Movies Lost in Translation Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ungwatsi

"The Gods Must Be Crazy" won two awards: Most Popular Film of the Montreal World Film Festival of 1983 and Best Foreign Film of the Young Artists awards of 1985. Ungwatsi is a language of "clicking sounds" spoken in parts of Southern Africa, where the movie is set.

Answer: Khmer

"The Killing Fields" won three Oscars: Best Supporting Actor for Haing Ngor, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It is set in Cambodia during the ruinous rule of Pol Pot. Khmer is the official language of Cambodia and is spoken by approximately 16 million people.

Answer: Swedish

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" won a BAFTA award for Best Film not in the English Language. Swedish is the largest of the North Germanic languages, spoken by 9 million people. Speakers of Swedish can understand and be understood by speakers of Norwegian and Danish.

Answer: Maya

"Apocalypto" won no major national awards, but did win some regional film awards. The movie is set in Central America in the time immediately before European conquest. Maya is an ancient language that is still spoken by over 800,000 people in Mexico and Belize.

Answer: Portuguese

"City of God" is set in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, the largest Portuguese-speaking nation in the world. Portuguese is spoken by over 10 million people in its native country of Portugal, but by over 202 million in Brazil and by over 24 million in each of the countries of Mozambique and Angola.

Answer: Aramaic

A controversial film by director Mel Gibson, "The Passion of the Christ" depicts the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ. Aramaic has a recorded history of over 3000 years and is the basis of many other languages. Today, Aramaic is considered an endangered language and is spoken mainly by small and isolated groups of people.

Answer: Maori

"The Piano" won three Oscars: Best Actress for Holly Hunter, Best Supporting Actress for Anna Paquin and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. The film is set in New Zealand, land of the Maori people, where a 2006 survey concluded that about 4% of the population could hold an conversation in Maori.

Answer: Hawaiian

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a romantic comedy involving a jilted boyfriend escaping to Hawaii, only to find his erstwhile love also vacationing there with her new beau. In 2001, only 0.1% of the population of Hawaii, around 2000 people, spoke Hawaiian; by 2008, that number rose to over 24,000 as the result of an intense effort to teach the language to preschoolers and others.

Answer: Korean

The original "Red Dawn" (1984) featured Russian invaders of the U.S.; the 2012 remake updated the threat to Koreans. True to the divided countries of North and South Korea, each nation speaks a different form of Korean. About 80 million people worldwide are native speakers of Korean.

Answer: Afrikaans

Although nominated for five Oscars, "Blood Diamond" won none. Set in central Africa, the hero and many others are white South Africans, with Afrikaans as their native language. Afrikaans derives from Dutch, spoken by the colonizers of South Africa, and also includes words from Portuguese, Malay, German and African native languages.