Blind Idiot Translation/Real Life: Difference between revisions
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(moved the "Humorous writer Michael Green..." example from "Have a Gay Old Time/Real Life", because it fits this trope better.) |
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*** For instance, the classical ''To be or not to be, that is the question'', after a English-Japanese-Chinese-French-German-Italian-Spanish-English trip, becomes
{{quote|Due to the regulations due to it stops as they give under him is not: The needs of the argument}}
* One of the first websites to deal with this phenomenon, particularly as applied to hilarious usages of English in Asian countries, is [
* Need I remind you guys that WE WILL BURY YOUUUU!!!!!!!{{context}}<!-- MOD: Yes, you do need to. What's this from? -->
* The FA's translator for when Fabio Capello first became England Manager!
* An advertisement
* The German translation for a small toy fishtank with plastic fish: "Lebensunterhalt aus direkter Sonne leuchtet". Just retranslating this to English in the most literal of ways gives you "Keep out of direct sun light", which is probably the phrase it was originally translated from. But in this case they picked the German words representing the words secondary meaning or literal translation: The translation for Keep used here is the German word for the keep you earn... They also translated light as "leuchtet" (light up/glow), even splitting up sunlight into two words and literally translating each of them.
** It says "sustenance out of direct sun illuminates."
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104015120/http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order What happens when a Chinese restaurant fails their translation.]
** According to [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html this blog entry], "Most of us, however, have all along suspected that this phenomenon resulted from reliance on faulty translation software. Indeed, it is easy to prove that absurd English translations are being spewed out daily in China when individuals who don't know English merely plug Chinese sentences into the software and expect it to come up with reasonable renditions." A bug in one particular translation program has caused the word "fuck" to appear on shop signs and restaurant menus, etc.
** [[Even Evil Has Standards|The government of China]] has [http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/19/olympic.dishes/index.html released an official list of food name translations] in the hope of stopping this problem for the Olympics. (It also appears that [https://web.archive.org/web/20120902042721/http://www.for68.com/new/2008/6/li8655365544181680024816-0.htm the list is online], in Chinese.)
** That didn't stop a restaurant owner from putting up a sign that called his establishment "[http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/then-well-grab-bite-404-not-found-15632 Translate Server Error]".
** Many [[Blind Idiot Translation]]s of Chinese dish names are prime examples of various difficulties in translation. For example, the dish whose name literally translates "husband and wife lung slices" has that name because (a) the words for "lung" also means "tripe," and (b) the dish was reportedly invented by a couple who were street vendors in Sichuan in the 1930s. Likewise, "pock-marked grandmother tofu" is also supposed to be named after the woman who invented it. If you don't know the stories already, those names are as nondescriptive and unhelpful as, um, "hamburger" (named after the German city of Hamburg) or "sandwich" (named after an English nobleman). But even when the names are descriptive it doesn't necessarily help: a lot dishes are named as ingredient plus cooking technique, but the techniques are often typical to China and have no straightforward translation into European languages (e.g., there's different words for regular stir-frying and the "explosive" variant that uses hotter oil and finer-cut ingredients).
* "Yesterday not throw the fire inside the battery". Literally, "never throw the battery in a fire". Or worse: "The Ni-MH battery absolutely not can throw in the fire inside, the battery suffers the heat will take place the bang."
* Sign in a Swiss ski hotel (as recorded by Richard Lederer): "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension." Mr. Lederer also records a Kyushu, Japan detour sign reading "Stop: Drive Sideways."
* A negligent translation to Russian and back allowed Margaret Thatcher's nickname to shift from 'Iron Maiden' (as in 'torture-box') to 'Iron Dame' to 'Iron Lady'. An improvement, no?
** This became the linguistic version of an [[Ascended Glitch]]; that nickname certainly stuck.
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** It is not really gibberish as an intention. The very limited number of pictograms supplied can be used to make a proper generic banner that makes sense.
* Some of the most glorious Chinese-to-English examples ever recorded could be found on Anime Jump's (the website has stopped updating, and Mike Toole now works for [[Anime News Network]]) Bootleg Toys Showcase. The Flying Headless Goku is a meme in itself.
** Speaking of bad Chinese-to-English translations, has anyone read those red chopstick packets available at most Chinese restaurants? (Although most of these packets have been recently{{When}} revised to display better English, you can still find a few badly translated ones here and there.)
** The mentioned site contains what is probably one of the best (read: worst) Blind Idiot Translations ever: [http://www.animejump.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=26&page=1 the INTERTLLR TERININATDR] (also called Apolay Wayyioy).
* Lots of this sort of thing can be found at [http://www.rinkworks.com/said Rinkworks.com]
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** Some versions of this anecdote add a line instructing the driver as to the correct course of action should the driver's passage be obstacled by a horse: "wait for him to [[Never Say "Die"|pass away]]."
* Another example involved [[Tony Blair]] giving a speech in French about the "third way" falling foul of the fact that the literal French translation of "third way" (''troisième voie'') is more often used in conversational French to refer to Platform Three at a railway station.
* [[John F. Kennedy]] supposedly did this in his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, where Berliner can refer to a type of pastry, but the belief that this was a mistake [https://web.archive.org/web/20130514015154/http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/jfk_berliner.htm is an urban legend].
** So is, of course, the idea that a native of Berlin would be unable to distinguish between himself and a pastry. At any rate, the presence of the article doesn't really make that much of a difference in this case. The speech is very clear in what Kennedy meant to say.
** Since this kind of pastry is known in many parts of Germany as "Berliner", but not in Berlin itself, where it is called "Pfannkuchen", there is no way the citizens of Berlin could have misinterpreted the meaning.
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** The Chinese word does mean literally "propaganda board", as there is no negative connotation associated with the word "propaganda" in China.
* In a translation of a hymn about John the Revelator, who wrote the Book of The Seven Seals, 'seal' was translated using the 'aquatic pinniped mammal' meaning.
* Mark Lemon records in ''The Jest Book'' that Alderman Wood, who had been Lord Mayor of London but no longer was, went to Paris in 1815 and had his visiting cards printed to say "Alderman Wood, ''feu Lord Maire de Londres'', having translated "late", not to the French for "previously" or something similar, but to the French for "dead."
** Translated into Norwegian with that meaning: "De Sju Selers Bok". Translated back into English in the same manner: "The Seven Harnesses' Book". It could also be read as "The Seven Seals' Book", as in "aquatic mammal".
* Polish translators in general seem to be baffled by slang, for example translating the word "[[Totally Radical|radical]]" to the Polish equivalent "radykalny" which, needless to say, is not and has never been a slang word. This makes the translated dialogue sound [[Sophisticated As Hell|oddly disjointed]] or plain [[They Just Didn't Care|incomprehensible]].
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