The aim of this paper is to investigate how Italian and Spanish fansubbers cope with the
translation of intertextuality in order to exploit others’ experience in translation teaching
practice. Examples of solutions employed by amateur translators were provided
from the serial 'Supernatural', where visual and verbal references to US culture are
largely employed.
Studying a small corpus of solutions, especially the wrong ones – i.e. those not
conveying both reference and function of quotes – we understood that the inadequate
level of encyclopaedic knowledge mastered by the young amateur translators may be the
cause of erroneous translations. In fact, the procedures they employ to solve intertextual
challenges show that most of the fansubbers are not able to recognise the reference
behind the quotations, or if they do it, hardly can they recover the proper source or its
codified translation into the target culture. As a result, sometimes textual coherence is
affected, leading spectators to a general incomprehension of the use of intertextuality.
