Exploring Translation Strategies in Romantic Movie Titles on IMDB (2020–2024): A Pedagogical Approach to Enhancing Students’ Translation Skills in Thai Context

This research examines the different strategies employed in translating the titles of romantic movies released between 2020 and 2024 that fall within the IMDb rating range of 5.0 to 10.0. 46 movie titles were purposively selected to examine how translators adjusted globalized Thai contents within the Thai language and culture. These movie titles were released on Netflix, True ID, SF Cinema, and Prime. The study implements a quantitative methodology to analyze the strategies in terms of their use and allocation. Among the strategies applied, “naming a new name regardless of the old name” was the most popular option, being used 32.61% of the time. “All transliteration and adding Thai language” came in second, at 15.22%. The strategies “partial translation and adding Thai language” and “naming a new name based on the original meaning” each represented 10.87%. “All translations and adding Thai language” was 8.70% of the total. Other strategies, such as “transliteration and adding Thai language and partial transliteration without adding Thai language,” contributed to 4.35% each as well. The strategies used the least were “partial transliteration and adding Thai language” and “partial translation without adding Thai language,” both at 2.17%. This suggests that the translators' primary concern is the Thai audience, who strongly prefer culturally adapted transliterated titles. The integration of teaching materials that are geographically relevant, culturally important, and genre-specific, such as the titles of romantic movies, is very important for translation instruction. Students' understanding of translation and intercultural awareness is advanced as they engage, think critically, and analyse tone, sentiment, and cultural subtleties in the titles. This specific approach to a genre encourages students to creatively and assertively address the challenges involved in cultural mediation. This expands the teaching of translation and intercultural understanding. By nurturing the innovative transcreation and intercultural sensitivity in teaching, the Thai students in translation attain educational communicative competence.