Dec 10, 2019 00:42
4 yrs ago
5 viewers *
Japanese term
Italy
まさかのとき
Japanese to English
Art/Literary
Cinema, Film, TV, Drama
Dear ProZ members,
I have a couple of doubts on how to interpret the following sentence.
In a movie, the American army has to arrest the leaders of a group of rebels. Some soldiers burst into the room where these leaders are, and a soldier shouts "Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!", just like in the Monty Python sketch.
After the battle, the same soldier says to his partners:
聞いてたか 俺のまさかのときのスペイン宗教裁判の下り
(Did you hear it, my quotation from the Spanish Inquisition for emergencies?)
Two things:
- That 聞いてたか probably means that the soldier is asking whether they ever heard of the gag in their lives, right? Not if they heard him saying it on that particular moment (or it would have been 聞いたか);
- About まさかのとき: it's usually used to mean "in time of need", "in case of emergency"... but the soldiers have the upper hand in that moment, that's not an emergency for them. Could it simply mean something like "for when it's high time"?
Thank you very much!
I have a couple of doubts on how to interpret the following sentence.
In a movie, the American army has to arrest the leaders of a group of rebels. Some soldiers burst into the room where these leaders are, and a soldier shouts "Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!", just like in the Monty Python sketch.
After the battle, the same soldier says to his partners:
聞いてたか 俺のまさかのときのスペイン宗教裁判の下り
(Did you hear it, my quotation from the Spanish Inquisition for emergencies?)
Two things:
- That 聞いてたか probably means that the soldier is asking whether they ever heard of the gag in their lives, right? Not if they heard him saying it on that particular moment (or it would have been 聞いたか);
- About まさかのとき: it's usually used to mean "in time of need", "in case of emergency"... but the soldiers have the upper hand in that moment, that's not an emergency for them. Could it simply mean something like "for when it's high time"?
Thank you very much!
Proposed translations
(English)
| 4 | Unexpected |
Marco Godano
|
Change log
Jan 7, 2020 16:18: Henry Dotterer changed "Level" from "Non-PRO" to "PRO"
Proposed translations
58 mins
Marco Godano
Japan
Japan
Specializes in field
Japan
Background in multimedial communication
Native in: Italian 
Works in: Japanese to English, English to Italian, Japanese to Italian, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
4
Selected
Unexpected
That sounds like quite the interesting translation!
That being said:
まさかのとき can simply mean "unexpected" or "when you least expect it", so I'd venture that it is an EtoJ translation of "[The Spanish inquisition] that nobody expects".
As for the 聞いていた, if it meant "have you ever heard of this gag" it would probably be "聞いたことある?", so a more reasonable interpretation is "Did you hear of my spanish inquisition gag?" as in "did anybody tell you about that gag, based on the spanish inquisition, which I did?"
That being said:
まさかのとき can simply mean "unexpected" or "when you least expect it", so I'd venture that it is an EtoJ translation of "[The Spanish inquisition] that nobody expects".
As for the 聞いていた, if it meant "have you ever heard of this gag" it would probably be "聞いたことある?", so a more reasonable interpretation is "Did you hear of my spanish inquisition gag?" as in "did anybody tell you about that gag, based on the spanish inquisition, which I did?"
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Thank you so much!
Linking まさかのとき to the Spanish inquisition makes far more sense, you're totally right.
And thank you for the other sentence too!"
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