Oops, I Did it Again
Dec 17th, 2009 | By Ginette | Category: English
In this globalized world of Internet, Twitter and instant messaging, information travels from one end of the world to the other in a matter of seconds. And sadly for Esperanto enthusiasts, we don't have a common language quite yet, so we have to rely on translators (machines or humans) to make that information understandable for everybody. The problem starts when you didn't exactly say what you meant to say.
Things can get funny when you decide to get a "cool" tattoo written in a foreign language. What do you do? You translate that cool phrase with the help of one of those automatic translation tools and you get a nicely looking tattoo, which means exactly the opposite of what you wanted to convey. What a funny way to immortalize a mistake. You can also ask Hayden Panettiere's about how important correct spelling is. Apparently, she wanted to get a tattoo with the text: "vivere senza rimpianti" (live without regrets), but instead she got: "Vivere senza rimipianti". I guess she has something to regret after all.
But some translation mistakes stop being funny when you actually cannot understand what people meant in the first place, which can lead to huge misunderstandings. English speaking holidaymakers can only be astonished when they read that their children will be sold to the circus, that airlines will send their bags in all directions or that their stay will be unbearable (You don't believe me? Read more here).
Wrong translations abound, and the world of international politics has also been plagued with them. Picture this: Hillary Clinton gives the Russian Foreign Minister a gift as a token of goodwill. The word 'reset' was printed on it to represent their will to "reset" relations between the two countries; a fresh new start, so to speak. However, the word they chose in Russian (peregruzka) really means 'overloaded' and not 'reset'. That's how quick can peace turn into hostility. Oops.
Check out some pics with funny translation mistakes.
You mentioned Esperanto here. The only way for this planned language to become really widespread is for even more ordinary people to start learning and using it.
Your link to “read more” “unbearable” translations doesn’t make too much sense when trying to point to further “bad translations”. Firstly, not everything in that link should be considered a translation. I don’t know if you speak another language but in many countries in Europe and the American continent, the first sign could make a lot of sense among the locals.
The sign reading “WARNING children left unattended will be sold to the circus” it’s a local joke for many native speakers in those continents, where that sign is from. They are speaking local English, with local humour. I guess the ones who have to translate the humour are the foreigners. Not the locals.
I’ve seen thousands of English natives playing smart about translation signs and must say, that it is a shame that although a big number of the signs could indeed, make no sense, others express the locals humour in English. Their English, which is also very valid as long as grammar rules are followed.
Let’s not forget that language is not math.
“And sadly for Esperanto enthusiasts, we don’t have a common language quite yet, so we have to rely on translators (machines or humans) to make that information understandable for everybody.”
A translator should always translate to his mother language; so he is bound to miss some subtleties in the source language.
Exception to that rule: one always translates to Esperanto from the mother tongue.
A translator who knows Esperanto and the source language well enough, can avoid many pitfalls, provided he has access to the Esperanto version of the source text as well.
This provides the best quality for the smallest amount of work.
A few special cases are handled in http://claudepiron.free.fr/articlesenanglais/translation.htm
Remuŝ
Good luck to Esperanto
It’s a pity that many people do not know that it has become a living language.
Your readers may be interested in http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net