Polish Dragon Ball translation

[GokuHater]

I am not sure anyone made a thread on this yet.
Polish translation of Dragon Ball is known for some people of being compeletly atroucious though not everyone seen or experienced it.

I myself am from Poland and grew up with the 'RTL7' viewing of Dragon Ball like many people my age here
The translation for this was actually taking the French version of the anime and translating THIS into Polish.
The result was a mix up of various stupid or bad decision, character interactions and even names being mistranslated and a lot of stuff being lost.

To give you an example there were many completely redundant and non-sensical changes like:
Son Goku -> Songo
Son Gohan -> Songo Kan
Kuririn -> Krilan
Ten Shinan -> Tenshin
Kamehameha -> "The Greatest Power" or "Wave Blast"
Buu -> Bu Bu
Raditz -> Radim
Kakarotto -> Kashalot (wtf)
Freezer - Frezer
King Cold -> King Kord

Then there were some completely hilarious changes like:
Sayians -> Space Warriors
Super Saiyan -> Super Warrior
Super Saiyan III -> Ultra Warrior
Yajirobe - Caveman
Tao Pai Pai -> Criminator
Galick Gun -> GaRlick shot

The only translated names that I enjoy here are:
Piccolo -> Translates roughly into "Satan LittleHeart"
Cell -> a bit tough to translate, as this is made to be a name of a monsters made of cells, not only cell literally but I guess it would sound something like "Celler"
Kame Senin - Brilliant Tortoise

Are you familiar with this translation? Is there anything you'd like to add or share here? Apart from names, there were lots of stupid dialog and interactions

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

From what I understand the Polish lectored version of Dragon Ball featured a voiceover by Marek Robaczewski (credited as Zbigniew Dobrzanski or Zbigniew Raciborski).

I've also been told that there was a translation error in GT where it was stated Goku achieved Super Saiyan 4 while fighting Freeza on Namek. I may be mistaken but I heard it was towards the end of GT where they switched from lectoring over the French dub to the Japanese version? Or did they use the Japanese version earlier?

There were also apparently translated title cards, but it's not known where they came from.

"Space Warriors" is a very infamous holdover from the French dub, many European dubs were based on that dub and retained errors such as that.

[GokuHater]

Yeah, exactly

I don't recall the Frieza line right now but it's true that GT halfway through changed from French to Japanese dub.

I remember being confused why all of a sudden voices are different, also why Goku has a feminine voice
Also starting from GT the translators started being a bit closer to the original, so for example the term "Saiyan", believe it or not, was first exposed in GT for all of us.

As for title cards, I sincerely don't remember now... I know for sure majority of the episodes had french titles translated but from time to time we had a japanaese dubbed episode and it was a shock with having a japanses title card or "Cha La..." out of nowehere.

[coola]

I'm from Poland too From what i heard, lots of those silly dialogue and name changes were already in French dub and lots of countries in Europe dubs were translated from French too, fortunately 2001 - 2003 manga had proper translation from Japanese original

[Saiya6Cit]

I have a good friend from Poland and it is my understanding that they would rather watch it in german.

GT was with a lector.

We have to understand that anime did not start becoming popular worldwide until about 1998, so for TV companies it was "risky" invest on "chinese cartoons" Disney was the king of animation and marketing, neither then french were taking asian animation serious. In mexico as well it was not until about 2001 that technology became affordable and allowed the performance of a more professional dub work.

Son Goku -> Songo
Son Gohan -> Songo Kan
Kuririn -> Krilan
Ten Shinan -> Tenshin
Kamehameha -> "The Greatest Power" or "Wave Blast"
Buu -> Bu Bu
Raditz -> Radim
Kakarotto -> Kashalot (wtf)
Freezer - Frezer
King Cold -> King Kord

I don't mind if they change the names it is meaningless for me, as longs as the plot is intact.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Interesting how most of though certainly not all of the European dubs used the French version as the source in some form (whole or part) as many adapted S.O.F.I's poorly translated scripts with additional localization on top of using the heavily censored AB footage therein. Heck, even some English dubs were affected too like Big Green, considering it used the infamous Space/Super Warriors name, Crystal Dragon Balls, Magic Stock/Baton and others. Apparently this was due to the dub scripts of the movies for them were more or less machine translated from the French scripts and carried over those odd name changes and translations as a result.

They also did a lector version of the OG Sailor Moon anime run, though in that case they were translating over the original Japanese version instead of some other countries' dub like Dragon Ball/Z and at least part of GT before apparently switching to the Japanese version.

[coola]

They also did a lector version of the OG Sailor Moon anime run, though in that case they were translating over the original Japanese version instead of some other countries' dub like Dragon Ball/Z and at least part of GT before apparently switching to the Japanese version.

What's interesting, is that Polsat also aired R Movie, but with French dub and my theory is that they didn't want to get in way of Planet Manga, who just released that movie on VHS, and with Japanese dub

According to Secret Service (game magazine) from 1995, Polsat tried to acquire rights to Dragon Ball first, makes me wonder, if they still would had to air French dub version? Like you said, at middle of Baby fight in GT, RTL7 switched to Japanese dub, so maybe it wasn't AB Groupe "fault"?

[Gridlock]

Kakarotto -> Kashalot (wtf)

This one is my favorite weird translation in DB. It's like they didn't knew what to do with Kakarotto, so they picked the closest sounding word... Kaszalot, aka sperm whale. Spend my whole childhood wondering, why did Vegeta picked that as a nickname for him (it was before I had internet access, and learned about Goku's Sayan name).

Spoiler:

On the other hand, I really love Cell being translated into Komurczak. I will even dare say, it adds a little bit more menace to him.

What about manga translation? It could get pretty creative at times too. Like turning Ginyu into Mlekor (mleko = milk, they did it to keep then pun with his name).

[Cold Skin]

For people who don't know, the original French dub - which this Polish version and numerous other versions are apparently based on - originally used "Cachalot" (the French word for "sperm whale") in movie 10 because of the scene in which Goten doesn't understand that name. This way, Broly calls this name and Goten gets angry because he thinks Broly is insulting him, saying "stop calling me that, I'm not a sperm whale!".

It should be noted that in French, the word "Cachalot" has no implication of sperm of anything, it just feels like the name of a big fish that would be no different from calling someone an orca or a whale. So to anyone and any kid, it's like Broly is calling him "Whale!" and Goten angrily says "you stop saying that, I'm not a damn whale!!"

Prior to that movie, the old French dub usually just discarded any mention of Goku's real name, with Vegeta calling him the same as everybody else and Bardack calling him "my son". It was only used in movie 8 as "Karotto" prior to movie 10, which turned it into "Cachalot" for the contextual joke, which was in turn possibly used by other countries too as a result.

We're lucky that ever since Kai, they took the opportunity to offer a faithful French dub that is still used nowadays, including for Dragon Ball Super (series and movies), The Plan to Eradicate Super Saiyans and Episode of Bardack. But the rest is condemned to have the old dub's weirdness and inaccurate translation that served as a basis for many countries.
Even when releasing the movies in Blu-ray for the first time just a few months ago, the dub is still the old, flawed and inaccurate dub.

Old, flawed and weird French dub: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, all movies belonging to the DB-DBZ-DBGT era.
New, reliable French dub: Dragon Ball Kai, Battle of Gods, Resurrection 'F', Plan to Eradicate the Super Saiyans, Episode of Bardack, Dragon Ball Super (series and movies).

[Tian]

From what I understand the Polish lectored version of Dragon Ball featured a voiceover by Marek Robaczewski (credited as Zbigniew Dobrzanski or Zbigniew Raciborski).

Wait... what? So Zbigniew Dobrzanski and Zbigniew Raciborski have been the same person all along?

What a plot twist

Huh, that explains it for all those people who thought they sounded alike.

I don't have the lektor for movies 1-3 right now, but I can suppose that the Zbigniew Ku guy who lektored those is Marek as well.

[GokuHater]

I

don't have the lektor for movies 1-3 right now, but I can suppose that the Zbigniew Ku guy who lektored those is Marek as well.

Yup, that was also the same guy. The translation was NEARLY identical, the only difference I recall is Songo becoming Songoku all of a sudden

[sunsetshimmer]

I've also been told that there was a translation error in GT where it was stated Goku achieved Super Saiyan 4 while fighting Freeza on Namek. I may be mistaken but I heard it was towards the end of GT where they switched from lectoring over the French dub to the Japanese version? Or did they use the Japanese version earlier?

Yes it was in episode 55 which is a flashback episode. There is a scene when Vegeta talks about how Goku surpassed him and was the first one to become SSJ and we see clips from Namek. In polish version instead of Goku becoming SSJ, Vegeta talks about him becoming SSJ4. There's even that scene of crying Vegeta begging Goku to become cruel and even there we see Vegeta saying that "he has to be like that as super warrior of 4th grade" which is basically polish name for SSJ4.

What's funny is moments later we see BADMAN shirt Vegeta talking to Goku and then everything is correct again - Vegeta only talks about Goku becoming SSJ and then we see present Vegeta saying "and now you became SSJ4"

I don't mind if they change the names it is meaningless for me, as longs as the plot is intact.

Yep, it's not like english dub kept all the names either. Nothing wrong with changing names, even though some of the polish names were just silly.

[matburzy]

Hello, it's my first post here. I am Polish too and have a lot recollections about the airing. Well firstly, I appreciate that the entire series aired in Poland back to back. We got to watch every episode without delays (after DB there was immediately DBZ, after DBZ - DBGT). Without it, no one would know DB here.

As for DBGT, the airing indeed switched to japanese for episodes 30-something to the end. As I read a lot of Kanzenshuu and other forums, I believe that actually AB Groupe gave us japanese masters for episode 30-something to the end because they themselves did not finish dubbing those episodes in french. Curiously, they are devoid of title cards, but include english title for each episode, long before Funimation dubbed it. Also, DBGT64 includes original ending montage with credits.

When I heard japanese, I nearly pissed myself from excitement.

Also, while it is true that Polish translators included some infamous name changing, unfortunately french translation was the base and it was horrible. Some of the dialogue sounded like someone just watched the DB and figured out what they are talking about without understanding the language. For example: Goku hits Cell. Cell says: you hit me.

In every dialogue, which is not sophisticated to begin with in japanese, there is abundance of word "bluff". In db everyone is bluffing. Every damn minute of the show, someone is bluffing ("blefujesz" in Poland) . Like, how many times you can use the same word. Sometimes the lector voiceover reads such stupid dialogue lines, that when watching japanese version so many years later, you realize you are basically watching the series for the first time.

I remember a lot of times when there was a lot of screaming, the french dub just switched to japanese, like the voice actors gave up or something. There is literally a clip on YouTube from french dub, where Goku goes ssj and they just left japanese there until Freeza says "Nani" and they immediately remembered to bring back french dub. Funny, that!

Also, the french opening for DBZ was HORRIBLE. I get that some people like the song, and I respect that. But remember that episode 1-291 had horrible clip montage from the worst animated Namek/Saiyan episodes they could choose with Gohan flying with dragon Ball with his stupid smirk. For 291 episodes, the same dumb montage. I believe first episodes had Raditz but the rest were Namek Saga montage.

They also screw up one time in Buu Saga and aired Cha La animation with french opening song. Have no idea why.

DB opening was pretty fine, clips from Makafushigi, and DBGT was Dan Dan and Hitori Janai till the end in japanese. No other opening version or endings, unfortunately. But not bad.

[Cold Skin]

^ The screaming getting back to the Japanese dub back then was no accident: it was deliberate from the persons in charge because screams counted as a line that had to be paid to the actors, and not making them dub screams therefore made it all cheaper, especially with fight-heavy episodes.

Likewise, it was not rare to have some voices changed from one episode to the next: this was because it was a rushed job to get episodes on air as soon as possible and if the voice actors had anything preventing them to be there, there would not be even just one day late, they were just replaced for the recording session of the day.

So for the old French dub (not for the modern one which is very good), the guideline was "make it cheap, make it fast, don't make them do the screams cause we'd have to pay them for that and temporarily replace them by any other voice actor available that day if they can't be here every day for any reason".

Luckily, nowadays, it is done very professionally, adapted by persons really understanding the Japanese original language, taking time to do things right and keep the same voices, showing them the Japanese scene to give context to the situation, making them try again until they get it right, making them do the screams, etc...

But back then, it was meant to be a rushed, cheap, less-than-approximative mess and it reached Poland and other countrie in this sad state!

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

As i mentioned in my above post they also did a lector voiceover for the classic Sailor Moon (Apparently for all of the seasons, so SM, R, S, SuperS and Sailor Stars, which most countries got but we didn't until Viz got the rights in 2014) but the biggest difference from the lector version of Dragon Ball/DBZ/1-29 of GT is that the lector version of Sailor Moon was done with the voiceover being run over the Japanese version in all it's uncut glory, and not a heavily censored foreign dub like the former being sourced from the French dubs.

Also the screams going back and forth between voices was hilarious, because hearing the French actors/actresses then the audio abruptly switching to Masako Nozawa, Toshio Furukawa, Ryo Horikawa, Mayumi Tanaka.etc is just such epic amounts of whiplash and all for saving money by simply not dubbing those parts.

[Tian]

Likewise, it was not rare to have some voices changed from one episode to the next: this was because it was a rushed job to get episodes on air as soon as possible and if the voice actors had anything preventing them to be there, there would not be even just one day late, they were just replaced for the recording session of the day.

Yup. Confirmed by Éric Legrand (Vegeta) himself

Luckily, nowadays, it is done very professionally, adapted by persons really understanding the Japanese original language.

And yup.

It should be noted that the French AB dub wasn't directly translated from Japanese VO (I mean they used the audio-video but not the original scripts) but it was translated using Toei Engrish scripts since
Laurence Salva (the translator) is only a ENG->FRA translator.

And Toei Engrish scripts weren't actually good. In fact, I recall reading that the translator of the Swedish dub of Sailor Moon, Olav F. Anderson, stated that they were atrocious in linguistic quality.

So yeah, being translated from those Engrish scripts didn't help either.

[Trouser]

Yeah, the names used in our version of the anime are silly but back then nobody cared about that. The only one that sounds good is "Komórczak", it just fits really well in my opinion. Saying that, I love translations by J.P.Fantastica used in the manga.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Curiously, they are devoid of title cards, but include english title for each episode, long before Funimation dubbed it. Also, DBGT64 includes original ending montage with credits.

The Blue Water dub of GT, which uses AB's masters doesn't include title cards and had its own English titles. The UK airings didn't feature the full ending montage in episode 64 but the Canadian airings did.

[GokuHater]

Yeah, the names used in our version of the anime are silly but back then nobody cared about that. The only one that sounds good is "Komórczak", it just fits really well in my opinion. Saying that, I love translations by J.P.Fantastica used in the manga.

Yeah, and Komórczak stayed to this day even in Super Hero movie... Of which I am actually quite glad.