By Stephen Bush
Publication Date: 2026-01-13 11:00:00
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My French has reached an unpleasant level: not good enough to watch French TV without subtitles, good enough to be annoyed by bad translations. These mistakes stay with me long after I watch them. Some of the choices made in Amazon’s subtitles are excellent Baron NoirFor example, they are either the work of a very old computer or a very lazy person.
Then there are the translation options, which puzzle me, not because they are bad, but because they are difficult. The brilliant comedy Call my agent! For example, there is a moment when Sofia, the agency’s receptionist, asks one of the agents whether he should use more informal “tu” pronouns: an exchange for which there is no literal translation. The translator chose “Should we be friends?” a vague and clunky line. But I’m not sure what, if anything, they could do…
