Squid Game Subtitles Accused Of ‘Botched Translation’

A TikTok user has revealed that the subtitles on the smash-hit Netflix show Squid Game are ‘so wrong’, giving examples of what they regard as a ‘botched translation’.

In a video uploaded to their popular TikTok channel, comedian @youngmimayer – who speaks fluent Korean – claimed Netflix has ‘botched’ some of the subtitles, starting things off by focusing on the dialogue of Han Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryoung), aka Player 212.

According to @youngmimayer, ‘her dialogue constantly gets botched’, adding, ‘every little thing she says gets f*cked up’. They believe this is because she is portrayed as a ‘low-class character’ who ‘cusses a lot’, meaning her dialogue gets ‘very sterilised’.

Check it out below:

Giving one example, @youngmimayer points to a scene where Mi-nyeo asks ‘what are you looking at?’ which is translated as ‘go away’ in the subtitles. Even if such translations work within the story, it would appear we aren’t getting the dialogue as it was originally intended, taking away from important themes.

As explained by @youngmimayer, this mistranslation means we aren’t getting the character of Mi-nyeo in her entirety. For instance, in one scene where she is trying to convince others to play the game with her, Mi-nyeo says, ‘I am very smart, I just never got the chance to study’.

This ends up getting translated as, ‘I’m not a genius, but I still got it worked out’, completely changing the tone of the scene and taking away a telling piece of character development.

According to @youngmimayer:

That is a huge trope in Korean media. The poor person that’s smart and clever and just isn’t wealthy. That’s a huge part of her character.

[…] The writers, all they want you to know about her is that. It seems so small, but it’s the character’s entire purpose of being in the f*cking show!