iPartment series were very popular in China, but it seems that they didn’t catch Vikians’ attention.
I have watched a few episodes of Season 4 and didn’t find them funny at all.
https://www.viki.com/tv/29017c-ipartment-season-4?q=iPartment
The subs just stopped at ep. 6.
Probably punch lines have fell flat through the translation. How regretful.
Is there any way to keep the humor when subbing comedies?
I mean… If the humor comes from puns, word-plays, funny names, things that sound like other things, jokes related to locations e.t.c., then there’s not much you can do.
Finding just the right type of translators could help but it’s still extremely hard.
At the end of the day, when a series is created for a specific group of people (Whether they are from China, Greece, America, Another Galaxy, Another Space, Another Time - you get the point 
) , you can’t really blame anyone if the humor is literally lost in translation.
Thank you and I understand what you mean, of course.
Just curious.
Friends and The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broken Girls all win broad audience in other countries, as I know, South Korea, China, Japan and viewers do laugh a lot watching them. Is it because American sitcoms have more universal humors? But humors from C-sitcoms are too region specific or something?
As for rendering humors, I usually do literal translation. That’s may not be a good solution, I don’t know…
Literal translation is not necessarily bad, as long as it’s still funny.
American sitcoms usually joke about everyday things, about things that people have at least heard of (Cities, Buildings, Games, Movies, The Kardashians 
) and they don’t really use very complicated expressions (in my opinion). Plus they do have the audience laugh in the background which helps.
This is not the case with comedies from other countries. Take this for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqzrAMWunGI
If you don’t speak Greek, it looks like 2 nuns talking to an old guy. If you DO speak Greek, you are rolling on the floor laughing. Even if you had subtitles, a lot of jokes would go past you, since they talk about places in Greece and they use phrases/expressions that can’t be translated.
Humour can be of different kinds:
1. Visual gags. As seen most prominently in mute cinema of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Stanley and Ollie. Universally understood even with zero dialogues.
2. Wordplay, puns and reference to local people, places etc. Such as primarily found in variety shows, either in theatrical stage or on TV. Political satire of local prominent figures and political parties falls into that category. Difficult to understand by other people.
3. Sitcom = situation comedy. This kind of comedy comes from the situation the characters are in. Thus it is much more universally understood. It does not depend on language. If there is a man with a woman in bed and there is the sound of the key, the husband is coming unexpectedly from his trip, and the lover hides under the bed, it’s comical no matter what the country.
There are also shows that while still in the “Comedy” category, they aren’t exactly “funny” in a conventional way.
Take Parks and Recreation for example. It’s an American “comedy” that earned a lot of awards and very good reviews. Personaly, I couldn’t even watch the entire first episode. I found it too… hm… silly?
I liked it and was sorry when it ended. Not as much as Office, The Nanny or Friends, but still I did like it a lot. And I found that, although it was not “only” a comedy, it was funny in a very conventional way. There were weird characters, each one with his own “madness” and absurdity. The workaholic female lead, the grumpy elder colleague, the punkish-Goth girl who slowly found her way and her relationship with the shoeshine musician guy. The feat was that they were endearing. Of course there were caricatures, like the Indian guy - but it’s not useful to get into details since you haven’t watched it. Let’s say it grows on you.
Had you watched “Family Ties” (1982-1989)? Nah, you must be too young for that. It was amazing, and the comedy was very much about the characters than the situations. Or rather, the characters make the situations. There was this couple of liberal ex-hippies, and their teenage son was a super-conservative. So you see, everything we think about normal family dynamics was turned upside down.