Translation seems to be in the air among several active threads, so how about this…
What’s the funniest, wackiest, or flat out strangest mistranslation you’ve ever read?
My own personal favorite was printed on the side of a box of those class C poppers that explode when you throw them against the pavement. They were made in China, and the translator’s English left something to be desired. Presumably intending to convey the same warning that’s printed on those ubiquitous bags of silica gel, the box read:
Samuel R. Delany once mentioned the translation of his novel Babel-17. The book is a quest for the holy grail and one of the points is that the authors of grail novels always succumb to a curse and die. The only way to avoid this is to end the novel in the middle of a sentence, which Delany did.
When it was translated into French, the translator finished the last sentence. He died.
Alfred Bester, I believe once had a character using a depilatory cream instead of shaving. When translated, the translator evidently had to look up “depilatory,” which evidently was defined as “having to do with shaving.” So he used the term “shaving cream” and had the character wipe it on, and then wipe it off.
In another case, a character was described as seeing his O.T. – occupational therapist. A translator evidently looked up the term and wrote that the character was seeing his Old Testament.
I have a Spanish translation of the screenplay for Pulp Fiction, in which Jimmie asks Vince and Jules if they’ve seen a sign on his house that says “Almacen de negros muertos.” That’s “Warehouse of dead blacks,” to you non-Spanish speakers.
Have you ever read Pedro Carolino’s “English As She Is Spoke”? Hysterical. Pedro decided to do a Portugese-English phrasebook, but he didn’t speak English or have an English dictionary.
He did have an English/French and a French/Portugese dictionary. Remember how much fun running phrases through Babelfish was when you first discovered it? His stuff is that bad. Mark Twain apparently paid to have the book printed here. I’ll dig up my copy and quote some gems later.
Picture of Frank Perdue next to a chicken on billboards in Mexico, where his slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” was translated at “It takes a hard man to arouse a chicken.”
And to go off on a bit of a tangent…also funny are a lot of the Japanese products that try to have English sounding names…like Calpis Refreshment Water, Creap Coffee Creamer, Pocari Sweat drink, Naive Shampoo, Nudy Body Cream, Choco Baby candy etc.
At a Chinese restaurant on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, the owner proudly presented us with an English translation of his menu. We were not brave enough to try the “pig internal organ with mixed other flesh”.
While writing technical documents for NEC Yokohama, I would usually proofread and re-write what the Japanese engineers had written in English.
One of the documents kept mentioning “miller desks” and how important they were for computer networks. Finally, I discovered they were trying to say “mirror disks”.
Favourite I ever heard about: Mitsubishi trying to launch the Pajero in Spain (don’t think this is an urban myth, couldn’t find it after a cursory look in Snopes). And of course, everything I ever had to grade in a Japanese kid’s school book
Favourite I ever made myself: Being lonely and alone many years ago and living in Italy, I was invited out for a day in the mountains by a family with two young kids (7 and 10). I was sitting in the front with the husband, with the Mother and kids squashed in the back. I was a bit surprised as he pulled up to the traffic lights and didn’t put his hand brake on, and asked him why he didn’t apply it. There followed the most complete and uncomfortable silence I have known.
Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, the difference between “fregna” and “freno” is really quite slight. What I wanted to say was “don’t you put your hand brake on when you stop at the lights?”. What I actually said (loosely) was “don’t you put your hand in her c*** when you stop at the lights?”. The kids thought I was great after that.
The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.
The skelleton is what’s left when you take the insides out, and the outsides off: it’s what you hitch meat to.
The three sections of the body are the branium, the borax,
and the abonibbonal cavity.
The branium contains the brains,
the borax contains the heart and lungs,
and the abonibbonal cavity contains the bowels…of which there are five: A, E, I, O, and U.
I worked as a proofreader in Sapporo. One of the funniest translations I read was for an upcoming conference. The reception was going to feature “whole roasted cow.” There was also a reference to “tender hairy beef.”
What drove me crazy is some clients would insist on crazy English. Sometimes I was told not to change “too much.” Clients would provide translations of key terms, but often these were horrible. But god forbid we disagree with a client. :rolleyes:
When I was editor at my college paper, we got a letter to the editor that must have been the result of a German man doing a very poor translation job. It’s right up there with AYBABTU:
Dear Sir!
You will see this mail on your screen, because, I NEED help!
First of all:Sorry, that I molest you with my problem!
I am a collector of Zippolighters! Since 2 years, I am on the way, to grow up a collection of Zippo’s from each state of the US!That means, in alphabetical order!Best, with the State logo on or any other sign or engraving, which shows, that this Zippo is from the State! I got them all- except Lansing!In November, '99, I send a letter with 30 US to the Office of the Mayor of Lansing!-'Till this day, there was not a Zippo, to add to my collection!
I am complete helpless!-And, all the other Offices of Mayor's and Governors;- they all! gave me a fast assistance!
In my opinion, - this is a article worth for an newspaper!maybe, the Office of the Mayor of Lansing is so poor, that they have to take my 30.-? How can I make my collection more and more complete, without a Zippo from Lansing?! - And I told, them, if they are not able, to find a Zippo with the state logo on,- then they could glue a little coat of arms from the city on a plain Zippo!None!
Any idea, Sir, how I can reach my target?
Maybe, you will have a moment time, to answer me!
Thank you very much in advance!!!
I am HUBERTUS HAMANN>>Stade/Germany
“Sorry that I molest you with my problem” has become a catchphrase in my circle of friends.
I once worked with a sales rep who was not especially bright, even for a sales rep. Unfortunately, for a while he was our only sales rep, which meant that he was also responsible for relations with our international distributors. A few weeks before a major trade show, where we expected to see many of our international distributors, he decided to send out a e-mail alerting them to the fact that we’d be attending the show and expressing a hope that we might meet with them while there.
Unfortunately, his limited knowledge of the world didn’t extend to the inherent limitations of machine translation. He found Babelfish and decided it’d be a cool thing to send the e-mail to the distributors in their own languages (never mind that all of them were completely comfortable conducting business in English). Even worse, he didn’t see a reason to have the results vetted by anyone else before sending them out. Perhaps worst of all, he had no feel whatever for what someone from another culture might find confusing. Therefore, he packed his message with idiomatic expressions, including “I hope we can touch base with you while we’re there”.
A day or so later, we got a polite note from our German distributor, asking whether we’d really intended to confess to them our “intense desire to feel [their] undergarments”.
When my dad was in college, he and three friends drove a jeep from Ann Arbor to Belize (then British Honduras). One night, in Mexico, they were drinking in a bar, and one of the friends went to get them another round. He was trying to say, in his limited Spanish, “I want four beers”, which is “Yo quiero quatro cervezas”. What he actually said was “Yo tengo quatro cabezas”, which means “I have four heads.” Got quite the strange look from the bartender.
