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Mary Poppins Landing in Italy
A little while ago I discovered this hidden skill that has been part of me for many years: I can sing Mary Poppins, songs in Italian, English, and yes, some even in German! One of my favorite children’s stories! When I proceeded with singing them to myself, I realized that the content of the songs, the refrains in particular, had to change for the song to work in the translated language.
I started thinking about dubbing children’s movies and songs, let’s face it, no kid or even adult would want to read subtitles instead of watching Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews dancing on the roof tops. In the case of the translation of songs, there is beat, amount of syllables and rhymes that play together and need to harmonize, what a challenge! Not only will you need a translator to translate the song, you will need someone with experience in songwriting or some background in poetry writing to adapt the translation to singing requirements. And this is leaving out trying to synchronize the lip movement to the translated singing.
Let’s take a look at a few of my favorite refrains:
| What Mary Poppins sings in English: | And in Italian: | This is what the literal English translation of the Italian is: |
| That a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. Medicine go dow-wown, medicine go down. Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way. |
Con un poco di zucchero la pillola va giù, la pillola va giù, la pillola va giù. Basta un poco di zucchero e la pillola va giù, tutto brillerà di più. |
With a little sugar the pill goes down, the pill goes down, the pill goes down, A little sugar is enough and the pill goes down, everything will shine more. |
| Cast off the shackles of yesterday! Shoulder to shoulder into the fray! Our daughters’ daughters will adore us And they’ll sing in grateful chorus “Well done, Sister Suffragette!” |
Ah! Lacci e catene noi spezzerem Se tutte unite combatterem. Noi siam le forze del lavoro E cantiamo tutte in coro: Marciam! Marciam! Marciam! Suffragette, a noi! |
Ah! We will break ties and chains If we all fight united We are the strength behind the work and sing in choir: We march! We march! We march! Suffragette, to us! |
| Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Even though the sound of it Is something quite atrocious If you say it loud enough You’ll always sound precocious |
Supercalifragilistichespiralidoso! Anche se ti sembra che abbia un suono spaventoso Se lo dici forte avrai un successo strepitoso |
Supercalifragilistikespyralydoso! Even if it seems to have a frightening sound to you If you say it loud you will have a resounding success |
Chim chim-in-ey becomes Cam Camini it Italian.
Sister Suffragette definitely sounds much more revolutionary in Italian than in English to me! And no, nobody swallows pills with sugar in Italy, it works so well in the song though.
Far from the days of auto-translation for this kind of text too!
For Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in Italian go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNezlE_Ex18
And to close this off: Superkwalikwantiviaëxtraquasiotisch!
(Dutch Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!)
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