Linköping University | Department of Culture & Communication | English

Linköpings universitet | Institutionen för kultur och kommunikation | Engelska

Bachelor’s Thesis, 15 credits

C uppsats, 15 hp

Autumn Term 2017

Höstterminen 2017

Translating Similes into Swedish and Finnish in the Subtitles of How I Met Your Mother

Liknelseöversättning till svenska och finska

i undertexter från TV-serien ”How I Met Your Mother”

Emma Heikkinen

Supervisor/Handledare: Nigel Musk

Examiner/Examinator: Robert Eklund

Linköping University

Linköpings universitet

SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden

013-28 10 00, www.liu.se

Table of Contents

1. Introduction __________________________________________________ 1

2. Theoretical Background ________________________________________ 2

3. Methodology _________________________________________________ 6

4. Results ______________________________________________________ 9

4.1. Categories ___________________________________________________________ 9

4.1.1. Literal Translation _______________________________________________________ 9

4.1.2. Replacement of the Simile with a Metaphor __________________________________ 12

4.1.3. Replacement of the Vehicle _______________________________________________ 13

4.1.4. Rephrasing of the Simile _________________________________________________ 14 4.1.5. Omission of the Simile ___________________________________________________ 16

4.2. Distribution _________________________________________________________ 20

5. Discussion ___________________________________________________ 23

6. Conclusions _________________________________________________ 26

List of References ______________________________________________ 27

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1. Introduction

Similes are present in all kinds of verbal communication, as they can exemplify difficult

concepts by comparing them to more familiar ones, create unique imagery by combining two

unexpected topics or help a person express their thoughts more accurately. Although similes

are some of the most common figures of speech, they are overshadowed by metaphors in

linguistic research. Consequentially, there have been only a small number of studies that have

looked at translating similes and most of them have concentrated on novels. This study is

made to expand our understanding of translating similes to the area of audio–visual

translation. Firstly, it seeks to reveal what kinds of techniques translators use when they

translate similes in subtitles, which are affected by factors that do not normally occur in other

types of translation, such as hearing the source text, seeing the actions and having a limited

space and time for the translation. This has been done by comparing 160 simile translations

found in the Swedish and Finnish subtitles of How I Met Your Mother to the English source

text and dividing them into categories based on the changes that have occurred in the

translation process. Secondly, this study aims to find correlations and patterns between the

Swedish and Finnish results, which can shed light on what kind of differences there are in the

simile translations between a pair of genetically related languages (English–Swedish) and a

pair of unrelated languages (English–Finnish).

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2. Theoretical Background

Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 3) claim that our “ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which

we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”, which may explain why

nonliteral language is so commonly used and understood. For example, one can think and

speak of life as a road: it has a start, some bumps and an end or it can be seen as a painting

that consists of swipes of a brush, each affecting the result. In a relatively recent study,

Barnden (2015) suggests that metaphors which are constructed “X is Y” are actually

exaggerations of their corresponding similes (X is like Y). According to this claim, the phrase

“people are sheep” has approximately the same meaning as “people are like sheep to a very

high degree”. As similes are equally common, but much less researched than metaphors

(Pierini 2007: 21–22) and even claimed to “give rise to similar effects as corresponding

metaphors” (Wałaszewska 2013: 323), understanding how metaphorical and other figurative

expressions work may help shed light on the use of similes.

In comparison to literal language, metaphorical or figurative language allows the speaker to

more accurately “deal with the relative inability of language” and to express “the complexity

of [their] perceptual experiences.” (Cacciari 1998: 120) This view can be supported by

Glucksberg’s (2001: 28) claim that people “spontaneously apprehend metaphorical meanings”

and understand them “as rapidly as comparable literal expressions.” However, it has also been

suggested, that the latter is true only with metaphors “whose literal and nonliteral meanings

are salient”, whereas familiar nonliteral idioms are first processed nonliterally (Giora 2003:

56). Although Giora and Glucksberg seem to disagree on how an expression is initially

comprehended, they both agree that the context helps a person distinguish if it is intended

figuratively. This is very crucial, as most figurative expressions can be true in some contexts.

For instance, “it was a piece of cake” can be a literally meant reply to the question “what was

the dessert?” although its perhaps most salient meaning is “easy”.

According to Tversky (1977: 328), there is asymmetry in metaphors and similes, because

people “tend to select the more salient stimulus […] as a referent, and the less salient stimulus

[…] as a subject.” In practice, this means that the expression “bamboos are like trees” sounds

more natural than “trees are like bamboos”, as the word “trees” is more commonly used and

therefore more salient than “bamboos”. However, in a culture where bamboos are common,

the order may be reversed. Pierini (2007: 26) writes that these kinds of symmetrical similes

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can exist, but only when they are literal. Literal similes, which are also called literal or

ordinary comparisons, have the same structure as nonliteral similes, but they are not used

figuratively. An example of this type of comparison is the phrase “dogs are like wolves”,

which can be turned into “wolves are like dogs” without a change in the meaning. There are,

however, some additional views about the connection between literal and figurative

comparisons: Bredin (1998: 73) states that all “similes are comparisons, but not all

comparisons are similes.” This view can, however, be problematic, as there are various stages

of figurativeness and determining if an image is figurative or not can be difficult in some

cases. Although Pierini, and Bredin do not agree on the definition of simile in terms of

figurativeness, they agree that there are several types of similes. For instance, Bredin (1998:

69; 72–73) proposes that there are six kinds of (simile) comparisons:

1) A is like B

2) A is not like B

3) A is like B in respect of p

4) A is unlike B in respect of p

5) A has as much of p as B has

6) A has a different quantity of p than B has

Bredin (1998: 69), however, adds, that these “expressions give only the propositional forms of

comparison judgements, and are not a guide to the comparison markers that are employed in

real sentences.” In addition to the traditional “like” and “as”, these comparison markers can

be, for instance, “phonetic, syntactic, punctuational [or] semantic” which all can be rewritten

as one of the types shown above (Bredin 1998: 69–70).

The similes used in this study use either “like” or “as” as a comparison marker and most, but

not all of the similes are nonliteral and they can belong to any of the groups listed above. The

distinction between a literal and nonliteral simile can be relatively vague in certain situations

and including both in this study may help notice if figurativeness has affected the translation

methods used. The choice to exclude other comparison markers than “like” or “as” has been

made due to the search method used in this study, which will be described and justified in

more detail in the methodology section below. The other parts of a simile have different

names depending on the writer, but in this study, they are referred to as “topic”, “similarity

features” and “vehicle”. For instance, in the sentence “sheep are soft as clouds”, “sheep” is

the topic (what is being compared), “soft” is the similarity feature (what the topic and vehicle

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have in common), “as” is the comparison marker and the word “clouds” is the vehicle (what

the topic is being compared to).

Both Swedish and Finnish similes have often the same structure as their English counterparts.

In Swedish, a comparison marker can be, for example, “som”, “likt” or “liksom” (Elleström

1999: 83), which all have the approximate meaning “like”. Additionally, the most common

direct translation for an “as – as” construction in Swedish is “lika – som”. In Finnish, a simile

is usually made by using the word “kuin” (Kotimaisten kielten keskus 2017), which means

“like”, and is also present in the “as – as” construction “yhtä – kuin”. Comparing similes in

these three languages is often relatively straightforward, which can be seen in the following

example taken from the data of this study:

English (original): You are like a god to me.

Swedish: Du är som en gud för mig.

Finnish: Olet kuin jumala minulle.

All the lines above have the same meaning and word order and in both translations the most

common comparison marker (som/kuin) is used. In the Swedish translation, the only

difference from the original is the preposition used (to/for), while all the other words have

been translated literally. The Finnish translation, however, differs from the other two,

although it is a direct word-for-word translation. The suffix “-t” in the verb “olet” (you are)

means that the subject is the second-person singular “you”, the article “a” is omitted, as

articles are not used in Finnish and “to me” is translated into “minulle”, which is the allative

case of “minä” (I), and has the same meaning as “to me”. These differences between the

language structures can easily be explained by the genetic relationship between them:

Swedish and English both belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language

family, whereas Finnish belongs to the Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic language family

(see e.g. Campbell & Poser 2008: 84–89).

Literal translation, as described above, is only one option when translating similes, especially

as an image can work differently in diverse cultures (see e.g. Newmark 1981: 87–89). Other

translation methods include, for example, the following techniques suggested by Pierini

(2007: 31):

1) literal translation (retention of the same vehicle)

2) replacement of the vehicle with a different vehicle

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3) reduction of the simile, if idiomatic, to its sense

4) retention of the same vehicle plus explicitation of similarity feature(s)

5) replacement of the vehicle with a gloss

6) omission of the simile

This model has been used as a framework in most, if not all, recent studies concentrating on

simile translations and a version partly based on it will be used in this study. In one of the few

studies researching simile translation, 40 similes found in The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest

Hemingway were compared with two different Arabic translations (Alshammari 2016). The

frequencies of the translation techniques used were found to be significantly different in the

two versions, possibly due to the small number of instances analysed: in the first, 95% of the

similes were translated literally (group 1) and in the other, that percentage was only 37.5.

Omission occurred in 27.5% of the instances in the second translation and all the remaining

techniques were each used in 10–12.5% of the similes. In a similar study, 60 similes found in

The Hunger Games were compared with their Malay translations also with Pierini’s model as

framework (Ramli 2014). The results of that study show that 75% of the similes were

translated literally and 20% by reducing the simile to its sense (group 3). Although the

findings in these studies are not fully concordant, the preference for literal translation is

clearly visible, which can be predicted to be found in this study. This study, however, differs

from the other two by comparing European languages, having a significantly higher number

of similes analysed and analysing subtitles instead of written literature, which could have a

notable impact on the findings.

Subtitling differs from other types of translation, as it is most often converted from oral to

written language and the space for the target text is limited. These factors have created some

common subtitling conventions, such as simplifying grammar and lexical items, removing

elements typical for spoken language, shifting from dialogue to monologue, reformulation

and even omission (Días Cintas 2007: 63, 145–167; Tomaszkiewicz 2011: 93). This effect is

often neutralised by the image, which “fill[s] in the gaps in the recipient’s knowledge and

counterbalance[s] his or her unfamiliarity with a foreign language” (Tomaszkiewicz 2011: 93,

105). In order to provide the audience with working high-quality subtitles, a company can

have their own set of rules that usually vary from one language to another. Netflix, which is

used in this study, applies almost identical subtitling guides for Finnish and Swedish. For both

languages, the maximum reading speed is set at 200 words per minute and 17 characters per

second and the text can be divided into two lines, both of which have a limit of 42 characters

(Netflix, Inc. 2017a; Netflix, Inc. 2017b).

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3. Methodology

The data used in this study consists of the English script of the sitcom How I Met Your

Mother (Bays & Thomas 2005–2014) and its Swedish and Finnish Netflix subtitles. The show

consists of 9 seasons with over 200 episodes and to be able to find similes used in the show as

effectively as possible, a script found on a website called Springfield! Springfield! was used.

With the help of Google’s Advanced Search, the comparison markers “like” and “as” were

searched for in the script and the first 80 lines including at least one of them were listed.

However, phrases that used these words in any other meaning, for example, the verb “like”,

were first omitted. This resulted in a list of simile phrases from random episodes spanning all

nine seasons. Although Google Search is not totally random due to the different search

algorithms it uses, it is unlikely that it has any effect on the randomness of the similes used in

this study. A decision was made to include only prepositional similes, which are formed with

the comparison markers “like” or “as” and other types of similes that use these preposition as

a part of them, such as “to look like” or “as if”. Other types of similes were not considered,

such as those constructed using special verbs suggesting comparison, e.g. “to resemble” or “to

remind”. Due to their great variety, these similes would have been problematic to find using

this method, which would have notably affected the randomness of the study.

After collecting the English data, the correctness of the lines included was checked by

comparing the online script to the audio file on Netflix, but there were no discrepancies

found. Simultaneously, the Swedish and Finnish subtitles for these lines were collected from

Netflix and combined into a Word file. To be able to have a proper overview of how the

subtitled lines compared with the original ones, the lines were categorised based on the

translation technique used. The categorisation model that was used was partly based on

Pierini’s simile translation strategies (2007: 31). However, it needed to be developed further

for this study, because it consists of only six groups, some of which do not normally appear in

subtitles. For example, “retention of the same vehicle plus explicitation of similarity

feature(s)” (Pierini 2007: 31) is rarely possible in subtitles due to the low number of

characters that can be used. The additional categories and subcategories created were based

on the patterns observed while collecting and analysing the subtitles.

The model that was created consists of five categories, the first, fourth and fifth of which are

divided into subcategories:

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1. Literal translation

1.1. Word-for-word

1.2. Conversion of an idiom to its sense

1.3. Simile in English, but not in the target language

2. Replacement of the simile with a metaphor

3. Replacement of the vehicle

4. Rephrasing of the simile

4.1. With a simile

4.2. Without a simile

5. Omission of the simile

5.1. Partial omission

5.2. Total omission

5.3. No translation

The categorisation of simile translations was made by comparing the similarity of the verbs,

vehicles, similarity features and comparisons between the subtitles and original lines. The

topic or subject was not a divisive quality, unless it had changed its purpose during the

translation process, for instance, by becoming the vehicle. There was relatively little

overlapping in the categorisation and although some sentences showed qualities from various

categories, they often followed a pattern that could be turned into a subcategory. These

subcategories, and categories, are described in detail in the results section, where at least two

examples of every group are given. The examples shown in this study have been chosen both

in order to show a typical case or pattern, but also to show how much variety there can be in

each group. For instance, the different parts of two rather typical English instances found are

named as follows:

You sing like a stroke victim.

topic verb comparison marker vehicle

or

He is as hot

topic verb comparison marker similarity feature

as his dad

comparison marker vehicle

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As seen above, a line can have either one comparison marker (like) or two (as – as). Also, the

similarity feature can be either visible, as in the second example (hot), or it may be left for the

viewer to decide how the topic and vehicle compare with each other. This can be seen in the

first example, where it is not directly stated how a stroke victim sings.

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4. Results

In the first part of this chapter, every category and subcategory used in this study is defined

and explained with examples of both Swedish and Finnish translations, while in the second

part, the quantitative findings of this study are presented.

4.1. Categories

In this section, the categories and subcategories are first defined, after which an example in

both Swedish and Finnish is provided with as accurate back-translation into English as

possible. These examples are then analysed and their defining qualities explained.

Abbreviations SE for Swedish and FI for Finnish are used in order to help distinguish

between the two languages. In addition, some superfluous parts of the sentences gathered

have been omitted, including for example run-on sentences, some adverbials at the beginning

of the sentences and interjections. The subject, predicate, object and the simile phrases are

always left untouched. For instance, the sentence “She called me ‘Barry’ the whole time, and

for two weeks, my comforter smelled like menthol cigarettes” has been shortened to “[…] my

comforter smelled like menthol cigarettes.”

4.1.1. Literal Translation

Covering clearly over half (62.5%) of all the translations, the most usual translation pattern

found in the data was literal translation, where the target text remained similar to the source

text. This category has been divided into three subcategories. In the first, the lines are

translated word-for-word and in the second, there are idioms that are translated into non-

figurative language. The last subcategory concentrates on literally translated phrases which

are constructed with similes in English, but not in the target languages.

4.1.1.1. Word-for-word

All the similes in this subcategory were translated by retaining the verb, vehicle, comparison

marker and possible similarity features close to the original meaning. Almost half (48%) of

the subtitles analysed were translated by using this method, making this the most common

pattern for both Swedish and Finnish translations. While more than half (56%) of all the

Swedish subtitled similes were translated word-for-word, the percentage of Finnish subtitles

translated word-for-word remained at 40.

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Example: No wedding will […] ever be as bad as that one.

SE: Inget bröllop kommer nånsin bli lika hemskt som det.

No wedding will ever be as awful as that one.

Example: I will bang your heads together like coconuts.

FI: Hakkaan päitänne yhteen kuin kookospähkinöitä.

I [will] bang your heads together like coconuts.

It can be seen in these examples that both translations use the same verb, comparison marker

and vehicle as the original English line. In the Swedish subtitles, the similarity feature “bad”

is also retained. Although the Swedish “hemskt” means “awful”, which is a stronger word

than “bad”, it has the same core meaning and, therefore, belongs to this category. Similarly,

there is a minor change from the copula “be” to “bli”, which is often translated “become”.

Here, however, the verb choice does not affect the meaning, as the Swedish “bli” and “vara”

(be) can be used interchangeably in certain cases. This comparison is made by using the same

structure as in the English line, where two comparison markers are used to indicate similarity:

“as – as” in English and “lika – som” in Swedish. The last part of the simile, the vehicle “that

one”, has been translated into the Swedish “det” (that), which keeps the meaning close to the

original.

In the Finnish translation, the verb “hakkaan” (I bang) and the vehicle “kookospähkinöitä”

(coconuts in the partitive case) are direct translations from English. The comparison has also

been made using the direct translation of the comparison marker “like”, which is “kuin” in

Finnish. There are no similarity features in the sentence to be translated. The only word in the

English line which is not translated into Finnish is the auxiliary verb “will”, because the

Finnish present tense also includes the future.

4.1.1.2. Conversion of an Idiom to Its Sense

The translations that belong to this subcategory are similes and have the same approximate

meaning as the original English phrase, but they have not been literally translated. This is

because the English lines include an idiom or other utterance which is not used in its literal

11

sense. This method was found in 5% of all the translation, five times in Finnish (6%) and

three times in Swedish (4%).

Example: It’s like the dude in that documentary who kept having women

show up dead at the bottom of his staircase.

SE: Det är som killen med tjejer som dog på hans trappa.

It is like the guy with [the] girls that died on his stairs.

Example: It’s […] not nearly as good as I’d built it up to be in my head.

FI: Tämä […] ei [ole] läheskään yhtä hyvää kuin kuvittelin.

This […] [is] not even nearly as good as I imagined.

In the Swedish translation, the core idea stays the same: something is compared with a man at

whose stairs women died. However, instead of women, they were girls in the subtitles who

did not “show up dead” as in the original, but just “died”. Because the idiomatic “show up

dead” has been rewritten in non-figurative language without notably changing the meaning of

the sentence, this translation belongs to this subcategory. This line is used when a character is

speaking quickly in the series and therefore it can be assumed, that to save space in the

subtitles, “at the bottom of his staircase” has been shortened to “his stairs” and the

prepositional phrase “in that documentary” totally omitted. In the Finnish subtitles, the

vehicle with an idiomatic phrase “I’d built it up to be in my head” has been replaced by “I

imagined”, which has a similar meaning: something was not as good as the character had

expected.

4.1.1.3. Simile in English, but not in the Target Language

The translations in this group are literal, meaning that the same verb and vehicle are used as in

the original line. Due to the differences between the language structures, there is no

comparison marker in the translations. Most of the instances in this group contain a verb

suggesting a quality that can be sensed, i.e. “to sound” or “to look”. In the Swedish

translations, the comparison markers have been left out and in the Finnish ones, either the

ablative (-lta/-ltä) or allative (-lle) case is used. This category contains approximately one

12

tenth of the subtitles analysed (9.5 %), 11 of which are Finnish (14% of the Finnish instances)

and 4 Swedish (5%).

Example: He smelled like Drakkar.

SE: Han doftade Drakkar.

He smelled like Drakkar.

Example: The bride’s gonna look like a big white bag of crap.

FI: Morsian näyttää valkoiselta jätesäkiltä.

(The) bride looks like a white garbage bag.

The Swedish translation can be considered literal as it includes the same verb and vehicle as

the English one. The comparison marker “like” has been omitted, as it is not normally used

with the verb “dofta”. In the other example, the noun and the adjective “white” are used in the

ablative case (-lta/-ltä), which shows the Finnish reader what the predicative adverbial of the

sentence is. The allative case could also have been used, as the two are interchangeable in

these types of phrases.

4.1.2. Replacement of the Simile with a Metaphor

The translations that belong to this category have been shortened by leaving out the

comparison marker, turning them into metaphors. The vehicles in the sentences have

remained the same, although in some cases, the similarity features have been omitted. In this

group, the verbs are either literal translations from the target language or suggest a similar

meaning. There are 8 instances (5%) in this group: six Swedish, covering 7.5% of all the

Swedish translations, and two Finnish (2.5%).

Example: […] relationships are like a traveling circus.

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SE: De var […] en kringresande cirkus.

They were […] a traveling circus.

Example: […] act like a New Yorker.

FI: Ole newyorkilainen.

Be a New Yorker.

In the first example, the vehicle “a traveling circus” has remained literal, while the

comparison marker has been omitted. In the English dialogue, after a person has stated that

“relationships are like a freeway” his friend reminds him that he has earlier said that they “are

like a traveling circus.” In the translation, the former simile is translated literally, but the

latter, which belongs to this subcategory, has been shortened to a metaphor.

In the Finnish line, the comparison marker has also been left out and the verb changed to the

copula “be”. Despite the changes, the viewer can understand it to be similar to the original as

it is used with a description of what the person needs to be: “Act like a New Yorker. A pushy,

obnoxious knock-the-other-guy-down-and-take-his-hot-dog resident.”

4.1.3. Replacement of the Vehicle

In this category, the simile is retained with the same verb and comparison markers as in the

English line, but the vehicle referred to has been changed to a different one. There are two

Finnish (2.5%) and no Swedish instances in this group, meaning that only 1.25% of all the

subtitles considered were translated with this method.

Example: This is nothing like lobster.

FI: Tämä ei ole yhtään kuin ravut.

This is not at all like crayfish.

Example: […] you smell like daisies.

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FI: […] tuoksut kuin kukka.

[…] you smell like a flower.

It can be seen in the first example that the English vehicle “lobster” has been changed to

“ravut”, which means “crayfish” (plural) in Finnish. In the story line, a character, who was

not romantically interested in her friend earlier, starts flirting with the friend when she

understands that they cannot have a common future. This situation is compared to the day

when she learned that she is allergic to lobsters: she suddenly could not resist them. After this,

the word lobster has been replaced with the word “crayfish” in the subtitles consistently.

Although the image remains relatively close to the English one, as the two are both

crustaceans, there is a common word for lobsters in Finnish too and therefore, this translation

cannot be considered literal.

In the other instance, the vehicle “daisies” has been changed to its hypernym “flower”. The

sentence is the last part of a poem a child has made in the series: “You are pretty. You are

nice. – And you smell like daisies.” The actual Finnish word for daisies, “kaunokainen”,

could have possibly affected the meaning of the poem, as the word is often used in its other

meaning: “a beauty”. In comparison with the instances in the subcategory 1.3., where the

Finnish words were set in either the ablative or allative case after verbs suggesting sensing,

the Finnish vehicle “kukka” is in the nominative case here, because it is used with the

comparison marker “kuin”.

4.1.4. Rephrasing of the Simile

One pattern that was found in 17.5% of the translations was rephrasing the simile and often

even the whole sentence. This category has been divided into two subcategories, the first of

which includes only translations with simile phrases and the second one without.

4.1.4.1. With a Simile

All the translations in this subcategory include a simile, but they are rephrased and

constructed differently than the original lines. There is a total of 10 subtitle lines (6%) that

have been translated using this technique, half of which are in Swedish and half in Finnish.

Example: Who draws a ninja star like a Star of David?

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SE: Vems ninjastjärna ser ut som en davidsstjärna?

Whose ninja star looks like a Star of David?

Example: […] he’s as hot as his dad.

FI: […] hän on isäänsä komeampi.

[…] he is more handsome than his dad.

In the first example, the vehicle of comparison is the same “Star of David” in both languages,

but otherwise the sentence has been reconstructed. The verb “to draw” has been translated

into “to look” and the word “ninja star” is the subject of the sentence, and not the object as in

English. The question word in the beginning has also been changed from “who” to “whose” to

correspond with the rest of the sentence. The Finnish translation, on the other hand, uses the

same elements as the original line, but changes the meaning of the sentence: in the original,

the son is “as hot as his dad” and in the translation, he is “more handsome than his dad”.

4.1.4.2. Without a Simile

The translations in this subcategory have a different structure to the original lines and the

similes have been rewritten in non-figurative language. Of the total of 18 translations (11%)

in this group, four are in Swedish (5%) and 14 in Finnish (17.5%).

Example: It’s like you’re living in a Bennigan’s.

SE: […] det är rena Bennigan’s.

[…] it’s so Bennigan’s.

Example: Are you as sick of apologies as I am?

FI: Etkö jo väsy anteeksipyyntöihin?

Aren’t you getting tired of apologies already?

In the Swedish translation, the comparison marker and “you’re living at” have been left out

and the whole sentence has been rephrased as a statement that “it is so/totally Bennigan’s”.

This translation is possible due to the previous sentence “your place it too cluttered” that has

16

been literally translated into Swedish and therefore, the viewers are able to understand that the

characters are talking about the earlier mentioned “place” or apartment.

Unlike the Swedish simile translation, the Finnish example keeps its meaning close to the

source language, although the comparison has been omitted and the adjectival phrase “sick of

apologies” changed to a verb construction.

4.1.5. Omission of the Simile

In addition to rephrasing, as discussed above, three different stages of omitting similes were

found in the data: partial, total and omission of the whole clause. This category includes 13%

of the instances analysed, most of which are found in the first subcategory.

4.1.5.1. Partial Omission of the Simile

In this subcategory, the sentences are translated otherwise literally with the same verb,

similarity features and vehicle as in the original, but parts of the similes are left out. In most

cases, the omitted element is the vehicle, while the similarity features are retained. There are

nine Swedish and eight Finnish instances that belong to this subcategory, amounting to a total

of 10.5% of all translations.

Example: Sounds like she read that book […].

SE: Hon läste boken […].

She read the book […].

Example: I’m not as good a parent as you.

FI: En ole yhtä hyvä vanhempi.

I’m not as good a parent.

In the Swedish example both the verb and the comparison marker of the simile have been

omitted, so that the translation uses only the vehicle “she read the book”. The omission affects

the translation by erasing the uncertainty. Right after this line the characters start actually

17

discussing the possibility of the woman knowing of that book and the confirmation that the

book has been read by her is revealed later in the episode.

The Finnish translation represents the most common pattern in this subcategory, as it uses the

same verb and similarity feature as the original, but leaves out the vehicle in the end. There

were no qualities found that all these previously defined lines had in common, but in three of

them, the omitted vehicle was “as you want (it) to be”. In some of the lines with an omitted

vehicle the Swedish or Finnish word for “as” or “so” was used to give the viewer a hint of a

possible comparison, like in the Finnish example above.

4.1.5.2. Total Omission of the Simile

All lines in this subcategory are translated otherwise literally, but the similes have been left

out. Because there are only three instances (2%) in this subcategory, all of them are presented

below.

Example: […] we need to recreate the variables at the carousel as closely as

possible.

SE: […] [vi] måste […] återskapa stämningen vid karusellen.

[…] we must recreate the atmosphere at the carousel.

Example: Can we just talk face-to-face like normal people?

FI: Voitaisiinko puhua kasvotusten?

Could we talk face-to-face?

Example: […] I’m brave and bold like a knight.

FI: […] olen urhea.

[…] I’m brave.

In the first two instances, the omitted simile has been used as an adverbial phrase to describe

how something should be done. In the first example above, “as closely as possible” refers to

18

the attention to detail needed to “recreate the variables.” In the scene, this phrase is used when

a character acts like a lawyer, trying to help his friends resolve an argument. The other

instance, where “like normal people” is omitted, happens when a character wants to speak to

his friend using a holographic system. The friend, however, would like to “talk face-to-face

like normal people” instead. Here, the simile is used to stress that talking face-to-face is

normal and that is how he wants to do it. Like in the first example, the viewer understands

from the context how the action mentioned should be done: what a lawyer says is to be done

accurately and people normally talk face-to-face instead of using a hologram head.

The simile in the third example is used to describe how brave and bold the person speaking is.

In the show, the character is arguing that telling his girlfriend he loves her during their first

date showed that he is “brave and bold like a knight”. In the translation, the simile and the

latter adjective are omitted, and therefore, the emphasis on how brave the character thought he

was cannot be seen in the target language. However, the context (argument) and his

determined tone can help the viewers understand how he feels.

4.1.5.3. No Translation

There were no subtitles for the following English clauses, which represent 1.25% of all the

subtitles.

Example: […] he’s exactly as bad as we are.

SE: …

Example: […] she’s not as cool as you think she is.

FI: …

These two examples were the only instances with no translation into the target language. In

the first example, the phrase is a part of a longer line:

Original: 1: He’s as bad as we are. He is.

2: Wait, he’s exactly as bad as we are. You guys don’t think that James is in a

relationship?

Swedish: 1: Han är ju lika slö som vi är.

19

He is as lazy as we are.

2: Han är väl inte i ett förhållande?

He isn’t in a relationship, right?

The choice to omit the phrase “he’s exactly as bad as we are” can be due to its confirmative

purpose in the conversation. It is a repetition of the previous line with the word “exactly”

added, and it is used to confirm that the second person agrees with the first. It is also worth

noting that the discourse particle “ju” is used in the Swedish translation of the first line, which

indicates that the speaker expects common understanding from the other. The subtitles start

again after the omitted sentence, when a question is asked.

The Finnish example in this subcategory can be found at the end of a long line:

Original: 1 to 2: You just you haven’t been acting like a guy who’s about to get married,

and I know you think it’s okay because Robin’s so cool, but I’m telling you,

she’s not as cool as you think she is.

Finnish: 1 to 2: Et käyttäydy kuten sulhanen. Se ei näytä haittaavan, koska Robin on

upea. Mutta varoitan sinua.

You don’t act like a fiancé. It doesn’t seem to bother [you], because Robin is

magnificent. But I warn you.

This line is used when person 2, who is going to marry Robin, has been looking at other

women. His fiancée seems to have accepted it, because, according to him, “she’s so cool”. In

the line above, the best man wants to warn his friend. The beginning of the translation is

relatively similar to the original, although it has been notably shortened. However, the

meaning shifts from “cool (with something)” to “magnificent”, which is a translation that has

already been used earlier in the episode in a context where it does not affect the meaning.

Here, translating the last clause into “she’s not as magnificent as you think she is” would

mean that the woman is not as good as he thinks, instead of not liking what he does. This

omission does not necessarily affect one’s understanding of the line, as it is clearly stated that

the person 1 is warning his friend concerning his actions, while the context and scenes with

the fiancée show why.

20

4.2. Distribution

To answer how similes are translated in subtitles, 160 simile translations found in How I Met

Your Mother’s Netflix subtitles were analysed and divided into ten subcategories that belong

to five larger categories, as shown in 4.1. Out of these categories, the most common

translation technique found was literal (62.5%), which mainly consists of the most popular

subcategory word-for-word (48%). In this subcategory, the source and target texts share the

same elements and there are no notable changes in form or meaning. As seen in Figure 1

below, no other subcategory in this study includes even nearly as many instances, as the

second largest subcategory, rephrasing without a simile, covers 11% of the instances and the

third, partial omission, 10.5%.

Figure 1: Proportions of similes in the subcategories shown in percentages.

There are also differences between the languages; as seen in Figure 2 below, the word-for-

word method was used in more than half of the Swedish instances (45 of 80) but in only 32 of

the Finnish ones. This difference is offset by the seventh and third subcategories, which

mainly consist of Finnish lines. In the seventh, where all lines are rephrased without using a

simile, there are 14 Finnish and 4 Swedish instances. In the third subcategory, all translations

are literal, but do not include a simile. Most source lines in this subcategory contain an

48

59.5

51.5

611 10.5

2 1.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

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Literal Rephrasing Omission

Distribution of Similes

21

expression suggesting sensing, such as “to look like” or “to smell like” that are translated into

Finnish (11 instances) by using either the allative or ablative case, which do not count as

similes. Only 4 Swedish instances belong to this group, as some of these constructions have

retained the simile by using a comparison marker, while in some the comparison marker is

left out, both of which can be grammatically correct in certain expressions.

Figure 2: Distribution of the analysed similes based on the language and subcategory.

Another aspect of the differences between the Swedish and Finnish translations is how often

the translators have treated the same English lines similarly. In total, 34 of the 80 English

lines were translated into both Swedish and Finnish by using the same method. There were,

however, notable differences between the subcategories, as seen in Figure 3 below, where the

grey colour represents the Swedish and Finnish translations that were similar to each other.

For instance, the English line “it spreads like wildfire” was translated word-for-word into both

Swedish and Finnish and therefore, both of these translations are marked with grey in the

word-for-word category. On the other hand, the line “are you as sick of apologies as I am?”

was translated word-for-word into Swedish and by rephrasing it without a simile into Finnish,

meaning that the Swedish line was marked with blue in the former subcategory and the

Finnish line with black in the latter. The only subcategories where most lines have the same

45

5 4 6

05 4

9

1 1

32

3

11

2 25

14

8

2 1

05

101520253035404550

Wo

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Sim

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No

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Literal Rephrasing Omission

Distribution of Similes Based on the Language

Swedish Finnish

22

translation strategy used in both Swedish and Finnish are word-for-word and conversion of an

idiom to its sense. In the smallest subcategories, where a different vehicle, total omission or

no translation was used, there were no corresponding Swedish and Finnish translations.

Figure 3: Proportions of corresponding and different simile translations divided by subcategory.

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Wo

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Sim

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Literal Rephrasing Omission Total

Proportions of Corresponding and Unique

Translations

Only Swedish Only Finnish Both

23

5. Discussion

The purpose of this study has been to see how English similes are translated into Swedish and

Finnish in How I Met Your Mother and how the translations differ from each other. In this

section, the general findings will first be discussed in comparison to earlier research.

Thereafter, the focus will move on to the similarities and differences between the Swedish

and Finnish results by analysing and discussing the number of different kinds of instances in

both translations and by comparing when the translators chose to treat the same lines

similarly.

The findings of this study are mostly consistent with earlier research, which is especially

notable in the preference for literal translation. For example Ramli (2014) and Alshammari

(2016), who have both studied simile translations in novels, also found that literal translation

is the most common translation strategy. In Ramli’s study (2014), almost all the similes that

are not literally translated are reduced to their sense, which corresponds with the second

largest subcategory of this study, rephrasing without a simile. When analysing two different

translations of the same text, Alshammari’s (2016) found that in one of them, almost every

simile is literally translated, in contrast to the second, where other translation strategies have

also been used frequently. As presented in 4.2., the distribution of methods found in this study

is not as concentrated as in Ramli (2014) and in the first translation Alshammari (2016)

analysed, while it shows more preference towards literal translation than the second of

Alshammari’s translations. The differences can partially be explained with the different

media; in Netflix subtitles, lines cannot exceed 42 characters per line and the viewer must be

given enough time to read the translation (Netflix, Inc. 2017a; Netflix, Inc. 2017b). Therefore,

subtitles tend to be shorter than other translations, which can be achieved with methods such

as partial or total omission, rephrasing and converting idiomatic phrases to their sense. Other

likely reasons why there are some minor differences between this study and the earlier ones is

the different framework used here. Instead of dividing the findings into six groups as in the

earlier studies, they are divided into ten, which helps achieve a more encompassing view of

translating similes. For example, now it is possible to properly see to what extent a simile is

changed or omitted or if a simile construction is turned into a non-simile construction only

due to the grammatical differences between the languages. In addition. the sizes of these

studies do not compare, as there are 160 similes analysed in this study, which is more than the

total number of similes analysed in the above-named texts.

24

Interestingly, only 7 of all the similes have either been totally omitted or belong to a line that

has not been translated into the target language. In line with for instance Cacciari (1998: 120),

this suggests that similes have an important function in communication, although they have

occasionally been rephrased or replaced with a non-simile construction. In addition to the

obvious function of comparison, there are several distinct functions similes have that can be

seen in the data of this study. To give a few examples, a simile can function as a description

(it was like a human tapestry), an example (It’s like the dude in that documentary who kept

having women show up dead at the bottom of his staircase), tell how something is done (you

[…] sing just like a stroke victim) or play with words (Your sense of humor is as good as your

taste in art). Similes are sometimes used also for comical purposes, as they can link concepts

that do not normally appear together, creating unexpected and surprising pairs of comparison

(That would involve me speaking to a woman I've already had sex with, which, frankly, is a

little bit like changing the oil in a rental car).

There are, nevertheless, differences also within this study; as shown in Figure 2 in 4.2., most

Swedish lines were translated word-for-word (45 instances), while it was not as common in

Finnish (32 instances). This difference can be explained to some extent with Swedish being

related to English, which grammatically allows the same structure more often than with

Finnish. For example, the English sentence “The man-made island shaped like his face off the

coast of Dubai” is translated into Swedish with the same structure: “Konstgjord ö formad som

hans ansikte utanför Dubai” (Eng. An artificial island shaped like his face outside of Dubai),

whereas in Finnish, the word “shaped” (muotoinen) is used as an adjective attribute: “Dubain

rannikolle rakennettu, hänen naamansa muotoinen saari”, which would translate into English

as “Built off the coast of Dubai, an island shaped like his face” (lit. his face shaped island).

While there are more word-for-word translations for the Swedish lines, it is more common for

a Finnish line to have a literal translation without a simile construction. As shown in 4.1.1.3.,

this difference can be almost fully explained by the genetic relationship between the

languages, as most of these lines include a verb suggesting sensing, which usually cannot be

expressed the same way in Finnish as in English. In Swedish, however, these structures are

sometimes used. For example, expressions that refer to smelling with the verb “dofta” are

often written without “som” (like) in Swedish: “Han doftade Drakkar” (He smelled [like]

Drakkar), whereas with the verb “kännas” (to feel like) the comparison marker is retained:

“[Det] känns […] som att jag är otrogen” (It feels like I am unfaithful). There is also a notable

difference between the languages in the seventh subcategory, rephrasing the simile without a

25

simile, which consists of 14 Finnish and 4 Swedish instances, making it the second largest

subcategory. Reasons why this translation technique is relatively popular especially in the

Finnish subtitles may be for example wordplay in the English line that cannot be directly

translated into other languages: “[can it be] as hard as the desk you walked into?” and the

length or idiomaticity of the original line that lacks an equivalent in the target language: “I

seem like a total train wreck.” Due to Swedish being more similar to English than Finnish,

these kinds of structures can more often be retained in the translation. For example, “a total

train wreck” is translated into “ett totalt vrak” (a total wreck) in Swedish, while the Finnish

translation is “hirveä epäonnistuja” (a terrible loser).

As shown in Figure 3 in 4.2., most resemblance in the translation techniques occurs in the

first category, where most lines that have been translated word-for-word into one language,

have also been translated like that into the other. A likely reason for this is that these original

lines are rarely long, complex or culture-specific and they are perceived similarly in all three

languages. In the second subcategory, where idiomatic phrases are converted to their sense,

all the lines that have been translated into Swedish have also been translated into Finnish with

the same method. Here, the similar choices the translators have made can easily be explained

with the idioms in the original text that can only be used in English, such as in “It’s […] not

nearly as good as I’d built it up to be in my head”, which could cause misunderstandings if

translated literally into either of the target languages. Similarly, most English similes

translated into Swedish in the third subcategory have been translated into Finnish in the same

manner but not vice versa. This confirms that the English expressions in this category (i.e.

look like, sound like) can rarely retain the simile structure when translated into Finnish, and

only sometimes when translated into Swedish. In the categories that are not literal, the

translations are mainly unique, meaning the translators have used different methods

translating the lines. This can partly be explained with the small number of instances in them

and partly with the choices the translators have made, as there can be more than one (good)

translation for a line.

26

6. Conclusions

The findings of this study show a clear preference for literal translation of similes in How I

Met Your Mother in both Swedish and Finnish subtitles, although there are some differences

between the target languages. While simile expressions are sometimes shortened or rephrased,

they are rarely omitted due to their several communicative functions. These findings are

somewhat in line with earlier research, although it has been small in scale and has mainly

concentrated on simile translation in novels. As there are two language pairs and one series

covered in this study, these results cannot be fully generalised, meaning that more research is

needed in order to gain a clear understanding of how similes are subtitled. An interesting

aspect for further research would be to investigate how literal and nonliteral similes have been

translated in comparison to each other or if similes are treated similarly in other genres, such

as documentaries and children’s shows, as they are in this sitcom.

27

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