Borat movie poster translation request for great justice

Language Learning Chinese
#1

I saw the Chinese-language poster for Sasha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” movie in an MRT station last night.

The English (kinda) title of his movie is:

Borat! Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

In the title of the Chinese-language poster, there’s a long string of characters that has one character “rubbed out” and a second one handwritten in. I guess they’re trying to imitate the distorted grammar of the original but I have no idea.

Could one of our resident experts provide a literal and also a loose translation of the Mandarin title of this movie? Thanks ~

#2

i’m not sure of the exact connotation of the original “xinxiu” but i think it’s something like “learn from experience”. they changed it to “xiuli” meaning “ridicule” the whole thing is “a kazakh youth experiences slash roasts american culture”

#3

That was prompt and educational!! Thanks… :notworthy:

#4

Can anyone post a photo of the poster?

#5

It looks pretty similar to this:
th.foxmovies.com.tw/borat/

#6

that has the same slogan as the one i saw. anyone wanna translate it differently? Although I am willing to take the first trans. at face value ~

#7

The original is 芭樂特:哈薩克青年必修美國文化. Note the scratched out character is “bi4”, not “xin1”. “bi4xiu1” can often mean “must learn”. For example, if a particular couse at university is bi4xiu1, then it’s a required course. So the original title has this meaning – Borat: Kazakh Youth Must Learn About American Culture.

However, the 必 was scratched out and 理 li3 was put behind 修 xiu1. Xiu1li3 means “to fix/repair” but it can also be used to mean “to teach someone a lesson”. So the new title probably means – Borat: Kazakh Youth Teaches American Culture a Lesson.

I guess the gist is that he’s going to the US to learn about American culture, but inadvertently, teaches American culture a lesson. The transliteration for Borat is also interesting. 芭樂 means guava in Taiwan. 特 can also mean undercover agent. So I guess beside sounding like Borat, 芭樂特 can also mean “The Guava Undercover Agent”. Is it funny? It’s up to you to decide.

#8

I decide that it is.

As the other borat thread pointed out, it’s not going to be easy to translate SBC’s humor from ‘english’ (such as it is) to Chinese.

This thread is making me want to study chinese more. But I’m too lazy because all the good shizzle’s already translated into english and I can’t stop reading that…

#9

ahhhh, bixiu, missed that slash lol

#10

I think it’s impossible to properly translate Borat into Chinese. Part of the comedy is his deliberate misuse of the English language, the subtleties of which cannot be fully translated.

#11

芭樂 means crappy and 特 is just used for the sound.

So it’s something akin to…“Crapbert”.

#12

Funny stuff.