MovieChat Forums > Johnny English (2003) Discussion > What he says in Japanese

What he says in Japanese

posted 13 years ago by avortac
8 replies | jump to latest

I have noticed that in the subtitles, there is a (probably deliberate) mistake. When Johnny English says "Kimi no musume-san tachi ni chiisai chinchin ga suitemasu yo ne", it is translated into "May all your daughters be born with three bottoms" or something silly and harmless like that.

I guess the translators or whoever was in charge in that decision did not really have the guts to actually translate it correctly. The correct sentence would be something like:

"Your daughters suck small dicks/penises, don't they?"

That's what political correctness and ignorance of the masses does to you - when you translate something wrong, the masses believe it and are ignorant enough not to notice the difference. But we can break it in parts.

kimi = a more casual (or 'rude') way to say "you"
no = indication of possession (thus, "kimi no" would mean "your")
musume = daughter
san = honorific that is usually added when talking about/to people
tachi = indicates plural
ni = particle with many meanings depending on context
chiisai = small
chinchin = dick / penis
ga = indicating the main point of the sentence (which is the previous word)
suitemasu = to suck
yo = this is used to indicate confidence in what is being said (it's hard to explain)
ne = equivalent to the english word "right?" as in "isn't that right?", but in this case, "don't they" would be more proper translation - this little word is used a lot in japanese language, so it has a bit wider meaning than the english word 'right' though

So you see, no three bottoms is ever mentioned, and both penis and sucking are. You can check it out for yourself ..

These mistakes, political correctness, the ignorance of the masses and lack of guts sometimes bother me a lot, so I thought I'd give a helping hand to correct it.

Btw, Atkinson's pronounciation of japanese is really awful; he almost makes it sound like something between british-english and chinese. And don't get me started on his intonation..

[–] popcalent 13 years ago

That's funny. I just saw the movie and was thinking the same.

[–] MirrorofReflection 12 years ago

It's too bad they didn't use the proper translation.
But I think awfulness of his pronounciation/etc is suppose to be like that.

[–] LilRed_RoRo 12 years ago

It's not really political correctness it's more like censorship.

Or maybe the writer asked a Japanese person to translate "May your daughters be born with three bottoms" into Japanese and they lied and said the dick sucking thing instead for their own amusement .

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] 12 years ago

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[–] goyerias 12 years ago

Actually you are wrong what he is trying to say is

your daughters have small penises

his pronuntiation is awfull but he was trying to say tsuiteimasu which can be translated as have.

the right way to say suck would be shaburimas.

it might make sense from and english point of view but from a japanese point of veiw it doesnt.

[–] avortac 10 years ago

Actually, I made a small mistake. The main jist of what he says stays pretty much the same, but the end is not "yo ne", but "you ni" of course, and that could be roughly translated as "may", as in "May your daughters suck small penises".

I hadn't learned japanese for very long when I made the post, and since Atkinson's pronunciation is so atrocious, it should be an understandable mistake.

"You ni", is unfortunately one of those very difficult-to-translate bits of the language that can't be directly translated, but it can be used like: "Let's do this -so-that- this other thing would happen".

So when they propose a toast, they drink "so that" the daughters would end up sucking small penises, which in english-language toasting context could be translated as "may".

[–] alifeatthemovies 10 years ago

Actually what he says is "May all your daughters have small penises." I'm not a native speaker of Japanese, but I am sure that is what he says. I watched it with a Japanese friend who verified that.

The ending of the sentence "you ni" means "I wish it to be" or "may it be.." So the sentence "kimi no musume-tachi ni chiisai chinchin ga tsuitemasu you ni" means "May your daughters have a small penis attached" or in more natural English "May your daughters be born with penises."

Also, his pronunciation is not all that bad and it is obvious someone coached him on this line. My Japanese friend instantly got what he said and cracked up.