Why is ‘sergeant’ translated by eg brigadier in series like Frost, Morse, Rebus and Lewis?

Dear Louis,

When it comes to degrees in the police force, our word “sergeant” is not a correct translation of the English “sergeant”.

This pair of words is a variant of what translators call “false friends”: two words in two different languages ​​that are very similar, but do not have the same meaning. The word “pink”, for example, occurs in both languages ​​but refers to a color (pink) in English and to the smallest finger in Dutch.

Although there is a partial overlap with the word “sergeant” — it denotes a rank in the army in both languages ​​– it is not used in Dutch for a rank in the police force. That is why the translator has to look for an equivalent: that is translating. If he just took over the word “sergeant”, Lewis (in the original Morse sequence) would suddenly appear to the Dutch-speaking viewers as an army petty officer instead of a policeman!

The same goes for “lieutenant”: the English counterpart “lieutenant” is used for a rank in the US police force, but in our language the word only denotes a rank in the military.

In the context of police matters, Van Dale prescribes exactly the translation used in subtitles for both words (respectively “brigadier” and “inspector”). It could be that those translations are outdated — is “brigadier” actually still used in the Belgian police? — but taking the English words literally is certainly not correct.

Incidentally, when watching TV with subtitles, we constantly hear something different from what we read: that is a mental trick that we have mastered particularly well in our language area (French or Germans, who usually see dubbed versions, have it there probably much more difficult). So it shouldn’t be a problem. For example, according to your reasoning, you could demand that the English “pencil” in the subtitles be translated as “paintbrush” (another bunch of fake friends) instead of “pencil”. Or protest that the viewer hears “how do you do” but reads “how are you”. But that’s not a problem, is it? Only when the translator has the choice between two equally correct translations can the sound similarity be a decisive argument.

Things are somewhat different for ‘inspector’: I think that could easily be translated with the word ‘inspector’, which also denotes a police degree in our country.