When you read foreign websites and see how different languages translate and understand words and phrases. One example one of my favorite subtle ‘lost in translation’ things I see in Poland is ‘zapraszamy’. Which means ‘we invite you’. So when Poles translate their websites or write a marketing letter, I see something like, ‘we invite you to our store to buy things’. I think of an invitation is more like, we invite you to dinner, or to a party, not to spend money. We invite you to spend 10,000 dollars in our store. Or in German I have seen people trying to sell a German copy of ‘Lord of the Rings’ by Tolkien translated as ‘Gentlemen of the rings’. Language translation on the web are often amusing. The worst is when people use electronic language translators. It comes out very crazy, but useful in a pinch if you need to write someone from another country and you have no knowledge of their language, on chat for example. Its fun to compare translated text and see how language is really an abstraction, with meaning that cannot be perfectly translated.
Funny language translations we see on the web
Posted in General language learning, Learn Polish, Off the topic of languages, Technology and language learning
Related Articles to Funny language translations we see on the web
Online translations of Harry Potter Days after "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" online translations started to appear on the internet. Chinese, French, Spanish version are already on the web, I have not seen ...
translate tool firefox translate tool firefox
The translate tool I use in firefox is 'gtranslate'. It uses google's translate page to translate text. It works fine with an auto detect button for the language. ...
Spelling in the air technique for learning words Technique to learn words
If you need to learn a word. One way you can remember it is close your eyes and spell it in the air. See the word. ...
Kvass | A Ukrainian drink that leads to funny situations Origins of Kvass
Kvass is a medieval drink which means 'leaven'. It is basically non-alcoholic drink fermented from rye and mixed with herbs or fruits like mint and strawberry. If you ...
Selling things in the market to learn a language Learn a language by selling in a market
I am an American living in Poland. And for fun sometimes I go to Ukraine and buy things cheap and sell them in ...


Leave a reply to Funny language translations we see on the web