#... on the specific people involved. But also gender can be complex and nuanced and strange without involving maleness

[rasairui]

Post: gender identity is complicated and everyone has their own unique relationship with it. Presentation does not equal gender and not everyone likes strict labels!

Me: Yeah! True! This is great so far please don't turn this into-

Post: I will now use this as an excuse to obsessively list every possible way in which a lesbian ends up with a man. I will equate butches and gnc women to men, completely missing my own point when I said presentation doesn't equal gender. Also being transmasc is always the same as being male aligned btw. I'm going to find a way to fit dissociative identity disorder into this for some reason. I'm also going to be really condescending and talk like no lesbian has ever understood the concept of gender noncomformity, ambiguity and complex relationships to gender. No, I never talk this way about gay men and nblm why do you ask

[skammovistarplus]

Culture and Translation - S01 E01 C01-05

Welcome to the first post in what a I hope is a series of thorough cultural and linguistic explanations. I’ve had a lot of fun learning about other cultures from other Skam remakes, and I’m seriously looking forward to sharing Spanish high school culture with people abroad. 

This first post was getting pretty long, so I decided to stop with clip 5. There should be a second part coming at some point. 

General notes:

All of the characters pepper their speech with discourse markers. You can read up on those at the link, but they are words and phrases that, generally, don’t change the meaning of the sentence. Some of the most typical discourse markers in English are: oh, well, now, then, you know, I mean. By contrast, these are some of the discourse markers the characters use: pues, es que, bueno, eh, a ver.

Even though they have no real value at the meaning level because they don’t change the meaning of the sentence, I have tried to include as many discourse markers as possible. The main reason I’ve done that is because the characters are teenagers, and teen slang commonly uses a lot of discourse markers (see: Valleyspeak). The second reason is that they add nuance to a scene or a character. The more chill a character is in a certain scene, the more discourse markers they will use. And vice versa.

Ciao: I have opted to translate all instances of “chao” as ciao. As in English, “chao” is an Italian loanword, which origin is ciao. “Chao” is a common usage word, in that it’s not perceived as Italian by Spanish speakers. However, the way it sounds is recognizable to English speakers as ciao. I’ve decided to keep it, instead of using something else like bye. Spanish speakers already have many other ways of saying bye, so I find it pointless to translate “chao” as something else when English speakers already understand what it means from sound alone.

As happened in the OG and many of the remakes, the characters use a lot of English loanwords. Chalk this up to American cultural imperialism. By the way, I find it strange that people have no issues with the European characters peppering their speech with English loanwords, but seem to think the Austin characters peppering their speech with Spanish loanwords is unrealistic. Texas used to be part of Mexico, for one, and for two, they use Spanish loanwords because it’s part of their upbringing, their characters, and the culture they live in. Just something I thought I should note.

The characters swear, and swear often. Spanish people of all ages swear as often as the characters in Skam do. I will get to each specific swear word as it comes up.

CLIP 1: Last day of summer vacation

Bachilller/Bachillerato: Already wrote about it on Twitter. Bachillerato, or Baccalaureate or Upper Secondary School, is a type of schooling that prepares students for university. It consists of two grades: first and second. Eva, and all the characters born in 2002, are starting Bachillerato this year.

There are five kinds of Bachillerato tracks: International, Arts, Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences. Not every high school offers all five tracks, which is why some students will transfer to a different high school for a specific track.

Most Spanish high schools offer both the Mandatory Secondary Education (or ESO) program and the Baccalaureate program. This is why some of the characters are new to the school, while others have been going to the school for years.

“Hostia,” which I translated as shit, is an extremely common Spanish swear word. It literally means sacramental bread, as in the one used for the ritual of the Eucharist. I’m not completely sure how it evolved from a religious word to a swear word. I posted a theory on twitter that it might’ve happened when people started saying, “te voy a dar una hostia,” to mean, “I’m going to slap the shit out of you.” “Hostia,” as in the swear word, means either a hard slap on the face, or serves the same purpose that “shit” does in English.

I can’t tell wtf Eva is eating in this scene. I think it’s some kind of bread sticks, or possibly these.

CLIP 2: Boy squad two seasons early

“Mierda como un piano,” which I translated as A PILE OF SHIT, literally means, “a piece of crap as large as a grand piano.” I thought the expression I used did the trick.

“Urbanización,” the housing complex where Hugo lives, can either mean a rowhouse complex, where each house has many stories, or an apartment complex, where there are two or more apartments in each story. Either of these can feature, as a perk, a pool for the exclusive use of the residents. It’s not made clear whether Hugo’s family owns a rowhouse or an apartment.

“Se me fue la puta pinza” literally means, “the fucking clothespin slipped away from me.” Not too sure about the origin of this expression, lol. I translated it as, “it slipped out of my damn mind.”

This was the first, and so far, the only appearance of the boy squad. As far as I know, this hasn’t been confirmed anywhere, but I believe this is the boy squad we will see in season 3, should we get that far. I believe Hugo is the Magnus expy, while Dilan is the Mahdi expy. Anyway, I am a big og boy squad fan, and I really liked the boys’ dynamics in this clip. I really, really enjoy that Lucas is so loud and talks over everyone. I don’t necessarily think this is a departure from Isak. In my opinion, he’s just in a good mood in this clip, for reasons that shall become clearer as the season unfolds. He’s definitely more low-key in clip 1.

CLIP 3: Ye olde bait-and-switch

Already covered the stuff about Baccalaureate tracks. Lara transferred to this high school because they offer the Arts track, which was not offered at the school where she did Mandatory Secondary Education.

“Delegado de clase” is a concept I translated as class president, although I’ve seen other fansubs that use “delegate.” I initially wanted to use class representative, but it seemed like class president is more understandable to English speakers. I’ll go into a little more detail about this role: in Spanish schools, students are assigned to groups of about 30 kids, which remain more or less stable through every class period. We’re already familiar with this through og Skam, where Even says to Isak that he’s in 3STB. In Skam España, a character would say they are in 1ºA. 1º means first, and 2º means second. A would be the letter assigned to that specific group. Lara and other students in the Arts track will take different courses, but join the bigger group for most courses. This is the reason Lara only meets Eva at 11:30, rather than in first period.

Anyway! Unlike the United States, where the Sophomore class president will represent all Sophomores, class presidents or “delegados” only represent the lettered group they belong to. These class presidents act as a go-between students and teachers/the school. As Lucas and Lara explain, this is a job most Spanish students would rather not deal with. However, if there are two or more people in the running, it becomes a popularity contest. Therefore, if someone has a history of being an outcast at school, they might run on purpose for validation.

“Marrón” and the superlative form “marronazo” literally mean “brown” or “big brown.” I kind of suspect this word might have its origin in the color of poop, because of course. That said, a “marrón” is something annoying that you have to deal with. Hence, pain in the ass.

CLIP 4: Eva’s mom is at the hospital

I’m checking the subbed episode now, so I’m seeing some of the finetuning I did when we went from subbing clips to subbing full episodes didn’t make it to the final edit. I’ll deal with that at some point.

Anyway. Eva’s mom is most likely a doctor or a nurse. The literal translation of what she says would be, “I’m going to the hospital!” Of course, that line, as is, in English, would come across as hugely alarming, lol. The translation I eventually decided on was, “I’m going for a shift at the hospital!”

When Eva’s mom says she sees that Eva is online, she means that she can see Eva is online on Whatsapp. That means that Eva’s mom is also checking Whatsapp as she’s going out the door!

CLIP 5: Russefeiring a la española

Viri is an INCREDIBLY weird way of shortening the name Elvira. Spanish people are more likely to shorten names by using the first couple syllables in a name, not the last two. For a long while, fans were stumped as to what was Viri’s full name. Some of the guesses were Virginia and Viridiana.

That said, it’s not surprising that Viri prefers to have a cute nickname. Elvira would sound fairly plain to a teenager’s ears.  

This is as good a moment as any to deal with the “tío/tía” stuff. Translated literally, “tío” and “tía” mean uncle and aunt. We definitely use these words to refer to our actual uncles and aunts, too.  But we also, consistently and across all age groups, use them to address or refer to literally anyone. “Tío” and “tía” are fairly casual, so you’ll generally want to be peers to address someone as such, but in conversation with someone else, a Spanish person will refer to any one person as “tío” or “tía.” It can be your best friend. It can be someone you just met. It can be your teacher. It can be your boss. It can be the prime minister. It can be your mailman.

I have opted to translate the instances of “tío” and “tía” as (the, to me, gender neutral) dude, for the most part. So Jorge can call Eva dude, and it’s just a friendly way of addressing her, no other connotations. That said, there are instances where I’ve preferred to translate “tía” as girl, such as when Viri tells Lara that there are a lot of things she wants people to get involved in. I feel that there’s a nuance to that “tía” in which Viri is trying to come across as open and friendly to Lara, in a way that is specific to women wanting to be friends with other women. So, for that particular instance, I chose girl. In general, if the subs say “girl,” but you’re clearly hearing “tía,” it means that there’s a specific nuance to the dialogue that makes it relevant that the person addressed or being talked about is a woman. Otherwise, it’s dudes straight down the line.

Eva doesn’t mind being late to Maths. Slacker.

As Viri has noted, she too is a new transfer to the school. Meanwhile, it seems like Cris has gone to this school for years. At least, she seems to have her own circle of friends/acquaintances.

Class trip as substitute for russefeiring. In Spain, my experience has been that class trips are organized by the school, for all the students in a specific grade. They have designated victims, a.k.a. teachers, who travel with the students and are responsible for the well-being of hormone-ridden semi-domesticated teenage forces of nature. These trips have a set price per student, which the parents pay for. That said, the school will organize fundraising events, so that the price per student is lowered. These trips are not mandatory, students sign up for them. In my case, I went to Mallorca on a class trip when I was 14. By the time I got to Baccalaureate, neither I nor my friends were very interested in hanging out with people from our year, so we didn’t sign up.

In the universe of Skam España, it looks like students can’t give two fucks about class trips, and so the school has ceased organizing them. Therefore, Viri has taken it upon herself to organize a class trip, whatever it takes. I don’t REALLY mind it, but it’s definitely not how class trips work in Spain. I’m not sure to what extent parents would be comfortable having their school aged kids go off on their own somewhere. I will write more about this when we get to the meeting clips, though.