tobeornot221b wrote:

Sherlock's original "I heard you" tells me he was genuinely touched by John's speech, whereas "ich habe Sie erhört" gives the impression of a Sherlock treating John with condescension - always coldly being in control. 
Bit not good...
 

 
I'm curious how "ich habe Sie erhort" translates to English so I can understand why all of you are upset about it. What is it and how does it change the meaning to something a bit not good?

Last edited by KeepersPrice (April 24, 2014 10:54 pm)

Thanks.  I think I understand now. The German translation really doesn't have that heartfelt touch that made the scene in the hallway so lovely, does it? You know, it took me a while to come to terms with TEH - but when I finally did, it had a lot to do with that one line.

Exactly, zeratul, couldn't put it better.

You are right. That will certainly turn into something like "der Elefant im Porzellanladen" ... because they HAVE to use an elephant.

Ok, if they cut the sound as well ... they don't have to ...

I think we only would be really satisfied with the translation if a Sherlock fan like we are did it. Which of course isn't the case.

Zeratul: "Funny thing, I am starting to forget some German words, when English fit better..."
Happens to me, too. Sometimes I know immediately the English word, but cannot remember the German expression.
A lot of English words even sound better, so the meaning of a word is underlined by the sound of it.
So I sometimes use the English word. Hubby always rolls his eyes when I do that. 

I didn't even notice: We don't have "the elephant in the room" in German? 

TeeJay wrote:

You know which word play will also get completely lost in German? Der Elefant im Zimmer.

Oh yes, I forgot that yesterday, was my first thought when I saw that scene, how will they translate this.
Do we have a idiom when something is obvious and no one speaks about it? I don't think so....

Mattlocked wrote:

Zeratul: "Funny thing, I am starting to forget some German words, when English fit better..."
Happens to me, too. Sometimes I know immediately the English word, but cannot remember the German expression.

Yeah me, too! I sometimes really have Wortfindungsstörungen in German.
 

zeratul wrote:

Yeah, elephant in the room, like sth stareing in your face... mhh I am really searching for the German version of that. Funny thing, I am starting to forget some German words, when English fit better...

"Den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht sehen" mhh no that's not really it, is it?
"Der blinde mit Krückstock" maybe? ^^

We don't have an expression that says the same thing. What comes to my mind is "um den heißen Brei herumreden", which you can use in similar situations. But of course that doesn't make sense for the Sherlock scene. I'm pretty sure they'll just translate the scene with "der Elefant im Zimmer" and will completely ignore the fact that this is a wordplay in the original version.

I quite like "der Blinde mit dem Krückstock", which would be fun if they actually had a scene where they'd show a blind man with a cane in Sherlock's flat. But of course that only works in German...

Last edited by TeeJay (April 25, 2014 11:15 am)

gently69 wrote:

There are many English words which I use regularly and don't even think of using the German ones. Cancel, call, location, event, schedule ... and sometimes I get strange views then.

It's worse at work because our working language is English, and no one uses the German words for things like "meeting", "Outlook appointment", "review", "approve", etc. Sometimes you get these really strange Anglo-German mix phrases, like, "Ich reviewe die Submission noch und werde sie noch vor dem Call approven."

So I wrote an e-mail today and to my surprise got an answer some hours later. The explanation for using "Sie" is so ridiculous that I would like to share it with you.

This was my mail:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

ich bin ein großer Fan der Serie und finde es grundsätzlich schön, dass sie auch in Deutschland läuft.
Dass bei der Synchronisation Zugeständnisse und Kompromisse gemacht werden müssen, ist mir als
Berufsübersetzerin auch bewusst. Eines allerdings kann ich einfach nicht verstehen:

Wieso müssen sich Sherlock und John in einer modernisierten Fassung siezen? Zwei Männer, die in
einer WG leben und beste Freunde sind, würden sich in Deutschland in unserer Zeit niemals siezen.
Meines Wissens duzen sie sich in anderen europäischen Sprachen wie Italienisch, die über eine Höflichkeitsform
verfügen, ebenfalls.
Das Traurige dabei ist, dass sehr viel Nähe und der besondere Reiz dieser Freundschaft durch das "Sie"
völlig verloren gehen.
Wenn jemand am Grab seines besten Freundes steht oder diesen nach zwei Jahren "Tod" überraschend
wiedersieht, sagt er doch nicht "Sie" zu ihm.

Ich hatte gehoffe, dass man dies in den neuen Folgen endlich geändert hat, aber angesichts des Trailers
sieht es nicht danach aus. Das finde ich bedauerlich. 

vielen Dank für Ihre e-mail und Ihr Interesse am Ersten Deutschen Fernsehen. 

Wir freuen uns über Ihren Zuspruch zu "Sherlock" und bedauern gleichzeitig Ihre Kritik an der deutschen Fassung.

Sie können davon ausgehen, dass das "Sie" gewählt wurde, um die Britishness der Charaktere zu verdeutlichen. Würden Sie sich duzen wären Sherlock und John einfach zwei Freunde. Das "Sie" macht ihre Beziehung zu etwas besonderem und lässt Rückschlüsse auf ihre exzentrischen Persönlichkeiten zu. Vermutlich werden sich die beiden daher  auch in den neuen Staffeln weiterhin siezen. Dafür bitten wir um Verständnis.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
 


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