“You know the movie about….ummm….there’s a holiday on February 2nd….aboutBlank stare. I don’t know how to say “mental asylum” but she may or may not have called it when I was in the shower.
this…ummm…this little animal that comes out of a hole in the ground…and if there
is sun, he sees his (grasping at straws to come up with word…no success)….and a
funny man named Bill Murray is in it…and every day, ummm...it’s the same day…
(silence)
You know this movie?”
What a ridiculous way to begin a day. Ech omrim “can I have the last 60 seconds of my life back?”
Whoever knows the word for this thing,
where the hell were you at 7:15 this morning?
10 comments:
I know the feeling: you take a risk and start telling a story in hebrew, then halfway through the story, you run out of words and you think "how am I gonna get out of this?" I know exactly!
Whenever I don't know where I'm going with a story because I've run out of words, I have two options: 1.) Switch to English (this is Jerusalem!) 2.) If option 1 fails, I just smile my sweetest smile and say, "lo mishane". Laugh a little, point at my head and say "blondinit" and "americayit". And let me just say, that works EVERY TIME. (Note: I am only considered blond in Israel because my hair is not black.)
And on that note, perhaps you can solve a mystery as to why some movie titles are translated directly and others are just transliterated. There is no rhyme or reason to any of it as far as I can tell. Probably if you said "Groundhog Day" with an Israeli accent, your flatmate would have known exactly which movie you were talking about.
Groundhog Day לקום אתמול בבוקר
Cats died all over Israel with this one. I just had to know what Groundhog Day was in Hebrew. Found it and found this site that gives you a handy reference what you call that movie in Hebrew
http://dotancohen.com/eng/movies.php
I was GOING to post the name of the movie but Ilana beat me to it. So instead, I will post a MARVELOUS group on Facebook, in honor of this movie and others, that you should all join: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15776790183
It is called:
העמותה להמתת חסד של מתרגמי שמות סרטי הקולנוע לעברית
or in English:
The movement for the euthanization of the translators of movie titles to Hebrew. (Or something like that.)
1. There's this site called Targumon for translating movie titles from Hebrew to English and vice-versa.
2. Here's the entry for Groundhog Day. As Ilana said it's לקום אתמול בבוקר, "Getting up yesterday morning".
3. It appears that "groundhog" in Hebrew is מרמיטה or marmita. Strange.
4. Subtitles are really useful for learning another language.
"blondinit" and "americayit"
Hilarious!!! I'm gonna start doing that but with "tzarfatia" instead.
"Americayit" only works because of the joke:
What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual.
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual.
What do you call a person who speaks one language?
American.
Ms. Worldwide, you can try "tsarfatiya", but I don't know if it will help you. "Blondinit" may be enough...Good luck!
Sticky situation indeed. One way around vocabulary issues is to Hebraicize the word "groundhog." If the news anchors can get away with this trick (e.g. "americanizatzya, balkanizatzya, regulatzia, etc.) why can't you?
Pronounce it "gehroundchog" with an emphasis on the guttural "chog". This way you look really smart and the person you're telling the story to looks like an ignorant hillbilly. ;)
"Mah, lo lamadata baTichon ma zeh Groundhog?! Kol yeled ben 5 mevin al mah medubar!"
Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but I wouldn't try to get Roger Ebert on the phone...
[wah, waaaahhh.]
Ha ha...good one, Esther.
Ok, then how about Gene Siskel? (waiting...)
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