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Thai translations of Oscar-winning movie titles

Thai 101 has an amusing collection of (mostly) literal Thai translations of 2008 Oscar-winning films:

Thai titles for western films are sometimes corny, sometimes spoilery, and always entertaining. Especially when you translate them back into English. They have a style of their own. Most typically, a subtitle is added to give local viewers a better idea of the content.

Here are a few that I like:

The Reader
เดอะ รีดเดอร์ ในอ้อมกอดรักไม่ลืมเลือน
“The Reader: in the embrace of unforgotten love”

The Dark Knight
แบทแมน อัศวินรัตติกาล
“Batman: knight of the night time”

Wall-E
หุ่นน้อยหัวใจรักษ์โลก
“Little robot whose heart saves the world”

3 replies on “Thai translations of Oscar-winning movie titles”

Hey, thanks for the mention. I had a lot of fun with this post, so I expect to make more like it in the future.

My personal favorite is Slumdog Millionaire:

สลัมด็อก มิลเลี่ยนแนร์ คำตอบสุดท้ายอยู่ที่หัวใจ
“Slumdog Millionaire: the final answer is in your heart”

It’s both cheesy and corny. It’s like movie title nachos.

Haha… These are good, especially the robot one. The Thais always seem to go a bit overboard on movie/book title translations.

Incidentally, in this cafe in Mae Hong Son, which also doubles as a library, they have a Thai-language book titled ‘Thung Fan’, ie ‘Field of Dreams’. I assumed it was the book version of the American movie, but upon closer inspection, noticed that the author was JD Salinger, and indeed it is the Thai version of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’.

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