Spotted: “Inside Steve’s Head”

Nicole Martinelli ()

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Came across the Italian edition of CoM founder Leander Kahney’s book on Steve Jobs (“Inside Steve’s Brain“) the other day in a shop in Milan.

The title in Italian has been translated as “Inside Steve’s Head.” Perhaps the idea of being in his brain was considered a little too graphic?

It looks like the Spanish edition took the same route…Curious to see if there are any other differences in title translations, if you spot any, let me know…

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About the author

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Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmauro Roberto Mauro

    It has been translated as “Nella testa di Steve Job’s” ’cause in Italy, Brain and Head are often used as synonymous.

  • http://www.behindtherabbit.com/ Cristiano Maria Gaston

    Hi folks,

    Yes, in italian a literal translation sounds like a splatter movie title or a neurology essay ;-)

    I’m surprised that most italian newspapers published an article about this book. Since the birth of the iPod, Jobs has become more and more familiar to the italian press (he and Apple were absolutely nothing before that, totally not-considered despite a quite good market share). News about him and Apple became even more accurate (meaning that now at least sometimes they are correct).

    Previous books by Kahney are translated in italian too, but this is the first time that I see Jobs considered as a public figure, well known by the readers (and the book to be more than something for geeks).

  • Merve

    I’ve bought Turkish version a few days ago. It’s translated as “How to be Steve Jobs”. I have no idea why they did it this way.

  • Ignas

    https://www.level.lt/lt/knygos/apple-smegenys-steveo-jobso-verslo-paslaptys/

    looks like all european editions of the book took the same route.
    this is a lithuanian one, title in english would sound smth like “brain of apple: business secrets of steve jobs”. Plus a little coincidence – book’s publisher is called “apple” too.

  • http://www.4en6.eu Cesare

    Hi, I’m italian,
    the translation is correct because in italian “the brain” is a anatomic part.
    “nella testa” mean what the Steve think.

    Bye
    Cesare

  • Joseph

    “Curious to see if there are any other differences in title translations, if you spot any, let me know.”

    From any language to any other language, translating each word literally will result in a really poor translation.

  • Jorge Viani

    In Brazil, they let go this idea of inside his mind and the tittle is simply “The Head Of Steve Jobs”: http://www.submarino.com.br/produto/1/21426791/cabeca+de+steve+jobs,+a

  • XabiK

    Hi! I’m a frequent spanish reader of ‘Cult of Mac’

    Spanish edition of “Inside Steve’s Brain” took the same route as the italian one: “En la cabeza de Steve Jobs” can be translated as “Inside Steve’s Head”; but spanish title it’s a correct translation: in spanish, talking about ‘head’ also refers to ‘ideas’ (I’ll bet it’s the same on italian: spanish and italian have same roots)

    P.S.: spanish edition also has a subtitle: “La mente detrás de Apple”=”The mind behind Apple”

  • Cment

    or maybe there just isn’t any figure of speech “inside x’s brain” in italian and spanish?

  • http://paviamac.altervista.org/http://arsconvivium.altervista.org/ riccardoCHEF

    I’m Italian and I’m reading the italian edition of this book!! it’s fine!! I like that!! In Italy we consider “Testa” just like head but like brain too!! it’s not to much different! it’s a figurative spoken lenguage!!
    bye
    Riccardo Carnevali
    chairman of ArsConvivium http://arsconvivium.altervista.org/
    kitchen professor at secondary italian school
    Journalist Publicist
    member and councilor of local journalism association Assorolandi http://www.assorolandi.it/
    secretair of italian cooks federation
    CEO of PaviaMACgroup http://paviamac.altervista.org/

  • staaf

    who cares?

  • Moyzes

    …and here in Brazil the publishers took: A Cabeça de Steve Jobs, or “Steve Jobs’s Head”. Without the “Inside”. Head, not brain. It’s nonsense.

  • http://emilcar.es emilcar

    The translation into spanish is perfect because in our language, getting into the head of somebody means trying to understand his way of thinking, while getting into the brain of somebody is only allowed to surgeons like Derek Shepherd :-)

  • Tonio

    Translations are seldom done word to word as expressions vary from language to language. For example in my mother tongue being inside someone’s brain would not work because nobody says it that way. We’re in someone’s head in Finland unless we’re doing brain surgery. Most likely it’s the same thing in Italian and Spanish then.

  • http://macbookwhite.wordpress.com Alexandre Costa e Silva

    In portuguese as well, it was translated to “A Cabeça de Steve Jobs” or “The head of Steave Jobs”, it would sound in english as “the mind …”, meaning what he thinks. In a literal translation, people would think it would be about his actual brain, the anatomic part.