| Konudaki sayfalar: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9] > | Off topic: What is the funniest mistake you have come across when proofreading? Konuyu gönderen: Paul Dixon
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canaria
Birleşik Krallık
Local time: 03:18
Fransızca > İngilizce
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| that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time! Thanks | May 5, 2009 |
Óscar Delgado Gosálvez wrote: I was proofreading film subtitles. The original was a father concerned about his daughter hitchhiking in California. - You will be beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by some unknown surfer. Translation: Te golpearán con un pulpo desconocido hasta dejarlo irreconocible. I was working late at night. Everybody else in the house slept. I can't remember where the surfer ended up in the translation, but I can remember that my mouth dropped wide open and then I had to laugh so hard that I woke my wife up. 
| | | | Kathryn Sanderson 
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Local time: 22:18
Fransızca > İngilizce
| Unknown octopi | May 5, 2009 |
Among fans of the Detroit Red Wings (hockey team), it's a custom to throw octopi onto the ice when the team wins an important game. I have no idea why they do it, but it's quite possible for a Red Wings fan to hit a player from the other team "con un pulpo desconocido"!
Kathryn
| | | | bowmanrich (X)
Local time: 04:18
İngilizce > Fransızca
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| Drag and drop | Jun 3, 2009 |
Drag and drop...translated to
Draguer et laisser tomber
| | | | Ahmet Murati
Almanya
Local time: 04:18
İngilizce > Arnavutça
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| Miss translation of movies | Jun 3, 2009 |
I recall a situation of watching a movie on TV.
In one moment there was a sentence like this "Thanks for your hospitality".
And in Albanian it was translated as "Faleminderit për spitalin tuaj" that means "Thanks for your hospital".
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When my children were young, their grandparents sent them a "save the earth" board game with multi-lingual instructions. If your piece landed on a square with litter (discarded cigarettes butts, old newspapers, bottle caps), you gained points by picking it up and carrying it to another square for recycling. Whoever had translated the instructions into English wrote "battle caps" instead "bottle caps".
And best of all, the French translator had apparently worked from the English rath... See more When my children were young, their grandparents sent them a "save the earth" board game with multi-lingual instructions. If your piece landed on a square with litter (discarded cigarettes butts, old newspapers, bottle caps), you gained points by picking it up and carrying it to another square for recycling. Whoever had translated the instructions into English wrote "battle caps" instead "bottle caps".
And best of all, the French translator had apparently worked from the English rather than the original German, so those instructions referred to "mégots, journaux, casques militaires...". ▲ Collapse
| | | | Anne-Marie Grant (X)
Local time: 03:18
Fransızca > İngilizce
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| A lecturer-friend of mine | Jun 3, 2009 |
marks dissertations by linguistics students.
His favourite was the one about Jamaican patios.
| | | | Jan Willem van Dormolen (X)
Hollanda
Local time: 04:18
İngilizce > Hollandaca
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| In a scanner manual | Jun 8, 2009 |
When replacing the feed roller:
"At this time, ensure that the notched end mates with the shaft in the scanner."
If I do this, will I get little scanners?
| | | | Jeremy Smith
Birleşik Krallık
Local time: 03:18
Üye (2003)
Fransızca > İngilizce
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| Popular with female drivers | Jun 9, 2009 |
On some cars, one safety feature is that the driving seat vibrates when you veer out of the lane you are driving in.
One translator called this feature: under-seat vibrators.
If I hadn't corrected it, maybe that car would have sold particularly well among women.
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James McVay
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Local time: 22:18
Rusça > İngilizce
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| A military one | Jun 9, 2009 |
This happened years ago, when I was checking the work of a junior enlisted soldier. He had just finished the Bulgarian course at the Defense Language Institute and was assigned to us as a translator.
He was given a short magazine article on the Soviet BM-21 multiple rocket launcher to translate. I glanced at his translation, and one sentence jumped right out at me. He said that the it was "rubber-band powered." What the original really said was that it had rubber tires.
<... See more This happened years ago, when I was checking the work of a junior enlisted soldier. He had just finished the Bulgarian course at the Defense Language Institute and was assigned to us as a translator.
He was given a short magazine article on the Soviet BM-21 multiple rocket launcher to translate. I glanced at his translation, and one sentence jumped right out at me. He said that the it was "rubber-band powered." What the original really said was that it had rubber tires.
I asked him what made him conclude that the BM-21 was a rubber-band powered rocket launcher . . . and he really couldn't say. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Jamaican patios | Jun 9, 2009 |
OMG!!!! Took me a few seconds, dying of laughter here....
Anne-Marie Grant wrote:
marks dissertations by linguistics students.
His favourite was the one about Jamaican patios.
| | | | | Breathing the ghost of Goethe | Jun 9, 2009 |
Very early on in my career, I proofread a brochure for a university which will remain nameless. But needless to say, Goethe played a big role there. I didn't actually have the German text, but I stumbled across:
"In (unnamed city) we breathe the ghost of Goethe".
Of course it's from the German "In xxxx atmen wir den Geist Goethes", meaning xxxx is characterized by the spirit of Goethe, but literally: In xxx we breathe the ghost of Goethe. In fact I didn't even know th... See more Very early on in my career, I proofread a brochure for a university which will remain nameless. But needless to say, Goethe played a big role there. I didn't actually have the German text, but I stumbled across:
"In (unnamed city) we breathe the ghost of Goethe".
Of course it's from the German "In xxxx atmen wir den Geist Goethes", meaning xxxx is characterized by the spirit of Goethe, but literally: In xxx we breathe the ghost of Goethe. In fact I didn't even know the meaning of the actual German phrase, so I wondered how it would be to breathe the ghost of Goethe. I figured it smelled like old farts, and that's become the inadvertent metaphor for farting in our house: "Hey, is that the ghost of Goethe I detect?"
[Edited at 2009-06-09 20:22 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosna - Hersek
Local time: 04:18
Üye (2009)
İngilizce > Hırvatça
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| Literal translation and newbies | Jun 9, 2009 |
Michele Johnson wrote:
Of course it's from the German "In xxxx atmen wir den Geist Goethes", meaning xxxx is characterized by the spirit of Goethe, but literally: In xxx we breath the ghost of Goethe.
A typical mistake by a newbie or semi-translator- literal translation. I sometimes review subtitles on TV shows, movies ( but mostly shows), and literal translations or unskillful solutions for incompatible linguistic structures are an instant signal it's been done by a complete newbie.
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Clarisa Moraña
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri
Local time: 21:18
Üye (2002)
İngilizce > İspanyolca
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| She is pregnant, and that's my fault! | Jun 9, 2009 |
That happened to one of my English teachers. He, a real English gentleman, had met a young lady in a party in Venezuela. Apparenty he had said something that disturbed her and wanted to apologize to her. Her parents were also at the same party, and my teacher decided to talk with them:
- Su hija está embarazada, y es por mi culpa- he said to the astonished parents. (Your daugther is pregnant, and that's my fault). In fact, he wanted to say: "She is embarrased".
Yeah, this i... See more That happened to one of my English teachers. He, a real English gentleman, had met a young lady in a party in Venezuela. Apparenty he had said something that disturbed her and wanted to apologize to her. Her parents were also at the same party, and my teacher decided to talk with them:
- Su hija está embarazada, y es por mi culpa- he said to the astonished parents. (Your daugther is pregnant, and that's my fault). In fact, he wanted to say: "She is embarrased".
Yeah, this is not a mistake found when proofreading, but I really like it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Instructions... | Jun 10, 2009 |
My favorite - I read it on a camping chair:
English: Don't stand on the chair.
Greek: Μην καθίσετε στην καρέκλα.
(Which means: Don't sit on the chair...)
| | | | Rod Walters
Japonya
Local time: 11:18
Japonca > İngilizce
| Muddled coeds | Jun 10, 2009 |
I always enjoy it when codes get scrambled into coeds. I must confess to being unclear exactly what a 'coed' actually is, but from casual reading, I've come to the conclusion it means 'innocent yet slutty young female', so it always piques the interest slightly when one turns up unexpectedly in an otherwise boring IT text.
As for the rubber-band propelled missile gaffe, we had a saying for times like that when I was serving my own august Queen. "Sir, I believe you've mistaken me for... See more I always enjoy it when codes get scrambled into coeds. I must confess to being unclear exactly what a 'coed' actually is, but from casual reading, I've come to the conclusion it means 'innocent yet slutty young female', so it always piques the interest slightly when one turns up unexpectedly in an otherwise boring IT text.
As for the rubber-band propelled missile gaffe, we had a saying for times like that when I was serving my own august Queen. "Sir, I believe you've mistaken me for someone who gives a shit". ▲ Collapse
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