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Bad Translation: Funny, But Bad for Business
You know your translation is bad when it ends up in the comedy section of YouTube with the caption, "They should pay for a better translator, if you ask me." And what's up with the pet store owner and that little dog?
Translation: Good Enough to Eat?
Photo of a Chinese menu item translated into English in China, Mmm. Love those cowboys.
via Rahoi.com
China Cracks Down on Bad English Translations
The Chinese have been extraordinarily adept at unintentionally hilarious translations, but the government is not amused, particularly with the 2008 Beijing Olympics on the horizon. So China has launched yet another drive to clamp down on bad English. Bad translations seem funny, says SRF Global Translations president, Sloan Friedman, until you consider their economic impact.
Continue reading "China Cracks Down on Bad English Translations" »
Dvorak: I'm Sick of Waiting for a Decent Machine Translation!
If computers can play a credible world-class game of chess, why can't they translate complex sentences written in the world's major languages, John Dvorak kvetches in PC Magazine.
Dvorak ran a chunk of text from a French newspaper through various machine translation systems. The translations are quite hilarious, and quite useless.
Continue reading "Dvorak: I'm Sick of Waiting for a Decent Machine Translation!" »
Bad Translation Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
This sign, in Welsh, is supposed to tell cyclists to dismount. Instead, the sign, placed in front of the roadworks at Barons Court roundabout between Penarth and Cardiff, correctly says 'cyclists dismount' in English, but means "bladder disease has returned" in Welsh.
'Cyclists dismount is an awkward sentence to translate as there is no Welsh word for dismount,' Owain Sgiv, an officer for the Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, said.
Possible solutions: change the sentence so it uses a word that does have a Welsh counterpart; use a translation service that certifies its work is correct, like SRF Global Translations.
How Do You Say "WASP" in Portugese?
ABC TV is making the interesting move of franchising Spanish-and Portuguese-language versions of the first season of "Desperate Housewives" for broadcast by networks around the region, using star-studded local casts to re-enact the original scripts.
Producers will shoot different versions of “Desperate Housewives,” to take into account cultural and linguistic differences within Latin America. Argentine Spanish, for instance, is heavily influenced by Italian and has many usages and phrases that would sound odd in Mexico or Venezuela.
Challenges emerged not only in translating the backgrounds of the main characters, says the NY TImes. (subscription required), but also in translating words like "WASP" and "Desperate."
Language lessons are part of Hollywood's global approach
In 1998, American director Bryan Singer, introducing his movie "Apt Pupil" at the Toyko International Film Festival, decided to surprise the crowd by speaking in Japanese.
But he bungled the translation and, instead of saying "I look forward to seeing you after the film," he said he was looking forward to having sex.
He went back to Japan last week to promote "Superman Returns," but he practiced his Japanese - a lot, says the New York Times
via Agenda Inc
Was Miss Japan's Miss Universe Title Lost in Translation?
Asian fans claim that Miss Japan lost the 2006 Miss Universe contest because of an interpreter's bad translation. Miss Japan, Kurara Chibana, lost to Miss Puerto Rico, Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza.
During the Q&A section, she was asked: "If you had the opportunity to change the history of humanity, what would you change and why?"
According to blogger Yumi Toyama's translation, Miss Chibana's response was that if exploitation and violence against women could be eliminated, 'the world would be better'
However, it was alleged that the official Miss Universe interpreter missed out the feminist element of her answer, an error that cost her the crown.
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