The anomaly of accents and dialects continued. . .

A famous English dialect has to be cockney rhyming slang, which can confuse the best of us even if we are English. There are several website that are dedicated to the translation of English into cockney rhyming slang. If you are not familiar with it then you might wonder whether it was actually that different, the answer is yes! Below are some phrases that are in cockney rhyming slang and I challenge you to translate them into understandable English.

1. 'Allo me old china - wot say we pop round the Jack. I'll stand you a pig and you can rabbit on about your teapots. We can 'ave some loop and tommy and be off before the dickory hits twelve.

2. "Got to my mickey, found me way up the apples, put on me whistle and the bloody dog went. It was me trouble telling me to fetch the teapots."

3. I Scapa Fla ter university only carpet days a Bubble And Squeak, so I 'ave ter Kathy Burke ter keep myself busy

In general people never actually apply this much cockney rhyming slang to one phrase, mostly people will say a perfectly normal sentence and then throw in apples instead of staying stairs. Most of the time one doesn’t really notice if one is English. However, if you do not have English as your native language then you will probably need someone to translate and/or mime. Failing this just nod and agree.

To be continued . . .

The anomaly of accents. . .

Although I consider Great Britain to be my home country, my safe haven, I have often found myself completely baffled by accents that occupy certain towns and cities. One of the most disconcerting experiences I had was whilst I was visiting the great city of Glasgow. I was standing peacefully at a bus stop, awaiting a bus that was to take me to the airport. I was listening to some fabulous music on my iPod when a man approaches me and seemingly asks me a question. Due to fact that I was listening to my music, I did not hear or understand what had been said. I removed the headphones from my ears and aimed a friendly smile his way. He repeated the question. I blinked and then for lack of knowing what else to do I blinked again. I had not understood what he had said to me at all due to his very strong Scottish accent. He may as well have been speaking Greek for all I knew. I apologized and excused myself asking him to repeat what he had already repeated twice. He sighed and once again offered the sentence up for my understanding and once again it failed to be recognized by my now panicking brain. Once again I blinked and considered the fact that he may think that I had some mental deficiency. Having no response to offer up I shrugged and hoped that he would go away so that I could recover from this ordeal. He however had a different plan in mind and aimed some more words at me. I knew that this new statement was not the same as the first because the sounds were different but this was about all I could make of the situation. Again I had nothing to do but stare dejectedly at the floor and hope that it would defy the laws of physics and swallow me up. No such luck, the floor remained intact and the gentleman continued staring at me expecting an answer. Thankfully the women next to me came to our aid and responded to the questions of the man and then translated what had been said to me. It turned out that he was asking me whether this was the bus to the airport and my response to this being a shrug he then asked me where I was wanting to go because he thought that this was in fact the bus to the airport. So by the end of this encounter I was feeling fairly fragile and idiotic and he believed that I was a complete incompetent, overall a very successful conversation I thought.
Molly:0 and accents:1

To be continued . . .

Translations done badly continued . . . again . . .

Now we move into the domain of badly translated signs, posters and other important information. Many British people will remember the rather amusing debacle with the Welsh road sign. For anyone that is not familiar with the story I will explain it now. Sign makers in Wales needed to make a sign that stated “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” Faced with the dilemma of translating the phrase the sign maker called in the experts to help them in their time of need. They sent the phrase, to be translated, to a professional translator. I know what you’re thinking this all seems very logical and sensible and thus far it is but then things start to unravel. Unfortunately the translator was not in his office and an automated reply was sent stating that “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated” but it was written in Welsh. The sign maker not having any working knowledge of Welsh took this to be his desired translation and promptly added it to the sign. According to the stories there were some incredibly confused Welch people walking around wondering why they should care that someone was not in their office and that translations should still be sent. Here is a photo of the sign in question:


To read more about this story follow this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7702913.stm

Other amusing stories from the world of bad translation include the fiasco that Pepsi had when translating their slogan into Chinese. It would seem to be a fairly easy translation as the slogan was “Pepsi gives you zest for life”. This was very professionally translated into Chinese and read “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave”. A truly amazing drink if it was capable of doing these things however I highly doubt that it was but you never know so keep drinking that Pepsi!! Another famous disaster comes from Pepsi’s rival, Coca Cola, who wanted their name to be put into Chinese characters. Unfortunately it rendered there name useless as it now read “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”. All in all a success I feel. Just a couple more examples to keep you giggling for the rest of the day. Most people have heard of the “Jolly Green Giant” sweetcorn but has anyone heard of “Intimidating Green Monster” sweetcorn. No? Well this is how “Jolly Green Giant” was translated into Arabic. Personally I know which one I would choose. Finally one of the best mistakes in my opinion was made by the “Coors” beer company when they had their slogan “Turn it Loose” translated into Spanish. Unfortunately once in Spanish it then read “Get Diarrhoea”! Successful I think not, although it depends what you want from your beer.
amusement:1 and translators: 0

Translations done badly continued . . .

I once did a translation using solely a French monolingual dictionary just to experiment of course, not because the internet refused to work and the only options were French monolingual or English monolingual. I had also not spent a really long time desperately trying to get the internet working again and attempting to yell at the inanimate computer in front of me before dissolving into tears. I started well, just because I had no need for the dictionary yet, and got the first couple of sentences done. It carried on very much the same until I hit a block. There was one word that I didn’t know how to translate. I took a breath and started to look in the dictionary, turning the pages carefully so there was no chance that I would miss it. I couldn’t see the word so I carried on but I soon realised that I had moved into a new letter. The word would definitely not be here, what to do? I went back and even more carefully than before I went through the dictionary but again to no avail. I panicked; this word was not in the dictionary, what was I going to do? I decided to phone a friend, I had that or ask the audience left, and asked them whether they could look up this word. They tried but they could not find a translation either however they promised to keep trying. This is when my phone decided it would be an appropriate time to switch off and not turn back on again. It was at this point that I threw a hissy fit; really I just sat down on my bed feeling rather blue. I looked at the word again, while the world I knew was crumbling around my feet and it was only at this point that I realised that there was a typo and that I actually knew exactly how to translate it.

To be continued . . .

To translate your CV or not to translate your CV that is the question . . .

We have all at one time had to write a CV. Many people will agree that this is the most fulfilling experience ever . . . not! I don’t know if other people find that trying to make yourself sound wonderful whilst maintaining a sufficient level of dignity and trying to dredge up the smattering of experience that you have, a difficult experience but I certainly do! This experience can only be made worse by needing your CV to be in a different language? Here at LinguaSpirit we can translate your CV for an incredibly reasonable price and a plethora of different languages. Why LinguaSpirit I hear you ask. Well not only would we provide professional translators who would work tirelessly on your CV to make it culturally and linguistically perfect but we also provide free confidential help and advice to anyone who needs it. We can cater for needs whether it is your CV translating into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, anything, then we can do it. If you have heroically tried to translate your CV yourself then we also a free read through of your work so that you can be assured that it is legible and correct. We have an entire website dedicated to our CV translation services and you can get there by following this link: http://linguaspiritcv.free.fr/ and it will take you literally to our doorstep where you will be received with open arms.

We don’t just specialise in CV translation we are available to translate many different documents. We recently translated Credit Agricole’s financial magazine as well as a song, a restaurant menu and many other weird and wonderful things. At www.linguaspirit.com we aim to help you whatever your needs. The LinguaSpirit headquarters are here to help you!

Translations done badly . . .

We all know this one! I’m sure that everyone has at one time in their lives seen a very bad translation of something that couldn’t be simpler to translate and yet it is turned into the most ridiculous of sentences. I remember being in Mauritania, buying Christmas gifts when I came across a cream that assured me that it removed horniness, all in all probably not what you want from a cream. There are thousands of examples of amusing signs, posters, notices, etc that have all been translated in absurd ways. All you need to do is go to Google images and type in bad translations. As translations they are obviously worth nothing but as fodder for a really good giggle I would suggest throwing caution to the wind and just letting rip. Translation is a tricky subject and can often go wrong, as I have already insinuated. Here are a few examples of the interesting tools available for a translator, and I use interesting in the broadest sense of the word.
People will often use instant translators that you can find on a multitude of websites. I myself have used them if I am feeling particularly lazy although every time I get much the same outcome as previous experiences. Unless you have the most basic of sentences with no idiomatic expressions, no complex sentence structures and no complicated verb forms then the computer will generate a coherent translation of your work. However, life is not usually this kind and to be perfectly honest if you have been given a translation that is that simple then you could probably just have done it yourself. When you do get the more common complex translations the temptation to cheat is always there. I will describe to you now the feeling of using the instant translator. Usually there are one or two phrases that you just can’t quite get to sound English/French enough so you take a shifty look around you to make sure no one is looking ( not that it would make any difference if anyone was) and go on the hunt for, most likely, Google translate. Once you arrive at this site and choose your languages, you boldly type the sentences into the box and hold your breath while you wait for the translation to appear. This is always a tense moment, for though you know that it will spew out the most ludicrous of sentences you can’t stop the little bubble of hope that is floating somewhere within your being. You stare at the screen willing it to be a perfect translation, you see the computer loading your, hopefully, perfect translation. The excitement builds and you know that you have gone too far and that there is now no way to turn back. Suddenly it appears and it is usually the biggest load of bollocks you have seen, so back you go to the dictionary. If you have never experienced this before I would suggest having a go, it can be fairly fun.

to be continued . . .

Culturally diverse continued . . .

The phenomenon of foreign drivers in a foreign country is just as amusing. Talking to English people about facing the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe insights an extremely funny reaction. If you ever want to see someone go pale and possibly faint I would suggest mentioning this. Another cultural anomaly seems to be English road rage which is not so pronounced in other countries and therefore other cultures. One of the best examples of road rage I can give is my dear father who has a persistent problem with cows that crowd the common where he lives. It is a true infestation of cows and they roam free over the roads and countryside. I am pretty sure my father thinks that the cows have a vendetta against him. As they really do seem to wait for him to drive past before they amble slowly into the middle of the road and stop there to consider the meaning of life. They wait there very patiently while my father waits not so patiently behind the wheel. The threats that seep from his mouth are quite entertaining and he winds himself up into the greatest state while the cow just merely stares at him chewing cud. He then runs through a very extensive list of profanities until the cow decides that this may be a good time to leave and check out the greener grass on the other side. No cows were harmed in the making of this road rage. This is however a serious problem that affects many of the English citizens and we must do what we can to raise awareness around the world. The French have a different way of handling this rage and they tend to merely beep their horns over and over and over and over and over and over again. However if this were the way that English people dealt with their road rage then there would be some incredibly confused girls walking the streets thinking that the really angry people in the traffic jam had taken a moment to let them know that they were good looking. As I said before these cultural differences are incredibly hard to translate unless you are an English student living in Paris and then you just spend most of your time confused.
Obviously I am only qualified to mention incidents that I have actually witnessed and in places that I have actually lived in although I have it on very good authority that this is a worldwide dilemma.
I bet you are wondering what all this has to do with translation . . . well it is very simple. It is not just words that need translating as there are also cultural nuances to take into consideration. You have to know the cultural aspects of a language as well as just the vocabulary. We can all laugh at the messes that are caused by lack of cultural knowledge but would you truly want that in a CV or in another document that you want translating? This is how we deal with translations at both LinguaSpirit and FreeSpirit. Every aspect of the translation is taken into account and we endeavour to make it the best we can.