History Main / ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation

* In ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'', it's mentioned the necklace is called "The Heart of the Ocean." Later when Cal presents the necklace to Rose, he calls it "Le Cœur de la Mer," which both characters simultaneously translate as "The Heart of the Ocean." However, one would usually translate ''mer'' as "sea." Of course, if it's a well-known necklace it probably has an official translated name in English, which both characters probably already know. (Compare how everyone "knows" that the "real" translation of the Chinese "Honglou Meng" is "Literature/DreamOfTheRedChamber" rather than "Red Room Dreams" or "Scarlet Quarters Reverie".)

* In ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'', Daru's program translates English documents into flawless Japanese, complete with correct pronouns, suffixes and nuanced expressions. Anyone who has tried [[http://translationparty.com Translation Party]] would know that English-to-Japanese translations are not that easy. Then again, Daru ''is'' a "Super Hacker", so maybe his program's that good.
** VN Daru's program, on the other hand, gives the sort of translation you'd expect from Babel Fish. They don't get decent translations until Kurisu joins the group, as she can actually speak both English and Japanese.

* Subverted in ''Film/EventHorizon''. The distress signal sent by Event Horizon contains the Latin phrase ''liberate me'' ("save me"). It was later realized that the message was actually ''liberate tutame ex inferis'' ("save yourself from Hell"). Amusingly enough, the translation was still a little off. It would more accurately mean "free me/yourself."

[[folder:Film - Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' plays with this. The reason why Atlantis was never found was a single error: instead of Írland, it was supposed to be Ísland. Which, conveniently are Ireland and Iceland in English (for added fun, they are almost the same in most languages the film was dubbed in, keeping the joke).

-->However, do not you think that the work not rewarding? It is this kitten large cat HAHAHAHAHA :-)

* ''Franchise/MetalGear'':
** There's a moment in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' where Snake reads out the slogan of the French PMC Pieuvre Armament, "Les tentacules de la pieuvre pour votre guerre!" ("The tentacles of the octopus for your war!"), and personally translates it as "Arms of the octopus. Arms for your war!". Snake's translation relies on wordplay regarding the word "arms" as meaning both limbs and weapons, which obviously didn't exist in the original French slogan. Reversing Snake's translation would turn it into "Les bras de la pieuvre. Les armes pour votre guerre.", where "Bras" and "Armes" don't work together as a pun.
** In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Psycho Mantis's InterfaceScrew works in both English and Japanese, but only because Japanese borrows the word "video" from English. In English, it relies on the similarity between VIDEO and HIDEO; in Japanese, it's ビデオ and ヒデオ[[note]]Literally "bideo" and "hideo". Notice that the Japanese works even ''better'' than the English; the change is really subtle![[/note]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

See EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas for the most common subversion, and LuckyTranslation for a few [[TruthInTelevision real life]] examples.

%%Real Life examples go under LuckyTranslation.

* ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum:BattleOfTheSmithsonian'': The riddle engraved into the tablet reads, according to Teddy Rosevelt's bust, "Figure out the secret at the heart of the Pharoah's tomb". The answer is pi, with "figure out" being a play on 'figure' as in number. Very fortunate that the double meaning translated perfectly into english.