
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13561797/MLP/%5BPonSut%5D_MLP_Friendship_is_Magic_03.srt
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13561797/MLP/%5BPonSut%5D_MLP_Friendship_is_Magic_04.srt
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13561797/MLP/%5BPonSut%5D_MLP_Friendship_is_Magic_05.srt

Related picture

(?) · by **MochaBean** (?) » Sat Jun 04, 2011 3:50 pm

Kitfox88 wrote:
Holy shit that sounds happier and bouncier than I ever thought Russian could.

That was actually a stealth upload from the Hub. From now on, whenever Pinkie sings, she's going to sing in Russian in that voice.
This goes for all dubs, including English.

The sudden change from Pinkie's normal voice to some Russian guy's was jarring and kind of hilarious.

(?) · by **numsOic** (?) » Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:49 am

Today I saw a FiM magazine at a magazine stand on the street. It's all in Spanish, so if I happen to acquire it and scan all the pages, I'll post it here.

The Round Stable

My Worldwide Pony: Friendship is Magic in other languages

My Worldwide Pony: Friendship is Magic in other languages

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