Translation - art & business » Lighter side of trans/interp »
Mistranslations in Shanghai - funny
Thread poster: Rad Graban (X)
Rad Graban (X)
Rad Graban (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:01
English to Slovak
+ ...
Aug 25, 2009

Something I've just come across.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090825/tod-slip-carefully-shanghai-tackles-bad-575248e.html

P.S. My apology. Meant to post it in "Lighter side".

[Edited at 2009-08-25 14:01 GMT]

[Edited at 2009-08-25 14:02 GMT]
 
Özden Arıkan
Özden Arıkan  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:01
Member
English to Turkish
+ ...
Funny Aug 25, 2009

Wouldn't re-contracting all those signs to professional translators be cheaper than starting offices where people could report mistranslations?
 
Yasutomo Kanazawa
Yasutomo Kanazawa  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 20:01
Member (2005)
English to Japanese
+ ...
I believe there are many similar sites on the Web Aug 26, 2009

I've seen some on other sites in different countries, where English is not the official language. And they really make me laugh or
 
Hanbing
Hanbing
Canada
Local time: 04:01
English to Chinese
+ ...
Funnier Aug 26, 2009

Thank you, Rad, for posting the link. As a matter of fact, Beijing also launched a campaign to correct the English version of restaurant menus. If you have time to google that, you may run into something even funnier:)

It would be interesting to know, besides giving English readers a laugh, what else do such signs or menus lead to? Confusion, and finally figuring things out? Do they indeed mislead anyone into risks? Maybe the context and non-verbals clear up everything.
 
Lori Cirefice
Lori Cirefice  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:01
French to English
Beijing restaurants Aug 26, 2009

Funny this should come up - I am travelling in China at the moment and have seen some "amazing" translations in restaurants. I actually wrote a few of the best ones down:

- butterfly scales (harmless bow-tie pasta salad)
- fried steak (turned out to be some kind of breaded fish, which I need to avoid due to allergies - rather dangerous because I actually bit into it before realizing it was fish!)
- thousand island juice (salad dressing)
- salad jam (ranch dressing)... See more
Funny this should come up - I am travelling in China at the moment and have seen some "amazing" translations in restaurants. I actually wrote a few of the best ones down:

- butterfly scales (harmless bow-tie pasta salad)
- fried steak (turned out to be some kind of breaded fish, which I need to avoid due to allergies - rather dangerous because I actually bit into it before realizing it was fish!)
- thousand island juice (salad dressing)
- salad jam (ranch dressing)
- chicken (beef) intestines (not a very appetizing way to present sausage)

Even funnier is the English translation of the in-flight H1N1 Virus educational movie! ▲ Collapse
 


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Mistranslations in Shanghai - funny






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