Blind Idiot Translation/Real Life: Difference between revisions

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{{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 [http://www.engrish.com/ Engrish.com].

* Need I remind you guys that WE WILL BURY YOUUUU!!!!!!!

* Need I remind you guys that WE WILL BURY YOUUUU!!!!!!!{{context}}

* The FA's translator for when Fabio Capello first became England Manager!

* An advertisement on this very wiki, for "Game4Power.com", asks "How can you enjoy the game so lightsome?"

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** [[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 [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~~|Blind Idiot Translations~~]] 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 ~~necesarily~~ 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).

** 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."

* 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?

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** The Dutch copy of Trackmania has a dialog button "Dichtbij", which means "Close", as in a short distance away.

** And in the Dutch version of iTunes, where in a file's information you can type in the name of a show, it translates "Show" as "Tonen", as in making something seen.

** ~~the~~ Windows (~~vista~~ and 7) standard scan utility has scanning translated as "zoeken", which means search. How that ever left the factory, no one ever knows.

** The Windows (Vista and 7) standard scan utility has scanning translated as "zoeken", which means search. How that ever left the factory, no one ever knows.

** The first release of the Dutch version of Windows Mobile 5 was full of these. One memorable example was the Solitaire game had a button labeled "Tekenen", which is "Draw" as in "Draw a picture" rather than "Draw a card". It was clearly a case of translating the resource tables without looking at the application. Not to mention the numerous made-up and inconsistent abbreviations that WM5 was riddled with to make the (typically longer than their English equivalent) Dutch terms fit. To top it off, many of the naming of various items was also inconsistent with the Dutch version of the regular Windows (for example, Windows on PC translates "My Documents" into "Mijn Documenten" but left "Program Files" alone, while WM5 did the opposite, changing "Program Files" to "Programmabestanden" but leaving "My Documents" inexplicably in English).

* The Brazilian Portuguese translation of Windows Vista had 'Sobre o Janelas', which means... 'About [the] Windows'. Sadly, it was fixed.

* Students of the Latin Language, once they have gotten to the point where they can begin to piece together reasonably correct sentences, graduate from [[Translation Train Wreck]] to this normally partway through their second year. With improper and incomplete knowledge of grammatical structures, the results are often more or less fine in English, but rather atrocious in Latin. For example, the sentence: Since I feel that I am not afraid of the kind of man who would pet a kitten, is correctly written as Cum sentio ut vereor homi qui palparet cattulam. Without knowledge of subjunctive, cum clauses, and characteristic clauses, such a student would write: Quoniam non timeor gentis viri quem sit tactet felecem. Unfortunately, this means: "Since (as in time) not afraid I am of the race of man whom he would be touches cat."

* Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson and James May explored the workings of the world's first automobiles and were very confused by an instruction sheet translated from French. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bvk5U4RUGs&feature=related See here starting at 3:09]

* ''[[Top Gear]]''{{'}}s Jeremy Clarkson and James May explored the workings of the world's first automobiles and were very confused by an instruction sheet translated from French. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bvk5U4RUGs&feature=related See here starting at 3:09]

* French Example: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120630040930/http://www.imperatif-francais.org/bienvenu/images/stories/articles/5516-08.jpg This] packaging for a snow shovel, which translates "snow pusher" to "revendeur de drogue de neige", uses the wrong sense of the word "pusher." Instead of "an object which pushes snow", it means "drug pusher", literally reading "Snow-drug seller". (A phrase which would have made more sense in a translation of ''[[Snow Crash]]''.)

** In Italian, "neve" (snow) is also a slang word for cocaine, so if the botched French translation was translated into Italian, you would get a label that defines the snow pusher as a cocaine seller.

* The United States government did this recently when dealing with the Russian government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hands something to the Russian official and even says "We worked hard to find the right Russian word", just before the official points at one of the words and says "That's the wrong word." [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Hillarity]] [[Hilarity Ensues|Ensues]]. (Hillary's face was a mixture of [[Oh Crap]] and trying not to laugh)

* The United States government did this recently{{when}} when dealing with the Russian government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hands something to the Russian official and even says "We worked hard to find the right Russian word", just before the official points at one of the words and says "That's the wrong word." [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Hillarity]] [[Hilarity Ensues|Ensues]]. (Hillary's face was a mixture of [[Oh Crap]] and trying not to laugh)

** Hillary Clinton ''meant'' to write the word "Reset" on a big button. The button would be pressed, and the Russian-American relations would be symbolically resetted to a clean slate. In Russian the word would be "Perezagruzka". Alas, the actual word written was "Peregruzka" - "Overload". Russian official Lavrov immediately parried with a false translation of his own: he (mistakenly) explained that "Peregruzka" means "Overcharged".

*** "Overcharged" ''can'' mean the same thing as "Overload" in English, it just isn't the dominant meaning.

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* One still-existing kingdom in Africa has two state copies of [[The Bible]]. According to the King of that kingdom, one of them is a recent, pretty decent translation. The other one was a gift from Queen Victoria, and thanks to the state of knowledge of the language in question at the time, contains translation gems like "The Lord is the keeper of my sheep."

* One brand of prawn crackers (the kind you fry yourself) proudly proclaimed them to have a "peculiar taste". Somebody ought to inform that translator that the use of "peculiar" to mean "unique" is archaic; it's ''far'' more commonly used to mean "weird".

* The Spanish version of this wiki suffers from this. "Disonancia del Angustia" for [[Angst Dissonance]](in Spanish all nouns are gendered, "del" is a male pronoun and "Angustia" a female one, thus the right ~~LITERAL~~ translation should be "Disonancia de la angustia"). La Decadencia Del Chingón (means "The Badass Decadence", since "Chingon" is an aproximation for "Badass", but this is Mexican slang and not appropiate for that use everywhere).

* The Spanish version of this wiki suffers from this. "Disonancia del Angustia" for [[Angst Dissonance]](in Spanish all nouns are gendered, "del" is a male pronoun and "Angustia" a female one, thus the right ''literal'' translation should be "Disonancia de la angustia"). La Decadencia Del Chingón (means "The Badass Decadence", since "Chingon" is an aproximation for "Badass", but this is Mexican slang and not appropiate for that use everywhere).

** Also, note that the word "tópico" for [[Trope]] exists, though "Tropo" (a linguistic concept) is what's being used due to catchiness.

* An English edition of the Helsinki Metro newspaper once titillated readers with the headline "150 kg ? [[Gag Boobs|Biggest heroine bust ever]]!"

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* [http://sadtranslations.livejournal.com/1535777.html This] is why [[Mattress Tag Gag|removing mattress tags]] is so horrible: how else would you guess that this mattress is one of those you should not pet while it's in a washing machine?

* Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 7/8.1/10* [15.40 6th '''Generals''']. It happens when either you're living in [[William Gibson]]'s novel or "[http://sadtranslations.livejournal.com/1523352.html When you're corporation Intel, but are saving on living translations...]" (speaking of the drivers, one of the comments also refers to the classics of computer assisted English-to-Russian pratfalls - "herders of mouse").

* Humorous writer Michael Green once accompanied an English rugby tour behind the Iron curtain, into communist Romania. He notes that the senior English dignitary accompanying the visitors realised he would have to make a speech at an official reception that night. Not knowing any Romanian, he he reasoned that if he copied out the wording that appeared on the toilet doors, he would at least know the Romanian for ''Ladies and Gentlemen.'' He used these words to open his speech, and to his pleased surprise, it earned him a standing ovation from his hosts. He asked a Romanian rugby official afterwards, saying he was so pleased his speech had been received well, and the local smiled gravely. "Yes, Sir Henry. It does make you sit up straight when you are addressed as ''Urinals and Water Closets!''

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