Line #23 Main/ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation


1	->'''Doctor:''' Time And Relative Dimension In Space. TARDIS for short...any questions?\
2	'''Bill:''' TARDIS. If you're from another planet, why would you name your box in English? Those initials wouldn't work in any other language.\
3	'''Doctor:''' People don't generally bring that up.
4	-->--''Series/DoctorWho''
5
6	There's a phrase that's important to the plot or arc (possibly ArcWords). There will come a time the characters encounter the phrase in a foreign language. The foreign phrase will always be translated ''precisely'' to the important phrase, even though linguistic quirks would make this unlikely. It even works with songs, when the translation rhymes.
7
8	However, in TV land, languages have [[CypherLanguage exact 1:1 word/syntax relationships]] and the translation, even if done by a third party who has never heard the ArcWords, will always be exact.
9
10	An ancient inscription will always be rendered in complex long words with nuanced meanings, despite the fact that on-the-spot translation typically sounds more like a two year old trying to put together a sentence.
11
12	It gets even more amazing when [[PropheciesRhymeAllTheTime ancient spells and prophecies rhyme]] or are puns in English.
13
14	For proof that this doesn't work at all, go to Google Translate and translate a sentence multiple times across many languages. [[labelnote:example]]This is the first sentence of "Oliver Twist" run through around twenty layers of Google Translate: "I think the small and large discrimination, to avoid a variety of obvious reasons, most of the old city အယောင်ဆောင်ပြီး sounds like the name of the joint work will be assigned a particular city and other public buildings. born this change. In the case of the company or sand, and you can make eopseupnidayi steps back injury accurate reading. Regardless to make unprecedented name to a header and death." The original is "Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter."[[/labelnote]]
15
16	An exception occasionally pops up when the form of a word in another language (usually with declensions, like Latin) reveals information such as number or gender that would require additional words in English, allowing the translation to be more precise than one would expect.
17
18	See EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas for the most common subversion, and IncidentalMultilingualWordplay for a few [[TruthInTelevision real life]] examples.
19	-----
20	!!Examples:
21
22	[[foldercontrol]]
23
24	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
25	* Averted in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' with Carim's prophecies. They foretell the future exactly as it will come to pass...except you can't pick what is predicted and it comes out in ancient Belkian [[PropheciesRhymeAllTheTime poetic verse]], which makes it very difficult to translate properly. The accuracy is therefore reduced to the level of 'educated guess' or 'accurate horoscope.' [[spoiler:And, in fact, they misinterpret the main prophecy to mean doomsday for the TSAB when in reality it says that they win.]]
26	* In the ''Anime/SteinsGate'' anime, 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.
27	** This is not the case in [[VisualNovel/SteinsGate the original visual novel]], as it 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.
28	--->However, do not you think that the work not rewarding? It is this kitten large cat HAHAHAHAHA :-)
29	* Averted in ''Anime/GargantiaOnTheVerdurousPlanet'', in particular with "arigatou/thank you" which has no equivalent in Ledo's language and requires a lengthy explanation. They also don't have a word for "meat," since they presumably only eat synthetic food, so his translator can only describe fish and chicken as [[{{Squick}} "corpses."]]
30	* In ''Anime/YuGiOhCapsuleMonsters'', the clues to solving the game Grandpa Muto, Yugi, and their friends are trapped in are written in hieroglyphics. Yet when Grandpa and the Pharaoh read them out loud in English, they rhyme nicely, with proper rhythm and rhyme.
31	[[/folder]]
32
33	[[folder:Comic Books]]
34	* In a comic in French translated from Italian, Mickey and a professor can't understand a message left by an ancient civilization. But Dingo (Goofy), who likes games, says it's just a rebus. The trope is then played for laughs when he say the rebus is "in Italian... for some reason", and translate it saying things like "that's a drawing meaning it's little, piccolo in Italian"...
35	* Played with in ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'' Annual #9 (2000), where an archeologist translates a Sumerian inscription, which is actually the Green Lantern oath, which ''does'' rhyme in English (which itself raises questions), but she doesn't know that, so her translation doesn't.
36	-->In the day that is brightest, in the night that is darkest\
37	Nothing is that evil will escape the vision of his eye\
38	Let all who worship evil's strength\
39	Beware the power of his [rest of inscription damaged]
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Fan Works]]
43	* ''Fanfic/IntoTheVeeshaVerse'': Subverted and played for laughs. "My Treasure" has Vee try to translate German word-for-word, but she quickly realizes that the syntax doesn't ''quite'' add up.
44	-->Will you my sweetheart be?
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Film - Animated]]
48	* ''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).
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]
52	* ''Film/Titanic1997'': 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".)
53	* The treasure map in ''Film/TheGoonies'' is in Spanish, but when translated into English, it becomes rhyming verse. No one even stops to consider how unusual this is.
54	* Subverted in ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'': a Hungarian who encountered Keyser Soze is translated by an American interpreter as saying that they picked up a ''pasas'', or "package." In reality, [[spoiler:''pasas'' is actually Hungarian slang for "guy," which no one realizes until much later on, giving Verbal enough time to mislead the interrogator until his bail is posted. The fact that the translator's first language is English, and less likely to know slang in another language, makes this scene more realistic. ]]
55	* ''Franchise/StargateVerse'':
56	** The movie ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' had Daniel Jackson correct a translation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, changing "door to heavens" to "Stargate". This is possibly because "Stargate" [[RuleOfCool sounds cooler]] than "door to heavens". However, in the SG-1 episode "Moebius", Jackson travels back in time and helps plan the uprising that would lead to the Stargate being buried, along with the coverstone with the hieroglyphs (which he likely helped write) which he would [[StableTimeLoop 6000 years later]] translate as being Stargate. So it's not surprising he can translate it as he wrote it.
57	** Lightly spoofed and subverted in ''Series/StargateSG1'', where Dr. Jackson (now the team linguist) once translated something as "the place of our legacy" but expressed some doubt by adding that it could also mean "[[EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas a piece of our leg]], but the first seems to make more sense."
58	** This was done again when SG-1 was searching for the [[{{Atlantis}} Lost City]]. Jonas Quinn thought that it should be translated as the City of the Lost because the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] couldn't possibly lose one of their own cities and of course, Jack O'Neill took this to mean the City of the Dead. They came full circle when Dr. Jackson [[BackFromTheDead returned to the team]] and revealed that the city had been ''built'' lost and was therefore the Lost City.
59	* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Why does V'ger call itself that? Because that's how you pronounce "V[''illegible'']GER", of course. But how would the aliens that found it know that?
60	* Subverted in ''Film/EventHorizon''. The (somewhat garbled) 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."
61	* ''Film/NightAtTheMuseumBattleOfTheSmithsonian'': 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.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Literature]]
65	* Creator/HPLovecraft: ''That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die''
66	** Which, though poetic, is odd when considering the original was supposedly written in Arabic. Given that the English translation of the book is said to have been contemporaneous to the King James Bible, one might attribute it to a poetic translator.
67	*** ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' RPG makes a deliberate point of this: with each successive translation of the Necronomicon (or any other TomeOfEldritchLore ), its in-game usefulness as a source of knowledge/power/danger decreases.
68	*** One RPG sourcebook contains a chapter that attempts to explain things like this from an in universe perspective. Its Arabic version of the above quote also rhymes, and actually explains more than the English version.
69	* Played with in Literature/TheBookOfTheNewSun: ''Terminus Est'', the name of an important execution sword, never receives a single official translation. It's rendered once as ''this is the line of division'' and once as ''this is the place of parting''. Both translators ignore the most obvious choice:''this is the end''. [[spoiler: The ambiguity is a possible reference to the catastrophic events that will violently reshape (but not end) the planet.]]
70	* Creator/JRRTolkien's Middle-earth is not a case of the trope, as his [[ConLang Constructed Languages]] and their texts are not literal 1:1 translations. There are other-language poems with their 'Westron'/English translation both given by Tolkien, who are visibly not 'identical' but treated like any real-world poetry translation to produce a text both meaningful and working within the respective aesthetical rules. Both instances/reminders in the narrative text as well as in [[AllThereInTheManual additional texts]] provide more insight into both in-universe and the (pretend) 'Westron-to-English' language and translation issues and problems.
71	** An in-universe trope subversion showing an on-the-spot translation occurs in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': Gandalf translates the (punctuation-less) inscription on the door to Moria (''Pedo mellon a minno'') as "Speak, friend, and enter." which, while 1:1 correct, should have rather been rendered as "Say 'friend' and enter." To preserve the meaning: Saying aloud the Sindarin word 'friend' (''mellon'') is the password to open the door.
72	** This ''[[WildMassGuessing might]]'' have been a dialectal difference. The standard Sindarin for "say 'friend'" is apparently ''pedo vellon'', with the object of the verb under lenition ("softening" of the initial consonant). Either this inscription is in a dialect that doesn't lenit ''m'''s (which is etymologically plausible), or ''mellon'' appears spelled as it had to be read to open the gate. (This would have the advantage of limiting entry to those who can ''read'' Sindarin as well as speak it, perhaps in case an enemy learned the standard word for 'friend' as a hopes of gaining the password.)
73	** All of the "English" names and dialogue in the books are [[TranslationConvention actually in Westron or "Common Speech"]], [[DirectLineToTheAuthor translated by Tolkien for the reader]]. At one point Tolkien has to point out that an apparent pun in English (the close ties between the hobbit families [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamgee_Tissue Gamgee and Cotton]]) was not present in the "original" language.
74	** On the other hand, there's one that does slip through. ''Orthanc'', the tower of Isengard, has a double meaning: it means "Mount Fang" in Sindarin, and "cunning mind" in the language of Rohan. Since Rohirric is a very conservative relative of the language that Westron (mostly) derives from, Tolkien uses slightly modernised Old English to "translate" it. And ''orthanc'' does indeed mean something very much like "cunning" in Old English. So the same word has the same meaning in two languages?
75	** Glorfindel's ProphecyTwist of the Witch-King of Angmar's eventual destruction: "Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall." In the Elvish languages of Quenya and Sindarin, the translations of "man" as in "human" are different from "man" as in "male". There shouldn't normally have been any ambiguity between "he can't be killed by a human" and "he can't be killed by a ''[[NoManOfWomanBorn male]]''". To create that ambiguity when translated would have required some rather precise misdirection. Granted, ''both'' translations end up being correct in the end, as the Witch-King is killed by the combined efforts of Eowyn (a woman, and therefore not male) and Merry (a hobbit, and therefore not human).
76	** This genuinely happened to Tolkien in an odd real life example of the trope being played straight. The penultimate book of the Silmarillion is about the downfall of the island of Numenor, which was sunk by Illuvatar for trying to invade the undying lands. The story is called "Akallabeth", a Numenorian word meaning "The Downfallen". After Tolkien had decided on all this, he wondered what the elves would call it, and was surprised to find that the Quenya word for "downfall" would be [[{{Atlantis}} "Atalante"]].
77	* This is averted in ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Eragon]]''. Brom translates a poem from the Ancient Language (Elvish) for Eragon, which sounds pretty but has no real rhyme or meter, and Brom says himself that he can't translate it perfectly. And therefore makes perfect sense. Again averted in the sequel, ''Eldest'', when Eragon composes a poem in the Ancient Language. The reader is shown a translation of it, and it doesn't rhyme either. This allows the author to provide incredibly beautiful, classic poems [[InformedAttribute without having to write overwhelmingly moving poems from scratch]].
78	* The novel ''Literature/TrixieBelden and the Mystery of the Blinking Eye'' features a prophecy written by a Spanish-speaking woman, in Spanish, which is then translated into English. Amazingly, it was written so precisely that it rhymes perfectly in English, and although it becomes a plot point that they aren't sure whether a line ought to read "big headed man" (as in, a man with a physically large head) or "big-headed man" (as in, a man who thinks a lot of himself), this is possibly an artifact of the English translation, and no such confusion may have existed in the original wording. The Spanish word ''cabezón'' could have both meanings.
79	* In the first ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' book, Artemis is able to write a computer program that is able to decipher a written language that predates Egyptian hieroglyphics, and then translate it into English in perfect meter and rhyme. All this without actually having any knowledge of other languages himself. Sure he's supposed to be a genius, but...
80	** Then again, Gnommish is less an ancient language and more a [[ReLex fancy English cipher]].
81	** Holly Short works for the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance, or [=LEPrecon=]. Like "leprechaun", see? Which means the English translation of a Gnomish abbreviation happens to sound just like a Gaelic word.
82	* A poem in the twelfth ''Literature/{{Deverry}}'' book includes a note that it rhymes in Deverrian, but not English.
83	* Averted in the ''[[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Star Wars]]'' novel ''Traitor'': Nom Anor (A Yuuzhan Vong who speaks Basic, i.e. English), while listening to an excruciatingly boring shaper's drone, muses (apparently in Basic) that "maybe that's why we call them drones". He decides not to share this with anyone, because it's only a joke in Basic. ([[{{Pun}} And a really weak one at that.]])
84	** The Yuuzhan Vong language in general averts this one; based on the word-for-word translations seen, it's ''very'' rich is poetic and religious imagery, so that even everyday terms tend towards the highly involved and metaphorical when translated directly.
85	* Possibly subverted in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' where everyone is concerned about the prophesied "Prince that was Promised." However, the prophesy in question was written in ancient Valyrian and one character points out a quirk of the Valyrian language: [[spoiler: grammatical gender in High Valyrian has no correspondence at all to human gender, so the Promised One might not be a prince but a princess]]. Whether the character's theory is correct or not remains to be seen, but the evidence seems to be in favor so far.
86	* A plot point in ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' rests on the language of the Fourth Imperium of Man having terms equivalent in nuance to the English terms 'Imperium' and 'Empire'. Note that the Fourth Imperium predates civilization on Earth by millennia. To be fair, the book at least is nice to specify that the language of the Fourth Imperium ''had'' equivalent terms, rather than just acting as if the English translation was proof enough.
87	* Generally played straight in ''Literature/SpeakerForTheDead'', in which translations between English and Portuguese and the alien languages of the pequeninos tend to be incredibly precise and elegant. Possibly {{justified}} as the translator is usually a "piggy," and they are canonically better than humans at learning new languages. There is one important aversion: at one point, Ender asks a male piggy to translate a statement in which he commands a female piggy and refers to her asking him for a favor. It is explained to him that the syntax to express this does not exist in their language; a female can command a male and a male can petition a female, but never the other way around.
88	* ''[[Literature/EightWorlds The Ophiuchi Hotline]]'' by Creator/JohnVarley contains an aversion. The remnants of humanity have been receiving technical knowledge from a mysterious extra-solar source, and finally a message arrives which seems to be demanding payment. We see a "probability weighted" translation. It begins FOR (A PERIOD OF TIME: CONJECTURE: 400 EARTH YEARS?) DATA HAS BEEN SENT. NEW SUBSCRIBERS (22%) ARE GIVEN A (UNTRANSLATABLE) TO ADJUST and ends SEVERE PENALTIES, SEVERE PENALTIES (97%)
89	* Played with in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' novel ''Fallen Heroes''. The Lonatian language is apparently spoken in sweeping and elegant poetry. When it comes out of the universal translator, it's annoying doggerel; the computer can keep the rhyme scheme, but at the expense of everything else, sometimes including the meaning. But then there's one scene in the book where Quark can tell the Lonat trader is getting desperate when his poems start getting worse, despite the previous suggestion that this is the translation program's fault.
90	* Averted in ''Literature/SevenStars'', where a plot point involves a secret prophecy made by UsefulNotes/{{Nostradamus}} (and thus originally in French). It refers to an event occurring at a particular time in the "Maison Blanche", which translates as "white house". But nobody's sure whether that means a white house, or something called "white house" in English, or something with a name in some other language that can also be translated as "white house". Edwin sends associates to cover every possibility they can think of, including the White House in Washington DC and Casablanca in Morocco. It turns out to be referring to [[spoiler:Casablanca -- not the real one in Africa, but the soundstage where Warner Brothers have recreated the town for [[Film/{{Castablanca}} a new Humphrey Bogart movie]]]].
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
94	* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "Monsieur Leblanche" (a SoundToScreenAdaptation of Mr. Leblanche Needs $50), Mr. Leblanche writes a letter to Miss Brooks asking to borrow $50. Harriet Conklin, who is fluent in French, ultimately translates the letter after Walter Denton's [[MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels ridiculous and altogether erroneous]] [[EpicFail attempt]]. Harriet smoothly translates the French in perfect English, somehow doing it word-for-word. [[spoiler: Walter had told Miss Brooks that Mr. Leblanche was asking her on a date, Harriet discovers that Leblanche was asking to borrow $50 to buy a car]].
95	* Subversion: In ''Series/{{Buffy\|The Vampire Slayer}}'' the ArcWords in Season 7 are "From beneath you, it devours". Andrew and Jonathan reveal in "Conversations With Dead People" that, while in Mexico, they've had dreams with the refrain "Desde abajo te devora." Andrew translates the phrase as "It eats you, starting with your bottom". The literal translation is "From below, it devours you", but this particular phrase probably ''would'' translate fairly closely to Spanish and back.
96	** Andrew provides his own lampshade a little earlier in the scene when he complains that Klingon was easier to learn than Spanish because the former "had much clearer rules on transitive and intransitive verbs."
97	* Used twice in ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
98	** The so-called Shanshu Prophecy says that the vampire with a soul will "shanshu" as a reward if he makes it through his trials. Wesley struggles with finding a translation for this word, first going for [[spoiler:"die"]], but finally discovering that [[spoiler:the word means both to die and to live, explaining that the original authors of the text thought of life as cyclical and thus equated the two concepts. He realizes this means he will "live until he dies", or in other words, become human again.]].
99	** Spoofed in an episode where Lorne states that a group of demons "...either are going to discuss it with the prince, or go eat a cheesemonkey".
100	* Frequently used in ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone\|1959}}'':
101	** Notably in the episode "To Serve Man", which manages to simultaneously subvert this trope and provide one of the most ridiculous examples of it. Translators translate the name of the aliens' book as "ToServeMan" but don't realize until later that the "serve" in this case means to [[spoiler:serve as food]]. ''However'', the entire premise of this misunderstanding of the translation is patently ridiculous, as it asks the viewer to seriously believe that ''the exact same pun exists in two completely unrelated languages''.
102	** The original Creator/DamonKnight short story that the episode was adapted from does attempt to get around this by saying that English and Kanamit share certain linguistic quirks and double meanings. (It also depicts the translation as less like codebreaking than the TZ episode; the people in the story use a Kanamit-English phrasebook as a starting point for the translation.)
103	** Spoofed in a ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' ''WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror'' episode where the Simpsons are kidnapped by Kang and Kodos and [[FatteningTheVictim treated to a luxurious feast, making Lisa suspicious]]. She finds a heavy tome titled 'How to Cook Humans' and confronts the aliens about it. Kang shows that the full title is obscured by some 'space dust': it's 'How to Cook '''For''' Humans.' Lisa isn't convinced and removes some more lingering space dust on the cover: it's 'How to Cook''' For''ty''''' Humans'. Kang finally reveals the full title: 'How to Cook '''for Forty''' Humans'. The aliens are dismayed at humanity's suspicious nature and return them to Earth, saying they've forfeited the paradise the aliens were offering them. The episode also jokes that the reason the [[AliensSpeakingEnglish Aliens speak English]] is that by an amazing coincidence, English and Rigelian are identical.
104	* Subversion on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Dax translates a particular line of ancient Bajoran glyphs as meaning that the people will [[EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas either "suffer horribly" or "eat fruit"]], depending on context.
105	-->'''Dax:''' Given the tone of the rest of the inscriptions, I would bet on the horrible suffering.
106	* A related instance occurred in the pilot episode of ''Series/{{Lost}}''. Shannon translates the French distress call as "It killed them all." However, the actual pronoun used is "il," which would more commonly be translated as "he", French does not have a separate pronoun for inanimate objects. Hence, she more likely would translate the message as "He killed them all." However, seeing as some ''thing'' had just killed the pilot, the line needed to be translated with "it."
107	* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Darmok" gleefully deconstructed this trope. When trying to communicate with an alien race, the universal translator didn't work on their language because their speech patterns were vastly different. Their language was based on metaphor, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" is said repeatedly to the Enterprise crew, but it isn't until much later that they learn Darmok and Jalad were mythological heroes who became friends at the place Tanagra, slaying a legendary beast. So when they say "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" it is a term for [[FireForgedFriends a friendship formed while battling a common foe]].
108	** Another example is the phrase "Sokath. His eyes uncovered!" which is taken to mean "He understands!"
109	** Some linguistics professors like to show this episode to their students as an example of how understanding a language requires understanding the culture that created it.
110	* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Riddles" features Neelix telling a joke to [[TheComicallySerious Tuvok]]. The riddle is, essentially, "Some guy is stranded on a desert island with only a calendar, isn't rescued for six months, but survives. How did he do it?" Tuvok is rather unimpressed at the answer of, "He ate the dates." Later, Tuvok proposes that "He ate the Sundays (sundaes)" could be an alternate answer. These are, mind you, alien characters and neither one has any incentive to learn English since they live with universal translators. Neelix in particular was only exposed to humans (and therefore English) seven years ago. The implication is either that both these characters took the time to learn English for some reason, and the joke wasn't LostInTranslation, or dates/sundaes are both food- and time-related words in three different languages.
111	** Tuvok, at least, has the excuse of being readily familiar with the Earth dating system. It's not unreasonable to expect Vulcans to have studied English, either, as it is occasionally stated to ''actually'' be the official language of the Federation, not just a TranslationConvention. As for Neelix, he could have simply looked the joke up, and he is sometimes portrayed as quite enthusiastic about studying the cultures of his new friends. (E.g. preparing Klingon food for a holiday B'Elanna doesn't even bother to celebrate.)
112	* Averted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode [[Recap/StarTrekS2E25BreadAndCircuses "Bread and Circuses"]] with an example similar to the Zeitgeist one below where the Enterprise runs into a planet of space Romans where the rebels worship the sun. It is revealed at the end that it's actually the "son of God". The writers intentionally established early on in the episode that the natives were speaking English, precisely so they wouldn't need to deal with this issue.
113	* Subverted in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "A Good Man Goes to War". Melody Pond, the daughter of Amy and Rory? After translation through the language of the Gamma Forest, her name translates to [[spoiler: River Song.]] Also given a nice EXPLANATION, as well. [[spoiler:The only water in the Gamma Forest is the river, so "River" is their language's closest translation of "Pond"]].
114	** Also averted with the ArcWords of the season: "Silence Will Fall" is said by various characters in rather ominous circumstances, but in the last episode of the season it is revealed that [[spoiler:"Silence Must Fall" would be a better translation, and that the full phrase would be "Silence must fall when the question is asked"]]. This discovery changes the role of the season's primary antagonists from [[spoiler:apparent {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s who want to kill the Doctor as part of their plan]] to [[spoiler: {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s who are trying to kill the Doctor before he is asked "the question"]], which would make [[spoiler: the Time Lords return and resume fighting the Last Great Time War.]] Why must silence fall? Because where the Doctor is asked "the question" is a truth field that prevents anyone from lying. Therefore, the only options are to answer truthfully (bad) or not speak.
115	** Averted in "The Christmas Invasion." A hasty, computer-assisted translation of a newly-encountered alien language uses exceedingly simple vocabulary and syntax and often renders a single concept using two or three near-synonyms when it's unclear which one is closest to the intended meaning. When the setting's TranslatorMicrobes kick back in and the viewpoint characters (and audience) start hearing English coming out of the aliens' mouths, they sound just like any other aliens on the show.
116	* Discussed in the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "The Pegasus Project", a crossover with ''Series/StargateAtlantis''. After Morgan Le Fay in her hologram-guise gives Daniel and Vala the exact names they've been looking for, Daniel immediately gets suspicious. Languages change over time, so how could the Atlantis database know exactly what they were looking for. It's a big hint they're not actually talking to a hologram.
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Video Games]]
120	* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
121	** 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]]
122	** There's a moment in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'' 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.
123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Webcomics]]
126	* Lampshaded in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. After a character makes a pun ("'Mercy' and 'Mercenary' may sound similar, but I assure you it's just a misleading coincidence"), the narration box notes that "Oddly enough, this joke works in Galstandard West as well as in English."
127	[[/folder]]
128
129	[[folder:Web Original]]
130	* In the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(film_series) Zeitgeist]]'' movie, which contains many research errors, one theory brought forth is that Jesus Christ is a ripoff from earlier sun gods. See, he's the ''son'' of God, which sounds similar to sun, get it?
131	** [[Recap/StarTrekS2E25BreadAndCircuses May the blessings of the Sun be upon you!]]
132	[[/folder]]
133
134
135	%%Real Life examples go under IncidentalMultilingualWordplay.

Context Main / ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation