Fun With Translations

Feb 8 04:58 UTC 1992

Reprinted from the Foreign Language Learning Update Jan. 1992:
 
As almost traveler knows, communication in foreign countries can
take some humorous turns through translation.  Here are some
signs and notices written in English that were spied around the
world by corporate travelers.
 
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
    "We take your bags and send them in all directions."
 
In a Paris hotel elevator:
    "Please leave your values at the front desk."
 
In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
    "The lift is being fixed for the next day.  During that time
    we regret that you will be unbearable."
 
A sign posted in the Black Forest:
   "It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site
   that people of different sex, for instance, men and women,
   live together in one tent unless they are married with each
   other for that purpose."
 
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
   "Our wines leave you with nothing to hope for."
 
In a Liepzig elevator:
   "Do not enter lift backwartds, and only when lit up."
 
In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
   "To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor.  If the
   cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a
   number of wishing floor.  Driving is then going alphabetically
   by national order."
 
In a hotel in Athens:
   "Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the
   hours of 9 and 11 am daily."

response 2 of 27:

Dec 9 22:42 UTC 1992

can you please post all the translations that were on that sheet?

response 4 of 27:

Dec 10 05:43 UTC 1992

There are at least two words in German for elavator (lift).  They can be
loosely translated:
Aufzug = up train
Fahrstuhl = driving chair

response 6 of 27:

Feb 18 02:58 UTC 1993

Direct translations are great.

Auf Wiedersehen! = Up again see!
What are you up to? = Was bist du auf zu?

(Two that I use regularly.  :-)

response 8 of 27:

Feb 18 06:43 UTC 1993

fun

response 10 of 27:

May 1 04:14 UTC 1993

Hmmm...  I once saw a graffitto (sp?) in Kiel that read:
  "Love is so hart when it is all out."
I think my favorite, though, is he local fraternity Phi Alpha Kappa,
and the effect that seeing 'FAK' written in 10-foot-high letters
has on Russians.  (FAK being somewhat of a universal 
obscenity in Europe...)   

response 12 of 27:

May 1 21:33 UTC 1993

I presume (that's presume) that the letters in question are Greek, and
that the relationship between the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets is
responsible for the misunderstanding.  But maybe dker will tell us
for sure.

response 14 of 27:

May 5 00:49 UTC 1993

Oops... I guess I hadng out with the wrong people.  The fraternity's
name, while spelled in Greek, reads as the leeters 'F', 'A', and 'K' 
in Russian.  A Russian, not being aware of the Greek Letter Societies,
tends to assume that the sign is in Russian.  
A similar problem sometimes arises with Americans in Germany who are
not familiar with the word "Ass" (what we would call 'ace'), which
occasionally appears in advertisements...
Seems to me that there was a Danish soft-drink known as 'Prick-Cola'
too, although I could be wrong.

Oh, and in relation to the Russian, the sound /a/ is what Russians
typically substitute for English /schwa/.  So you see words like
'sabvai' (Nyu York has one), 'ragbi' (a sport popular in England), and, yes,
'fak'.  Hope this clears up more than it garbles.

response 16 of 27:

May 23 16:04 UTC 1993

Well, it works the other way around, too...  Ask a German about
Schlitz beer some day...

response 18 of 27:

Jun 4 02:17 UTC 1993

Yes, but don't forget that there are wonderful mistranslations FROM English:
The Chevvy "Nova" ("Doesn't go" in Spanish)
Coke's slogan in China translated as:  "Coke brings your ancestors back from
        the dead"
and, of course, sitting in a French restaurant and saying, "Why, I couldn't
        eat another bite; I'm pregnant!"

response 20 of 27:

Jan 12 19:11 UTC 1998

King James Bible, Luke 2:14 (translated from Martin Luther's German) reads
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  A
direct translation from the Greek in the New Revised Standard Version is Glory
to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.
(From the American Translators' Association Chronicle, May 1997, Humor and
Translation).  Even translation can be affected by politics.

My mother had on the wall a curious Latin saying:  O civili, si ergo, fortibus
es in ero.  Anyone want to 'translate' this one.  (Read it aloud).

Dinersty has on its daily menu  'soul fish'.

response 22 of 27:

Jan 12 22:47 UTC 1998

I will look in the Latin item, thanks.  If it is not there, please post it
here, I seem to have gotten it wrong.

response 24 of 27:

Jan 14 01:59 UTC 1998

I found it.  It's in the *other* Latin item, the is-Latin-worth-studying one,
#15 resp 37.