The French singers are Emmylou Homs (Anna) and Anaïs Delva (Elsa). Their casting department also did a great job finding vocal matches for Kristen Bell (Anna) and Idina Menzel (Elsa). Whoever Disney got to do the French translations for “Frozen” (or as it’s titled in French, “La Reine des Neiges” ) is an absolute wordsmith. Sometimes it works to the detriment of the piece. It’s nearly impossible to do a literal translation, meaning word-for-word, so sometimes you have to get a little poetic to make it work. My friend Koji translates musicals for a living and he works very hard at it. That’s a tough job – especially when you’re dealing with an English to translation. Foreign language translation of song lyrics is very difficult – you’re restricted by rhythms and rhymes in addition to the gargantuan task of trying to convey the original intent of the original lyricist. Tonight I started listening to some of the foreign language recordings of the film’s soundtrack and I was struck by how beautiful the lyrics are in other languages. The World in Words podcast is on Facebook and iTunes.Two versions of artwork for Disney’s “La Reine des Neiges” (“Frozen”).Īre you sick of reading about “Frozen” on my blog? Well…sorry…I’m about to write some more. It wouldn't have taken much to have had "Let it Go" recorded in say, Zulu or Yoruba, and included in the multilingual mash-up. Given that dissatisfaction, the release of this song seems like a missed opportunity. Before the release of "Frozen," a Tumblr called This Could Have Been Frozen re-imagined Elsa the Snow Queen as black, Tibetan, Mongolan, Iniut and other ethnicities. And you have a magical day.”)ĭisney, of course, has long been criticized for its preference for white-skinned heroines. (One Disney representative did say to me as she connected me to a colleague's voicemail, “Thank you, Sir. I contacted Disney to ask why they ignored such a huge part of the world. Between them, these two regions acccount for for more than 3,000 of the world's languages. (Interestingly, there is no Brazilian Portuguese, or for that matter, British English.)įrom Africa there's. And from the Americas, Latin American Spanish and Canadian French. Regular Dutch is also included, as well as Serbian (but not Croatian), Bulgarian and many more.ĭanish is represented too - appropriately enough, given that "Frozen" is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Snow Queen."įrom Asia, there's Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian and Thai. Seventeen of the languages are European, including some that are not exactly widely spoken - Catalan, for example, and the dialect of Dutch spoken by the Flemish of Belgium.
![frozen song in french frozen song in french](https://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00dJLtolVgfSuB/Automatic-Frozen-French-Fries-Potato-Chips-Making-Machine.jpg)
The song opens with a line in English, followed by French, German and Dutch. This is the Epcot World Showcase of songs: a trip around the linguistic world - or at least the one according to Disney. It sounds global and inclusive, but most of the languages are European.
#FROZEN SONG IN FRENCH MOVIE#
Disney has released a version of the Oscar-nominated song "Let it Go" from the animated movie Frozen that includes lyrics sung in 25 languages.