9 Messages

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224 Points

Thursday, August 13th, 2026

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translating non-english titles

I've been editing documentaries, many of which have only a non-english title.  I want to add a translation, though I'm not sure there's ever been an English version released for some of them.  But I would think that most people would find it helpful even though an English version does not exist.  Does this go against ImDB standards?  

So I've been going to "Alternative Titles" in the edit menu, then i select "International:  english title" and under attribute, "alternative title".  There is no attribute option for "translated title" - though there is "transliterated title" and "alternative transliteration" but that's a different thing than translation.  What attribute would I choose? 

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9 Messages

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224 Points

2 hours ago

OK, after looking at the Title help section, I think I'd make the attribute either "informal literal English title" or "informal English title" or "literal English title"

Champion

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1.4K Messages

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56.9K Points

1 hour ago

Hi, musicglenn:

I don't doubt your good intentions, and I'm sure what you want to do could be helpful to a lot of people, but I don't think the “Alternate Titles” section is intended for that purpose.

If someone wants to translate an original title into English, they can use any online tool. Otherwise, applying the same logic, I could submit Spanish informal translations on the grounds that Spanish is the fourth most widely spoken language in the world, or Chinese and Indian colleagues could do the same in their languages, since they are the second and third most widely spoken languages, respectively.

Just my two cents.

9 Messages

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224 Points

True, but IMDB is primarily an English language site, so therefore, English.  As I commented, a better attribute could be either "informal literal English title" or "informal English title" or "literal English title"

(edited)

Champion

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1.4K Messages

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56.9K Points

IMDB is primarily an English language site, so therefore, English.

True, so maybe all of us non-English-speaking contributors should stop contributing to the site and head off to others that cater to our particular tastes...

I've been trying for years (and the bigwigs here know this all too well) to get my country to recognize and adopt IMDb as its go-to Spanish-language movie site—as opposed to Filmaffinity, which dominates here—only for us to now revert to IMDb's outdated, Anglo-centric concept.

Again, that's just my opinion, but in the meantime, you must follow the site's rules, just like any other contributor, whether you're an English speaker or not, and the rules clearly state this: authentic titles that have been publicly used ("títulos genuinos que se hayan utilizado de manera pública").