Amusing translation errors

[Cudzoziemiec]

“It’s a real financial blow,” Belotti said. He added that motorised two-wheelers were an ecological plus, even if less green than bicycles.

“They’re much cleaner and less imposing than a car and [public] space is optimised. Fuel consumption is low and for the same distance you’re riding for much less time,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/27/parisian-motorcyclists-mourn-end-of-freedoms-with-introduction-of-parking-charges

Motorcycles might be less imposing than a car but I don't think that's what Belotti meant. Maybe "burdensome" would have been a more suitable word (obviously impossible to say without knowing what the original was).

[CAMRAMan]

Beck translator: 'Dra åt helvete!' normally means 'fuck off!', not the more literal 'go to hell', kthxbai.

[T42]

Beck translator: 'Dra åt helvete!' normally means 'fuck off!', not the more literal 'go to hell', kthxbai.

So is Switzerland Hell or just another whorehouse?

Meanwhile, looking for pulleys (poulies) on the Bricomarché site yields a slew of stuff for chickens.

[Macleach]

Was once e-mailed by a Spanish colleague who wanted to inform me that a delay was taking place with the latest project milestone. I got a missive informing me "some retard had been involved with the project"! Yeeeesss, I think he probably has..... .

My own personal best was when I was a much younger man (sigh) and standing with my German girlfriend in the queue for the buffet at our hotel whilst on Holiday in Spain. I wanted to ask her if the buffet was self service (selbstbedienung) but said selbstbefriedigung instead. The latter is what back in my days schoolboys were told not to do too much of unless you wanted hairy palms... . Blush! Although not half as much as my poor girlfriend did.

[T42]

Back when I was working in Stuttgart I went into the office one morning with a nasty dose of conjunctivitis in both eyes.  Our department secretary asked me what was wrong and I replied "mir tun die Eier weg" instead of "mir tun die Augen weg"*,  Augen being eyes and Eier being eggs and both being balls of a sort.

[Macleach]

Back when I was working in Stuttgart I went into the office one morning with a nasty dose of conjunctivitis in both eyes.  Our department secretary asked me what was wrong and I replied "mir tun die Eier weg" instead of "mir tun die Augen weg"*,  Augen being eyes and Eier being eggs and both being balls of a sort.

Ha ha yes, the girlfriend taught me that term as slang in her time too 

[Macleach]

Just remembered I also narrowly avoided the sack for having most of the aforementioned entire Spanish project team looking in their dictionaries and phrasebooks for "Bono Estente" and "Scorchio" as expressions of greeting and happiness. They do in fact translate as "bonus shelf" and "scorched" respectively but I thought using them in the Fast Show context was a great laugh, er, I mean genuine mistake made in all innocence.....

[Cudzoziemiec]

“That’s not the way Donald Trump does things. It’s rambling from one half-vast idea to another plan that falls through and another comes up.”

Let's call this "translation" from speech to text.

[Kim]

Just remembered I also narrowly avoided the sack for having most of the aforementioned entire Spanish project team looking in their dictionaries and phrasebooks for "Bono Estente" and "Scorchio" as expressions of greeting and happiness. They do in fact translate as "bonus shelf" and "scorched" respectively but I thought using them in the Fast Show context was a great laugh, er, I mean genuine mistake made in all innocence.....

I irregularly find myself having to explain 'Scorchio' to Young People.   

[Macleach]

Have just received picture from Royal Mail delivery of my parcel of books neatly balanced on the top of my wooden gate at the side of my house. Not a translation error as such but the postie has literally interpreted my instructions of "Please leave over gate to side of house" to the absolute letter . Reminds me of the old Victor Meldrew episode with the rubber plant planted in the toilet bowl after he told them to "put it in the lavatory". Life, sometimes you just couldn't make it up

[Salvatore]

After playing for Hamm, Jürgen Welp played one game for red and white food or, as he would call the club, Rot-Weiss Essen


 

[ElyDave]

He played for Gutersloh as well, my dad was stationed there 82-85, those were fun years

[Auntie Helen]

After playing for Hamm, Jürgen Welp played one game for red and white food or, as he would call the club, Rot-Weiss Essen


 

[rafletcher]

One of my colleagues in Belgium has the surname Gielen. It’s entirely possible for that to be mis-typed as Geilen.

[Salvatore]

Automatic Finnish -> English translations are a reliable source of amusement. Here's a recent one from Twitter

Kurkku on tänään paras sitten maanantain. Yskä jäi vielä, mutta johtuisiko siitä, että en kokeillut eilen ehdotettua rommi. Kukkukipu katosi punkulla ja viskillä. Tänään sitten varmaan vielä rommitotit.

Translated from Finnish by google

The cucumber¹ today is the best since Monday. The cough was still there, but could it be because I didn't try the rum that was suggested yesterday? Cock² pain went away with punk³ and whiskey. I'll probably still have rum tots today.

1. Kurkku (I've just learned) is either throat or cucumber (a Finnishified loan from Swedish gurka I imagine) and google plumped for the wrong meaning.
2. Kukko (not kukku) is a rooster, or in this case a typo of Kurkku, so Kukkukipu is probably throat pain (or cucumber pain).
3. I'm guessing punkulla is an obscure form of the inessive (or ablative) case of punkka (bed, loan from english bunk) and that Stefan spent the day in bed to alleviate his cock throat pain.

[Mr Larrington]

Rommi and viskillä seems a very Finnish way of dealing with a sore throat.  Kimi would approve.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Automatic translation is a good source of amusement even within one language. I went to the pub yesterday with a deaf friend who has a speech to text app on her phone and we spent a lot of time laughing at the things it came up with. Unfortunately I've forgotten most of them, including the actual words I said that came out as "suffering pancakes" but I do remember that it turned "Yorkshire" into "sissy porn".

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was searching for the name of a particular individual translator (which I didn't find) and stumbled across this blog in the process. No actual errors, just bad translation and some amusement.

Barf Detergent – In Persian apparently Barf means snow. But can you imagine the conflict in the mind of an English speaker when seeing a detergent called Barf?

Vicks – When Vicks was introduced in Germany, somebody forgot that the German pronunciation of “v” is “f” which made their “Vicks” brand name sound like slang for sexual intercourse (the name in German speaking countries is now Wick which translates correctly).

Scat Airlines – An airline based in Kazakhstan. Not sure if an English speaker would fly them.

Emerdata – This is the reincarnation of Cambridge Analytica. I find great irony in the fact that the name translations in Portuguese and Italian refer to the act of defecation.

IKEA – IKEA has a unique naming convention that often leads to translation errors. For example, some product names sounded like sex acts. And in many cases, IKEA names just sound amusing to English speakers:

https://www.duetsblog.com/2018/05/articles/squirrelly-thoughts/good-translation-bad-translation/

[T42]

From the instructions that accompanied my new coffee roaster:

[liam_whippet]

I hear this in the voice of Stanley Unwin ...

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Very hot beans pouring from an old brain child tray" is a rather disturbing image.

[L CC]

Could you please send the samples to my hands? I need them for our report and root cause.

[Auntie Helen]

Weirdly that doesn’t seem to work translated back to German.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Could you please send the samples to my hands? I need them for our report and root cause.

What is "root cause"?

In other questions, where is Fboab and who is this L CC that has taken her place? Or is it LCC?

[Cudzoziemiec]

See the part of the label between "Made in Bangladesh" and the washing instructions, the part where it oh-so-helpfully tells us it's a t-shirt? The first language on the second line is Polish. How come Polish needs five words to say "t-shirt"?

(click to show/hide)

sugar-free chewing gum