I’m mainly talking about watching a TV show or movie that’s originally in English enabling subtitles that’s either in Spanish, German, Russian, Finnish, etc. and can mistakes in translation still occur? I recall watching Lie to Me with Japanese subtitles during a scene involving an interrogation but a key word within the dialog was not translated correctly based on context.
For example, the protagonist said “You’re an accessory for murder” towards the suspect but subtitles used the wrong word choice 小物 (which means “accessories” as in small goods, i.e. stationery or trinkets) when the intended meaning for “accessory” from that context leans more on being a conspirator (共犯者 or 共謀) of a crime (like as in aiding the criminal).
Of course mistakes happen, but I think it’s pretty rare so you do notice when it happens.
Have you seen live translations? It’s really cool how they keep up. Maybe nowadays it’s done with an LLM, but at least back in the day subtitles could be written live if they didn’t have an interpreter for the hearing impaired. My guess is it was made with some shorthand-keyboard.
Translators can either go strictly translating the sentences, or change them quite a bit to make a joke, double entendre or clue still work in the context of the movie. The latter can feel jarring if you know both languages but I think are actually the better made translation, because they take the whole piece into consideration and not just the words.
Something I find rather funny is when they translate a title from english to english. For example Miss Congeniality is translated to Miss Undercover, Miss Detective, Miss Agent and Miss Secret Agent in different countries.