I’m mainly talking about watching a TV show or movie that’s originally in English enabling subtitles that’s either in Spanish, German, Russian, Finnish, etc. and can mistakes in translation still occur? I recall watching Lie to Me with Japanese subtitles during a scene involving an interrogation but a key word within the dialog was not translated correctly based on context.
For example, the protagonist said “You’re an accessory for murder” towards the suspect but subtitles used the wrong word choice 小物 (which means “accessories” as in small goods, i.e. stationery or trinkets) when the intended meaning for “accessory” from that context leans more on being a conspirator (共犯者 or 共謀) of a crime (like as in aiding the criminal).
It varies a lot from movie to movie. Some are very well done, others not so much. Back in the old days they would go as far as pick a new name for a movie just to make some pun work properly when translated. Sometimes references are replaced for others that make more sense in the localized context.
But in general these days the subtitles don’t get much attention and they often pick simple/literal translations for everything, while dubs often get a lot more work put on them but also tend to dumb down the content to simplify things for a wider audience.
One English expression that often gets overlooked on Portuguese subtitles and I get really annoyed when I see is “it can’t be helped”. In Portuguese it feels like you’re talking about yourself in third person.
And another, closer to your example, that I have seen used wrong at least two times before. “Screw you” being used in the movie with the meaning of “fuck you” and the subtitle translating it with the word used for tightening a screw.
The same applies with Japanese subs from English audio, what happens is that there are word inconsistencies for a single term. There was an episode of the same TV show I was watching and they translated “Marine” (as in a US Marine) using 3 words alltogther interchangably throughout:
Only out of those 3 is the correct word choice based on visual context (the PoW’s are in fact in the corps) but the subtitles lazily used 兵士 referring to them as if they’re in the army (which is a seperate branch) as the USMC is under the Dept. of the Navy.
The characters were having a conversation about rescuing 2 marines who are PoW in Afghanistan, during the second half. When they brought up the topic during the first scene: the correct word (海兵隊員) is used, however later on the translation decides to alternate between 米兵 & 兵士.
Like, USE ONLY ONE WORD! It’s confusing as hell to read, especially if it serves as a key part of the episode’s plot (it’s literally within the synopsis), it was from Lie To Me (Season 2, Episode 8).
i don’t mind your example because boots care a lot about that distinction that doesn’t matter to anyone outside their juvenile branch rivalries