Why are the title of Indian films being translated to English? What is the purpose?

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Padma Iyer

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Posted 2 years ago

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Vincent Fournols

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Hi Padma,

I know the issue has been mentioned in several topics on this forum recently, but could you please provide a set of examples?
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Padma Iyer

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Sure... Deewar renamed as The Wall, Zanjeer renamed as Chains, Chupke Chupke renamed as Hush Hush and even the recent release Sui Dhaaga has been renamed as Needle & Thread!!!

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Padma Iyer

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And these are just four of several that have been changed.

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Vincent Fournols

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OK, thanks (even though it would have been better to provide the IMDb links ;)

Let's wait for IMDb staff to response.
Meanwhile you can still edit (back) the ones you have found.
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gromit82, Champion

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Padma: I think that you may be having the translated titles display for you as an option -- as opposed to those translated titles being the official, main IMDb titles for the films. Please check your own account settings at https://www.imdb.com/preferences/general. What do you have selected as the "Title display country/region" and the "Title display language"?

If you have a country such as "USA" selected for the "Title display country/region", try changing that setting to "Original" instead. 

Also, please confirm whether you are using the full IMDb site or a mobile site/app.
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Vincent Fournols

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Hi Gromit,

I confirm I have the titles displayed as mentioned by Padma, my country/language setup being France/french (Website).
Moreover, several Indian contributors have mentioned this issue within other GS topics recently.
My "intuition" would be that another contributor is editing the original Hindi titles to (or registering the movies with) English titles, thinking it fits an English speaking websites, unaware of the original title rule.
(Edited)
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Michelle, Official Rep

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Hi Vincent -
Since there are no France/French Alternative title listings for these titles, I suspect this is why you are seeing the US/English titles by default.  I'm checking with the applicable team to confirm if this is the case.  Once I get confirmation I will let you know here.
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Vincent Fournols

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Hi Michelle,

I do not think so. I come across many movie pages without French title, with world wide (English) title, and I get the original language displayed, may it be German, Korean, Spanish, Chinese... And it suits me fine.

Anyway, I will doublecheck tonight on such occurrences.

BTW, I have noticed for these Indian movies that the English title bears the (IMDb display ) attribute, when the Hindi ones get (Hindi title) attribute.
(Edited)
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Michelle, Official Rep

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Hi Padma -

By default you will see titles listed in the language used for release in your country (i.e. US-based users will see films listed under the title used for the North American release, while users browsing the site from France will see titles as they appeared on the French release of those movies etc.)
As gromit82 mentioned above, you can set your title display preference in your Site Preferences under the "Title Display Country" and "Title Display Language" drop-down menus ( i.e. India and Hindi) and click "Submit" to save your changes.  Cheers!