Literal translation

Above-mentioned examples present titles translated word for word. It's quite obvious that during translation we are looking for the proper counterparts. However, translating can be really complicated. It's not only about finding correct words, sometimes it seems to be impossible to use the equivalent in the target language because all language systems differ. Something that sounds very good in one language may be confusing or not understood in other language or culture. During his/her work translator may come across numerous difficulties like idioms, fixed phrases or culture-bound terms. When translating titles, we can't also forget that a good title has to attract viewers, have its specific form (not too long, interesting and catchy phrase). And sometimes translating word for word is not enough.

Adventure movies

In this part of my project I focused on German series of adventure movies. Generally we look for the analogy when it comes to series. Each part focuses on Die Jagd nach etwas that is to say on The Hunt for something. In case of the first part both German and Polish title refer to the plot - King of the Franks Charlemagne, who plays an important role in the history of legendary Nibelung treasure. In the second and the third part we have quite visible analogy between the titles.

Nicholas Sparks' novels

In my project I comment in general on translating titles of movies. However, Nicholas Sparks' novels are very interesting examples of titles translation. Besides, each Sparks' story that I chose, has been adapted for a film. Polish titles are at this point more or less successful. Generally they were literally translated, with some exceptions. On the other hand German titles are very creative and we may only try to interpret what was meant. In many cases such an interpretation requires our knowledge of the plot. I observed that we can distinguish another strategy of titles translation, namely, referring to the plot. The Notebook is a story of a man who reads his diary/notebook to a woman with Alzheimer's disease. The story relates to love between two young people and the notebook includes their whole relationship. When we read a diary, the life can be presented "like the only one day" (Wie ein einziger Tag).

In the second example we also have some variations and a reference to the plot. In original version we read:

"You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same."^[4]

With this sentence Sparks summarizes the essence of his novel. The Polish title is like expansion of the main idea - I gave you the best of me, so I gave you everything that I could because I would do everything for you (Dla Ciebie wszystko). On the other hand, we can also refer to the plot, when it comes to the German title. Old lovers meet at the funeral of a friend after 20 years. Those 20 years symbolise the way which the characters had to go through to see each other again (Mein Weg zu dir).

As we can see, the last example also required a lot of creativity. The original title A walk to remember is quite hard to express in other language. It's also worth mentioning that both a novel and a movie have the same title. For its German and Polish counterparts there were created two different titles separately (one for a book, and another for a movie). Nevertheless none of them is close to the original at all.

In other cases of German titles it's quite difficult to say what was meant.

The Fast and the Furious series

In this part of my project I would like to focus on one of my favourite series. First of all, I chose it to show an influence of English on German. Germans have very often a tendency just to keep the original English title. The Fast and the Furious series has several alternative titles, e.g., Furious 6 = Fast & Furious 6 = Fast Six. One of this versions is chosen by Germans and kept as a title. We can observe here a kind of an analogy. In case of Polish titles we observe some analogous changes based on what happened with the original title. Since original titles play deftly with words and numbers, the Polish titles try to reflect it (in my opinion quite successful). From fifth part we also have the same phrase but with the other number according to which part we are dealing with (Szybcy i wściekli 5, Szybcy i wściekli 6, 7, 8). That is quite common to have one title for the whole series and just add numbers to each part.

Keeping the original title

	The original title	The German/English title	The Polish title
1.		Need for speed	Need for speed
2.	Pitch Black	Pitch Black	Pitch Black
3.	Van Helsing	Van Helsing	Van Helsing
4.	Air Force One	Air Force One	Air Force One

One of the presented strategies gives the translator a possibility to keep the original title. It's an often solution if we, for example, deal with proper names (see example 3 and 4).

Confusing titles or innovations?

The Nightmare Before Christmas

One of the strategies allows translator to formulate a completely new title. At this point we can undoubtedly disagree with the translator on his concept. We may ask ourselves why the translator creates something new while he already has a basis, that is the original title. Is there any place for creativity in translation? When does it go too far? When can we say that something was mistranslated? Above-mentioned examples seem to be quite confusing and don't correspond with one another. For instance the Polish title of the famous Dirty Dancing was considered to be mistranslated and the original title is much more common now. In other cases we may only wonder what was meant and why such titles were created.

Examples for other strategies

• Global Effect → Global Effect - Am Rande der Vernichtung → Śmiertelny wirus
• Divergent → Die Bestimmung - Divergent → Niezgodna

German titles are mixed with two languages (hybrids) and expanded.

• 7 Zwerge → 7 Dwarves → 7 krasnoludków - historia prawdziwa

Expansion in Polish title.