Our English, thus, gets affected by our mother tongue. So it
becomes Hinglish/Bengalish/ Marathish as you first,think in your mother tongue before you speak. And, this,
evokes fun.
When each becomes itch. Where Russia become Rasia (meaning lover in Hindi) and when someone accidentally offers you sh!t instead of a seat and so on..
OK…coming straight to the point. 46% of Hong Kongers use
English as per Wikipedia. Which, prevalently is Chinglish. In the beginning, I had my own
struggle translating it in English as I was used to only Indian version of it
but the journey soon became super-interesting. Cantonese to English translation becomes funny because it has no singular/ plural.. no tenses and no gender specific pronouns.
The thought of writing this blog was triggered by the
following product that I found at a cosmetic store. I literally rolled on the floor laughing! Was it a product made for plastic surgeons?
In case, you were not happy with yours.
And you know what services they offer?
Whole face and neck removal!!
HKD 500
It's cheap but illegal!!
Perils of colonizing Cantonese
So what will their kids be called?
Any suggestions?
Pessimist!!
No comments!
Chinese version of Longman English dictionary?
(Expert advise will make you use English easy-ly)
OK... whatever!!
Wrong sign or wrong product?
Thanks for showing our limits
Execution center?
Fail?
Sorry?
Come again!
Pardon me!
(At the bakery store generally)
No comments
Oh really!!
Hahahaha.. Nice one :-) :P
ReplyDeletePoetry is what gets lost in translation.
ReplyDelete― Robert Frost
But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translation
And every bit of us is lost in it
(Or found – I wander through the ruin of S
Now and then, wondering at the peacefulness)
And in that loss a self-effacing tree,
Color of context, imperceptibly
Rustling with its angel, turns the waste
To shade and fiber, milk and memory.
― James Merrill
Translatioon is not an easy job. Even westerners get flummoxed-
ReplyDelete1. Almost as good as the confusion among English speakers over the term Fanny Pack, is the humor raised by the German equivalent for knapsack. Companies often use or "borrow" words from other languages to give their product names a certain cachet. Sometimes their choices are a bit odd. German makers of knapsacks refer to them as "Body Bags".
2. In 1988, the General Electric Company (GEC) and Plessey combined to create a new telecommunications giant. A brand name was desired that evoked technology and innovation. The winning proposal was GPT for GEC-Plessey Telecommunications. A not very innovative name and not suggestive of technology and a total disaster for European branding. GPT is pronounced in French as “J’ai pété” or “I've farted”.
3. Waterpik uses another name in Denmark. "Pik" is the common Danish word for male genitals. Most Danes can easily translate "water" to the danish word "vand". And "vandpik" is a term for the morning erection.
"And you put that thing in your mouth?!?!"
4. Matsushita Electric was promoting a Japanese PC for internet users. It came with a Japanese Web browser courtesy of Panasonic. Panasonic had licensed the cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet guide."
The day before a huge marketing campaign was to begin, Panasonic stopped the product launch. The reason: the ads featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet Pecker." An American at the internal product launch explained to the stunned and embarrassed Japanese what "touch woody" and "pecker" meant in American slang.
5. Latte means milk in Italy. In English, Latte is a coffee-drink. Many folks like to head to Starbucks or other coffee shops to take early morning latte breaks...
In Germany, Latte is a well known word for an erection. So, "morning latte" is when you wake up in the morning with an erection! The word "break" means "destroy", so taking that "morning latte break" is destroying that erection. I'll leave the details to your imagination, as well as all the puns on how you take your steaming hot drink.
6. Ford's Pinto didn't do well in Brazil. Pinto is Brazilian slang for "male genitals". Ford renamed the car the Corcel, which means horse or steed.
ReplyDeleteNote 1: If it were my translation marketing department I would have renamed the car "Dear God, I hope my gas tank doesn't explode!"
Note 2: "Pinto" is reported all over the web, along with this story, as meaning "tiny male genitals" or a "man with small genitals". According to Luiz Pryzant, it just refers to "male genitals".
7. Honda introduced their new car "Fitta" into Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to undertake some cross cultural marketing research they may have discovered that "fitta" was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to a woman's genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it "Honda Jazz".
8. Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent £6 million on a campaign to launch its new 'Bundh' sauces. It received calls from numerous Punjabi speakers telling them that "bundh" sounded just like the Punjabi word for "arse".
9. Parker Pens are proud of the fact that, unlike some cheap ballpoints, its pens won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you. And that was just the message they sought to convey to the Mexican market, but without realising the Mexican Spanish word for “embarazar” does not mean “to embarrass” but “to impregnate”. Result, an ad for Parker Pens that read, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”
10. Why do so many of these stories seem to involve Mexico? The answer might be because it’s often the first foreign language market into which American marketers venture.
Anyway, The US Dairy Association was reportedly so pleased with the success of its "Got Milk?" campaign that it decided to extend it to take in neighbouring Mexico. The only problem was that the Spanish translation of “Got Milk?” that it came up with allegedly read as "Are you lactating?"
Let me end by showing how some of the biggest brands trip while translating into Chinese:
11. Western companies can find translating their marketing messages into Chinese a particular challenge. Or, so Pepsi allegedly found when insufficient attention to translation nuances led it to translate “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave".
Now, THERE’S a brand promise.
12. When Coke first looked into rendering the name “Coca-Cola” into Chinese it came up with a translation that, depending on the precise dialect, meant either “Bite the wax tadpole” or “Female horse stuffed with wax.”
Or, so the tale is told. Another version of it, however, is that such unfortunate translations were the work of some local Chinese shop-keepers, anticipating Coke’s arrival in China, and producing their own unofficial marketing material, without the knowledge or authority of Coke.
According to this version, Coke’s entry to the Chinese market was meticulously planned. It involved Coke researching 40,000 Chinese characters, until it found the perfect translation, which literally meant, “Happiness in the mouth.”