International viewers discuss Seinfeld's popularity and cultural translation across different countries, with some suggesting the show's humor may not fully translate abroad.
After viewing miscellaneous posts in this NG, I've become curious about Seinfeld viewing in other countries (other than USA that is).
If you're reading this, and you're from another country, please tell us a little about Seinfeld's popularity in your home country. As humor varies so much from country to country, I'm curious as to how an odd show like Seinfeld translates to foreign humor. Please let us know the local popularity of the show, any translation problems, what insight it offers you into American culture, etc.
I'm guessing that, in most countries, Seinfeld is misunderstood and not all that popular. This may be wrong, and I'm sure there are a few that truly "get it."
You may be right about Seinfeld being hard to understand, but the show is definitely popular in many countries.
Here in Norway, it's been shown on TV2 for several years. They finished season 8 in spring, and have been showing reruns three times per week since then - the reruns have often attracted more viewers than the first airing, and it's one of the most popular shows here. During summer, Canal Plus, a pay channel, has shown the last season, so those of us who have that channel have got through the whole thing.
Translation is a problem. We always use the original language with subtitles, and many jokes fall through - puns are always hard to translate, and the translators often have no idea what they're doing. I've seen some horrible translation errors. Most young Norwegians speak English quite well, so it's possible to get most of the jokes simply by ignoring the subtitles - that's what I do. Since I've worked a lot with Americans, and since I watch too much TV, I don't think any of them slipped past me.
I don't know if "insight into American culture" is the right way to describe it - but it's a great parody of Americans in general and specifically of New Yorkers. Although it's most likely not intended, it plays on a common European view of Americans as being shallow, obsessed with themselves and not least obsessed with pointless conventions (e.g. how a break-up should be done, how a phonecall to someone with a father in hospital should be made etc. etc.).
As for being an odd show, that's true, but it seems that odd shows sit well with people here. Other popular TV comedies are Frasier (once a week on TV2), Friends (once a week on TV2) and British comedies like Absolutely Fabulous, Keeping Up Appearances and Father Ted. They're all pretty far removed from real life, and I think that's what most of us expect from a good show.
My brother, who is from Ghana (he's not my real brother, but rather a chosen brother - it's almost as complicated as musician's shoes) and now lives in London, also loves the show, and he made a funny comment about it: "Kramer is hilarious, George is really funny, Elaine is very beautiful, but that Jerry guy, they should get rid of him". I guess he doesn't like obvious "observations" about peanuts on airplanes...
But tell me, did you get it when Kramer tells the tourists that Joe Pepitone created Central Park in 1850 so the Union soldiers could practice on grass?
right now i get the feeling that you have a real *problem* with non-americans watchin' the show.... hey, sad enough that we suffer from translation (which is quite ok on seinfeld, same on The Simpsons), but to get bashed by you for the fact that "we just can't understand". well, europeans have brains too. and europeans do know about america, too. and there are europeans who are interested in american culture. yes, folks: this HAPPENS! and: do you really think the average american gets EVERY joke? really?
people 'round here and friends love SEINFELD, never miss a show. but maybe i should print posters that we dumb europeans are too stupid to *understand* what SEINFELD's all about.
I do not know where you get your feeling from Franz but I have no problem with non-Americans watching Seinfeld. I just was curious if Chris would know about the references to an American baseball player and the concept of their sports teams practicing on grass and artificial turf. So cool your paranoia and lets have an intelligent discussion here on issues that really matter. Oh, BTW if I had a problem with non-Americans watching the show I would not be watching it either. - never having lived in the USA myself.
There may be something in that which I didn't get, but I do know that Joe Pepitone is a baseball player, and that he was born much later than 1850 (1940?). I also know that the park wasn't created so that Union soldiers could practice on grass. Kramer can occasionally be a bit inaccurate... (There could be a reference to something Pepitone actually did in there, concerning practising on grass, but I don't know anything about that). I got enough to understand that I was supposed to think it's funny, at least ;-)
That was very good - There were no Union soldiers, I believe until the Civil War - until then they would have just been American soldiers and not have to be referred to as Union. Also the practising on grass is an important part of American sports - usually NFL football - where they may play on artificial turf in some stadiums and then may have to face an opponent at their home where real grass exists (Dallas vs. Washington for example). It was also a parody of so many of the inane tourist guides that talk about sites on American tours - Kramer also did it well when he was showing Jerry and Elaine around The Alex theatre when he was making up the years it was remodelled.
Here, in Israel, Seinfeld is very popular. It was shown every Monday (the last episode was aired two weeks ago). We have seen the last show also live. It was at 6:30 a.m. on Friday. As i understand, Israel was one of the only countries in the world to show this episode live. So i think that you can guess how popular is this show here.
Seinfeld is a water cooler show in did (or a coffee machine show). Every day at work we talk about yesterday's show (we have reruns every day at 23:00 p.m.). Yesterday it was the one with the slicer machine, George (playing the eraser) trying to get himself out of his boss picture, and Jerry dating a "life saving" woman.
You don't have too many problems with the translate. We have subtitles, but there are some mistakes here and there. I can remember some of them : they drink
Snaple all the time (no such thing here), or Glamor magazine was translated as a local magazine. Most of the jokes are understandable except those about history, Steinbreners "great" trades, MCI and AT&T calls to jerry (we don't get too many calls from the phone company here .... cos' we have only one). There are many jewish jokes that i can help you with :-) (Kishke is Not something that soldiers eat to kill themselves - it's a kind of cheap meat).
Seinfeld's playing in Portugal weekdays at around 12h45pm GMT. Seinfeld's simply the MOST POPULAR tv show in all country! There isn't anyone that doesn't like Seinfeld!
Seinfeld in Israel is shown DAILY on channel 3, this is one of our cables channels, and it is the one that runs serieses like "Friends", "ER" and others. SEINFELD is his best one, it ran syndication twice, Sunday-Thursday, on 22:30. and on Monday 21:30, the new episodes from the last season. I think Israel is a good and loving fan of "Seinfeld", even though the ratings are not so high, Jerry is popular here because his being Jewish, too, and we feel very proud. Of course.
Do you know he was working in a Kibbutz in Israel like 20 years ago????
Hi I'm from Germany. Seinfeld had a hard time finding his audience here in germany. First the schedules changed by week, then it was canceled. Since, I think it was April the TV Station "pro7" show Seinfeld at late night between 1 and 2 am. Because of the good response of the viewers the stations shifted the show to 6pm. So far so good, but the programm-managers of pro7 thoght the german audience is unable to understand Jerry's StandUp Parts. So they prpduced a new Intro with new Music and cut off the credits of every episode. Many fans had protested against but the station without success. Dispite this trouble I love this show.
Ciao/98 Jens PS: My english is not the best, as you can see. Sorry! --------------------------------------------- Homer Simpson says "D'oh!!!" Jens Moesinger: E-Mail: [email] Adress: Im Feldchen 6, 61130 Nidderau, Germany, Europe, Earth, Milkyway
I had heard that Seinfeld did poorly in Germany so they replaced it with "Hogan's Heroes" reruns. Was that true, or just a rumor?
BTW, kudos to whomever started this thread. It's one of the more
interesting discussions to appear in this group for quite some time.
Thanks.
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Well it is quite popular here in Germany, it had around 10% ... umm ... viewing ratio? when it was showed at night, then they moved it to daily 5:55 pm (great...) and it still reaches 15%, while half of the target group is working (a quite high value, 150% of that station's average). The translation is usually well done, at least I haven't found senseless sentences yet (there are LOTS here, e.g. computers made of silicone, people having trillions of money or, an unique: "Director's cut" became "The revision of the new director". Ouch.) except for Joe Devola screaming Latin ;) what did he say, mortum tyranni or something like that.
Well, exactly that is what our Seinfeld station here thinks, and why they cut Jerry everywhere ("American humour isn't German humour"). They even ignore the protests viewers do. BTW, are they still showing ALF in the US?
Actually, "sic semper tyrannus", which translated literally to "thus
always to tyrants". It means the same thing though.
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i m from israel and here the show is very popular. most of the people here think that this is the best comedy on tv. one of the reason , in my opinion, that people love it so much is because jerry is a jew and use it in his show (like making out during shindler list).
here in israel the tv already finish broadcasting the all seasons and now we have only replays from the begining. btw, the final episode broadcast here in the same time it broadcast in usa. because the show is so popular and people wanted to see it so much it was broadcast before we saw the all episodes from the last season. saw after they went to jail we saw the rest of the episodes.
like i said before translate great lines to hebrew is usually ruined the joke so people don't use it so much.
in generally the show is very popular maybe not like in usa but really close to usa.
I live in Finland and Seinfeld isn't really so popular as in the other countries. They're showing it on channel 4 and I think it's only possible to get it via satellite in some parts of the country, so that might be one of the reasons. Many people like the show, but it's not really so big as it should be. (at least, that's what I think). Channel 4 is showing season 5 now and Canal+ Finland showed the 8th and 9th seasons, and some people (like me!) can watch the Swedish channel 1 on cable and they're showing the 7th season now.
It might be the type of the show that doesn't attract Finns too...I think Drew Carey show isn't so popular either (I don't have any ratings). Mad about you and Friends are quite popular though, and Frasier had/has its audience too.
Hi! I'm a french-spaeking canadian and we get (of course) Seinfeld in english, however, a couple of years ago, since the show was so popular among the english-speaking community, it was decided that Seinfeld would be translate... It turned out to be a bad idea. I think that no jokes could be well translated. I study translation myself, and I must say that translating those jokes acuratly, would be very hard. In the end many french-speaking persons, "didn't get it" and said stuff like: " Ah! those anglos are so dumb, the show is about nothing..." They had forgotten all of it shortly...
I can only say for my part of Canada (Qu�bec) it's not that popular...the true fans can easily be spotted because they use many Seinfeld quotes daily...
I was in Montreal in May and saw a poster promoting "Seinfeld" in one of the subway stations. It was in English; I recall from glancing at the TV listings that there were no French-language airings of the show.
Perhaps Costanza should have worked for the Montreal Expos. (That's where Steinbrenner should have traded him!)
If they really said 'the show is about nothing', maybe it translated better than you thought. :)
(I know, I know. Please see Sein-pamphlet #36 entitled "It's not
*really* about Nothing, it's about Everything").
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In Britain, I think we have to give up on Seinfeld as a lost cause. As far as US sitcoms go, the media and networks are all obsessed with Friends. Sky on satellite is just finishing showing the penultimate season, so we still have the final season to go. They have at least given the series some respect, God only knows when the BBC will get around to showing any more. They are about three or four seasons behind and always only use it as a filler. What I miss is the syndication idea. I became a fan around episode 25, judging from the episode guides, and would love to see some of the earliest episodes but probably never will. Anyone else in the UK like the show ??
Another Brit fan here - The BBC are complete and utter b******s when it comes to Seinfeld (and Larry Sanders) - it usually gets bumped for late night bowls or snooker.
Speaking personally, I don't have much of a problem with the cultural references
I'm also french-canadian and a longtime fan of Seinfeld and if it wasn't for the show's finale I would have remained one of very few people here (french speaking that is) that truly loved the show.I managed to get a few of my friends addicted a couple of months before May 14th and even had a Finale party.The hype surrounding the last show had at least a few positive effects here in Montreal
Here is Australia, Seinfield would easily be the most popular sitcom and has been since the mid-90's. The final Seinfield episode will be broadcasting on TV in a few weeks, and the reruns are always playing repeatadly.
Obvioulsy there are no language translation problems, and the humor is always undertood, however occasionally there is a reference to a particular person that makes little sense to us because that person has not received signifigant media coverage, which is suprising considering the amount of American culture that Australians absorb (eg, does a Mr Steinberger really manage the Yankees, and does he really do that thing where he goes on and on ??)
It is recognised that the 4 main characters are probably more shallow than average American citizen and that this is done for comical purposes.
The thing I personally don't understand is how is it that George manages to get all those good looking women !!
Mentioning Australie reminded me of something Jerry said on David Letterman last night. He was asked about his recent tour, Letterman said, "So they understand your humor in Australia?" and Jerry replied (tongue in cheek), "That's the dumbest question anyone's ever asked me."
Basically, Jerry said he loved Australia. Said "they speak English, but they talk funny. Kinda like England, but they're not so pasty-faced."
I guess that was a complement. :)
True, but do you know how many Americans had no idea what the Dingo/baby
reference meant? I think that one came straight from Aussie pop
culture.
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Pop Culture? The Chamberlain trial was one of the biggest trials in Australian history. And of course the Americans saw the potential and made it into a movie. Now it is pop culture.
Forgive me for belittling what you consider very important, and I'll
forgive you for putting such a negative spin on the phrase "pop
culture".
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I'm in Australia and even I know that George Steinbrenner does manage the Yankees... although I've never heard him talk :) Also, I agree with everything else.... there is a few times when a name which isn't as popular in Australia comes up in the show.
On 6 Aug 1998 00:42:27 GMT, [email] (Tcearmark) wrote:
Well, I'm here in Finland where they are currently showing the 4th season. Personally, I have never ever heard anyone talking about it by the watercooler but I persume it's ratings are ok as it's on during primetime. But as far as I know I'm the only one watching it. Also, one of the cable channels here had a Seinfeld - day last week and they showed series 8 and 9 back to back and I understand that got pretty good viewing figures but then again not everyone's got cable. I lived in the UK for four years (I've only come just come back) and there they showed Seinfeld infrequently at around 23.00pm and on the whole the show was underated by most people.
I certainly don't have any trouble "getting" Seinfeld but I can't speak for all Finns and you can draw conclusions from the fact that the most popular US sitcom on TV this moment is Mad about You. The only times I've had problems was when George was working for the Yankees because some of the namedropping humour passed me by... I know very little about baseball. ( I DO know who Micky Mantle is)
I live in Portugal and 3 months ago our country was "blessed" with the hit sitcom Seinfeld. I certainly agree with you when you say that many people don�t understand that kind of humour. I think the portuguese laugh at Kramer�s facers and attitudes, but don�t understand the show itself...the joke behind the joke... the show about nothing!!!!!It is a show about nothing.... It�s a portrait of real life. I try to understand all the jokes , but I think I�m not able to. Nevertheless I understand what the show is about, Why is the cenary New Yorknad the relationship between those four carachters!!!! The portuguese critics only say good things about the show, but as you know it is a difficult sicom to understand, nevertheless the ratings are average, mostly because of the schedule...It goes on the air at 1.00 a.m. Bye Vasco
I live in Sweden and we have had Seinfeld here for a year now, and I just love it, but I also think that many Swedes think that it's a difficult sitcom to understand , it's American humor , and all countries have their own humor... //Rose-Marie
Being all those differences between russian and american humor, I enjoy Seinfeld, maybe not as much as I would be if I were american, but still... It sometimes seems primitive, but funny nevertheless.
I think it is not just the TYPE of humour but the many REFERENCES they make which are funny in themselves if you know American (or New York, especially), culture. For example when George is asked who his favourite author is he says, I believe, Lupica. Mike Lupica is a sports writer and commentator in the New York area.