Showing posts with label mistranslations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mistranslations. Show all posts

Monday, August 7, 2017

Idiotisms and Proverbs







Idiotisms and Proverbs.


The necessity don't know the low.

Few, few the bird make her nest. 

He is not valuable to breat that he eat. 

Its are some blu stories.





Nothing some money, nothing of Swiss.


He sin in trouble water.


A bad arrangement is better than a process.


He has a good beak.


In the country of blinds, the one eyed men are kings.






To build castles in Espagnish.


Cat scalded fear the cold water.


To do the fine spirit.


With a tongue one go to Roma.


There is not any rnler without a exception.


Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat.










































A horse baared don't look him the tooth.

Take the occasion for the hairs.

To do a wink to some body.


So many go the jar to spring, than at last rest there.


He eat untill to can't more.


Which like Bertram, love hir dog.






It want to beat the iron during it is hot.


He is not so devil as he is black.


It is better be single as a bad company.


The stone as roll not heap up not foam.


They shurt him the doar in face.


He has fond the knuckle of the business.






He turns as a weath turcocl.


There is not better sauce who the appetite.


The pains come at horse and turn one's self at foot.


He is beggar as a church rat.


So much go the jar to spring that at last it break there.


To force to forge, becomes smith.


Keep the chestnut of the fire with the cat foot.






Friendship of a child is water into a basket.


At some thing the misforte is good.


Burn the politeness.


Tell me whom thou frequent, I will tell you which you are.


After the paunch comes the dance.






Of the hand to mouth, one lose often the soup.


To look for a needle in a hay bundle.


To craunch the marmoset.


To buy cat in pocket.

To be as a fish into the water.


To make paps for the cats.


To fatten the foot.


To come back at their muttons.


- From English as She is Spoke





English As She Is Spoke is the common name of a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, and falsely additionally credited to José da Fonseca, which was intended as a PortugueseEnglish conversational guide or phrase book, but is regarded as a classic source of unintentional humour, as the given English translations are generally completely incoherent.

The humour appears to be a result of dictionary-aided literal translation, which causes many idiomatic expressions to be translated wildly inappropriately. For example, the Portuguese phrase chover a cântaros is translated as raining in jars, whereas an idiomatic English translation would be raining buckets.

It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English, and that a French–English dictionary was used to translate an earlier Portuguese–French phrase book, O novo guia da conversação em francês e português, written by José da Fonseca. Carolino likely added Fonseca's name to the book without his permission in an attempt to give it some credibility. The Portuguese–French phrase book is apparently a competent work, without the defects that characterize English As She Is Spoke.

Mark Twain said of English As She Is Spoke that "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.”  - Wikipedia


Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The grass is smiling at you




















Public signs, though useful, are often irritating. Their air of authority and power to order us around and control our movements is a little scary. God knows where we are actually going if we follow them. Seeing these public imperatives twisted and mangled is delicious, especially in Chinglish where the mistranslations are so extreme.

There are so many hundreds of them around that I decided to narrow it down to a category. Food was just too weird: complex and culturally-specific menus are impossible to translate. A lot of signs had inadvertent naughty words in them (and I restrained myself until that last one, which was just too good not to include). I found a few weird and even lovely signs about "keep off the grass", but there weren't quite enough of them, so I expanded the category to Parks and Recreation, outdoor activities that simply demand lots and lots of rules. 

Thus we are told there is a "go aheand smorking" section, that we should "be careful drowning", that we should watch out for falling people, and always "care for life. Do not fun."

I will not tell you what you should do in that last one.

Monday, February 27, 2017

1957 Vision of the Year 2000





A favorite video, not just for its quaint vision of the year 2000 (and the whole time I was growing up, people constantly said "by the year 2000. . .", as if it was the date of the Second Coming), but for its badly-translated captions. This was Hungarian or Romanian or something, I forget which. But it's lovely.