Do you ever find yourself cringing whenever you’d watch a film or a TV series dubbed in Tagalog?
Personally, I used to think that it’s weird when Tagalog-dubbed series or film are changing the expressions or lines to fit the local culture or when deep Tagalog words are used as if the characters are stuck in the 1900s. I once lost it when a Tagalog-dubbed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone literally translated the expression “Merlin’s Beard!” into “Balbas ni Merlin!” But I realized that these Tagalog-dubbed works not only showcase the talent of our dubbers (who we can recognize from various characters especially in K-Dramas) but also allows a wider local audience to appreciate and consume these content better.
And if you still think that Tagalog dubs are cringeworthy enough, wait ’till you hear what Filipino teleseryes would sound like if it is dubbed in English.
In a Reddit post, a popular scene from The Legal Wife between actresses Angel Locsin and Maja Salvador was dubbed in English, and best believe you’d say “What the f*ck did I just watch?!” after seeing it. The video was reposted on Twitter and quickly became viral, with people retweeting and tagging their friends to “share the cringe”.
https://twitter.com/baebaraaa/status/1249586487621894145
After watching the “transliteration” in the video, some are reminded of dubbed animes while others “almost had a seizure”.
Some are saying that maybe it’s hard to watch because they’ve seen the original version and the dubs are not as intense as how Angel and Maja delivered it in Tagalog.
Others are saying that it’s not even the worst they’ve seen because an English-dubbed version of Ang Probinsyano exists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKUlTYd4MLk&feature=youtu.be
So the next time we’d complain about Tagalog-dubbed films or TV series, may we be reminded of these videos and that compared to these, our dubbers are putting in much effort to convey the emotions of the characters and add a Pinoy twist into it for the local audience.