Friday, 8 July 2011

English As She Is Spoke...

I bought a battery-extender for my iPhone a few days ago, and was rather amused at the little guidebook that came with it, which had obviously been translated from the designer's native language via GoogleTranslate:



Errr, OK, if you say so....

Mind you, the safety advice was even better:


Presumably, if a child swallows a battery on purpose, you don't need to 'go to a doctors place'..?
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9 comments:

  1. Tattyfalarr8 July 2011 at 09:24

    Always hilarious are the badly translated signs, labels and instruction manuals from foreign lands. Of course, it's all a ruse to lull the english into a false sense of security and subversive intelligence test.
    ...
    When we stop laughing or pointing it out...when it becomes the norm and we take what we read literally, without qestion...That's when they will invade ;)

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  2. Shinar's Basket Case8 July 2011 at 09:39

    "I bought a battery-extender for my iPhone.."

    I stopped reading there, right there. An I-phone?! Seriously?

    I had credited you...

    ...oh well...

    'feet of clay' I suppose... Did you have a deprived childhood, your parents wouldn't buy you a tamagotchi?

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  3. Shinar's Basket Case nospam.com8 July 2011 at 09:52

    Bestes Frau and I speak German at home, the Kids however prefer a mix of Denglisch and Chav-Norfolk.

    This leads to constructions such as : "She tut mich fuckin hate-en like"..which, for the non-Germish speakers among us, means 'she dislikes me intensely' (probably cos he cheated on her with 6 other girls, as it happens).

    You do NOT know what bad translation is until you've heard the declension of the words 'like' and 'innit' as if they were German nouns.

    Trust me on that.

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  4. Edwin Greenwood8 July 2011 at 10:02

    In my younger years I occasionally went out and got well pluged on the Power Charger. It was an incredible buzz, but by Christ you regretted it the following morning.

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  5. Captain Haddock8 July 2011 at 10:39

    "Presumably, if a child swallows a battery on purpose, you don't need to 'go to a doctors place' " ..?

    Presumably said battery-swallowing child will just sit, banging on a drum, like a demented bunny, all day ..

    Just pray that it wasn't a Duracell .. ;)

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  6. Anonymous8 July 2011 at 11:18

    There is a video doing the rounds of one of the Star Wars movies which was dubbed into Mandarin and then subtitled back into English from the translation

    They clearly haven't grasped the idea of the force because Darth Vader according to the subtitles anyway is reputedly saying "If only you knew the power of the Presbyterian Church"

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  7. Shinar's Basket Case8 July 2011 at 11:21

    " "If only you knew the power of the Presbyterian Church"

    Snork!

    *wipes coffee and snot off laptop screen*

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  8. JuliaM9 July 2011 at 06:41

    "When we stop laughing or pointing it out...when it becomes the norm and we take what we read literally, without qestion...That's when they will invade ;)"

    I've a feeling they are perilously close to that point!

    "I stopped reading there, right there. An I-phone?! Seriously? "

    Confession time: I have an iPad too *smug*

    :)

    " It was an incredible buzz, but by Christ you regretted it the following morning."

    LOL!

    "They clearly haven't grasped the idea of the force because Darth Vader according to the subtitles anyway is reputedly saying "If only you knew the power of the Presbyterian Church""

    :D

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  9. Anonymous12 July 2011 at 09:03

    That must be a candidate for engrish.com!

    ReplyDelete