My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Difference between revisions

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=== Chinese ===
=== Chinese ===
* Bill Clinton was once giving a speech to a Chinese crowd. He opened by saying "hello" in Chinese, ni(2) hao(3). Unfortunately, he pronounced it ni(4) hao(4), coming up with "you are barking". Nobody had the heart to correct him.
* Bill Clinton was once giving a speech to a Chinese crowd. He opened by saying "hello" in Chinese, ni(2) hao(3). Unfortunately, he pronounced it ni(4) hao(4), coming up with "you are barking". Nobody had the heart to correct him.
* Linguist David Moser illustrates this trope with an anecdote about practicing his Chinese with some Chinese friends. "I want to go to sleep now", due to tiredness and bad intonation, became "I stand by where the elephant urinates."
* Linguist David Moser illustrates this trope with an anecdote about practising his Chinese with some Chinese friends. "I want to go to sleep now", due to tiredness and bad intonation, became "I stand by where the elephant urinates."
* Another joke also illustrates this, where a speaker is announcing a plentiful harvest. First he tries to say the food is enough [for everyone] to eat (g'''ò'''u chi le), but due to dialectal differences, he says that the food was eaten by dogs (g'''ǒ'''u chi le). Then he tries to say "everybody go eat a big bowl [of food]" (da jia dou chi ge da wan ba) but ends up saying "everybody here is a big dumb bastard" (da jia dou shi ge da wang ba).
* Another joke also illustrates this, where a speaker is announcing a plentiful harvest. First he tries to say the food is enough [for everyone] to eat (g'''ò'''u chi le), but due to dialectal differences, he says that the food was eaten by dogs (g'''ǒ'''u chi le). Then he tries to say "everybody go eat a big bowl [of food]" (da jia dou chi ge da wan ba) but ends up saying "everybody here is a big dumb bastard" (da jia dou shi ge da wang ba).
* This also applies to idioms and synonyms; cue running joke in certain circles where a young man recently returned to China eats a meal with relatives he hasn't seen in decades. At the end of the meal he stands up and says "Wo man le." It literally means "I'm full", but full as in physically filled, generally used for inanimate objects. (The proper way to say it is "Wo bao le.") Everyone sitting with him cracked up.
* This also applies to idioms and synonyms; cue running joke in certain circles where a young man recently returned to China eats a meal with relatives he hasn't seen in decades. At the end of the meal he stands up and says "Wo man le." It literally means "I'm full", but full as in physically filled, generally used for inanimate objects. (The proper way to say it is "Wo bao le.") Everyone sitting with him cracked up.
* Before an official translated occured, Chinese venders chose random ideographs which pronounced phonetically sounded more or less like "Coca-Cola" but resulted in gems like "[[Bite the Wax Tadpole]]" and "female horse dipped in wax" (which does sound like something you might encounter in traditional Chinese medicine). The official Chinese name for Coca-Cola now doesn't sound ''exactly'' like "Coca-Cola," but it has the advantage of meaning "tasty and fun."
* Before an official translation existed, Chinese vendors were prone to choose random ideographs which pronounced phonetically sounded more or less like "Coca-Cola" but resulted in gems like "[[Bite the Wax Tadpole]]" and "female horse dipped in wax" (which does sound like something you might encounter in traditional Chinese medicine). Sometimes it's necessary to change the sounds slightly to get a more desirable meaning for characters (for instance, if "la" is wax and "le" is love, a careful trade-off may be made). The official Chinese name now doesn't sound ''exactly'' like "Coca-Cola," but it has the advantage of meaning "tasty and fun."
* Another urban legend tells of how, after mistranslating the phrase "finger lickin' good," KFC ended up advertising its chicken as resulting in the eater biting his own fingers off.
* Another urban legend tells of how, after mistranslating the phrase "finger lickin' good," KFC ended up advertising its chicken as resulting in the eater biting his own fingers off.
* A third urban legend tells of Pepsi-Cola accidentally translating their slogan, "Come alive! You're the Pepsi Generation!" as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."
* A third urban legend tells of Pepsi-Cola accidentally translating their slogan, "Come alive! You're the Pepsi Generation!" as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."
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* The Chinese ideogram for the concept of "dry" or "dried" also has a less polite slang meaning and is [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html sometimes] mistranslated into English as "fuck."
* The Chinese ideogram for the concept of "dry" or "dried" also has a less polite slang meaning and is [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html sometimes] mistranslated into English as "fuck."
* Former Canadian politician Jack Layton (RIP) told a story about having dinner with his future mother-in-law, who came from Hong Kong. He tried to say, "Thank you for the good food," in Cantonese, but he used the wrong tone and accidentally said, "Thank you for the good sex." Fortunately, his future mother-in-law was amused rather than offended.
* Former Canadian politician Jack Layton (RIP) told a story about having dinner with his future mother-in-law, who came from Hong Kong. He tried to say, "Thank you for the good food," in Cantonese, but he used the wrong tone and accidentally said, "Thank you for the good sex." Fortunately, his future mother-in-law was amused rather than offended.
* One of the reasons Christianity didnt become big in China was because Jesus' name sounded like the Chinese term for some dish involving roasted pig. Christians became the butt of jokes depicting them worshipers of Roasted Pigs all throughout Christianity's history in China.
* One of the reasons Christianity didn't become big in China was because Jesus' name sounded like the Chinese term for some dish involving roasted pig. Christians became the butt of jokes depicting them worshippers of Roasted Pigs all throughout Christianity's history in China.



=== Croatian ===
=== Croatian ===
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