| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | Off topic: Restaurant menu translation problems! Thread poster: Catharine Cellier-Smart
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| Care for some chicken fraction? | Sep 1, 2012 |
Here's a photo of a menu in a small village, a popular tourist destination, in Bulgaria.
The "chicken fraction" came into existence because in Bulgarian, the word "дроб" means both "liver" and "fraction"... See more Here's a photo of a menu in a small village, a popular tourist destination, in Bulgaria.
The "chicken fraction" came into existence because in Bulgarian, the word "дроб" means both "liver" and "fraction", so whoever was translating it just picked the word they liked better from the dictionary entry. Not a machine translation because even Google wouldn't spell it "mashrum" ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jennifer Gray 
Spain
Local time: 02:35
Member (2008)
Spanish to English
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| Rape sailor-style | Sep 1, 2012 |
Spotting menu mistranslations in Spain is one of my favourite hobbies. I've seen so many that I have often thought of starting a webpage.
Here a few:
Rape a la marinera.... Rape sailor-style
Tarta de la casa... Tart of the house
Pan. Horneado a diario.... Bread. Horny all day
almejas salteadas.... assaulted clams
One bar owner in Moclinejo decided to dispense altogether with descriptions and keep it simple...
Morcilla.... blood
Cordero al h... See more Spotting menu mistranslations in Spain is one of my favourite hobbies. I've seen so many that I have often thought of starting a webpage.
Here a few:
Rape a la marinera.... Rape sailor-style
Tarta de la casa... Tart of the house
Pan. Horneado a diario.... Bread. Horny all day
almejas salteadas.... assaulted clams
One bar owner in Moclinejo decided to dispense altogether with descriptions and keep it simple...
Morcilla.... blood
Cordero al horno.... sheep
Cerdo en salsa.... pig
To top it all, "La Carta" was "the letter"
Food for thought ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Seen at one time | Sep 1, 2012 |
Hi,
I had a good laugh when I once saw the French term ''homme-grenouille'' (diver in English) translated into Polish as ''człowiek żaba" (frogman).
I also saw the Polish term "stacja dysków" (disk drive) translated into German as "diskettenbanhof".
Both are good examples of thoughtless word-for-word translation with dictionary (and a poor one at that) in hand.
jj
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Talking about "rape" ...
Grated cheese in French is "fromage râpé", and a French girlfriend of a friend in a delicatessen once asked for "raped cheese". I think the sales assistant was rather taken aback.
[Edited at 2012-09-01 12:27 GMT]
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| At a Best Western hotel in Beijing, China | Sep 1, 2012 |
Descriptions of food at the breakfast buffet - honestly almost everything was cracking me up, but I didn't have enough paper to write it all down:
- butterfly scales (I can't remember what it actually was - it was a few years ago)
- thousand island juice (yep, definitely salad dressing)
- salad jam (another kind of salad dressing)
- fried steak (I think it was bacon actually?)
- lettuce salad (duh!)
- chicken (beef) in... See more Descriptions of food at the breakfast buffet - honestly almost everything was cracking me up, but I didn't have enough paper to write it all down:
- butterfly scales (I can't remember what it actually was - it was a few years ago)
- thousand island juice (yep, definitely salad dressing)
- salad jam (another kind of salad dressing)
- fried steak (I think it was bacon actually?)
- lettuce salad (duh!)
- chicken (beef) intestines (Isn't sausage usually pork? Are chicken intestines really big enough to make sausage? I decided not to taste after all!)
The funny thing was that nothing at the buffet was anything I would normally eat for breakfast. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Debby Nieberg
Netherlands
Local time: 02:35
Member (2009)
Italian to Dutch
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| Pizza with little hairdressers | Sep 1, 2012 |
In Amsterdam a pizzeria advertised their menu translated in English for all the passing tourists and offered (amongst others) 'Pizza with little hairdressers'...
After a little while I realized that they meant 'pizza with capers'.
The Dutch word for 'capers' is 'kappertjes'. But 'kappertjes' can also be the diminutive for 'kappers' (hairdressers)... hence the 'pizza with little hairdressers'
Or coul... See more In Amsterdam a pizzeria advertised their menu translated in English for all the passing tourists and offered (amongst others) 'Pizza with little hairdressers'...
After a little while I realized that they meant 'pizza with capers'.
The Dutch word for 'capers' is 'kappertjes'. But 'kappertjes' can also be the diminutive for 'kappers' (hairdressers)... hence the 'pizza with little hairdressers'
Or could it just be a new special type of pizza...? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rick Larg
Spain
Local time: 02:35
Spanish to English
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| Similar story | Sep 1, 2012 |
Tristan Jimenez wrote:
Cold starters ? That's a good start !!
I have seen a lot of mistakes like that in many different restaurants in France, similar to the warm goat "dung"...
Here's a little story:
I used to eat about twice a week at a lovely restaurant in the Alpes. This was about 2 years ago.
I knew the owner quite well, so I offered him to translate his menu into English. I never translate documents into English, but I thought it would be more accurate than it was. And you know what? He refused!! Even for free!! He said he couldn't be bothered reprinting it again, and using machine translators was enough... People would understand it anyway. Unbelievable!
That's quite sad!
Thanks for sharing it.
The same thing happened to me with the difference that I offered to correct the 'English' translation of a menu (for free). The owner accepted but then simply never used the corrected version.
| | | | Bubo Coroman (X)
Spanish to English
| I confess to two howlers! | Sep 1, 2012 |
I did this urgent translation for a snooty agency in Madrid where instead of "Russian crab", I put "Russian rabbit" (due to similar sound of cangrejo and conejo) and instead of "duck" I put "turkey" (due to similar sound of pato and pavo). They made a big fuss of telling me they were not going to pay me and were having the job re-done by a "trusted" translator. I wondered why on earth they were making such a big fuss when the whole purpose of their in-house quality control was to find errors lik... See more I did this urgent translation for a snooty agency in Madrid where instead of "Russian crab", I put "Russian rabbit" (due to similar sound of cangrejo and conejo) and instead of "duck" I put "turkey" (due to similar sound of pato and pavo). They made a big fuss of telling me they were not going to pay me and were having the job re-done by a "trusted" translator. I wondered why on earth they were making such a big fuss when the whole purpose of their in-house quality control was to find errors like these. However, I had the last laugh when they sent me the "trusted" translator's version as an example of good work: he had misspelt "canapé" several times as "canopé". Their excuse was that the translator was doing the job in a rush! Tee-hee! ▲ Collapse
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| I would be, too, if it happened to me | Sep 1, 2012 |
The abstract of a Brazilian article on meat processing had been translated into Spanish first, in which the "galinhas abatidas" (slaughtered chickens) became "pollos abatidos". This was then translated into English, where the poor birds ended up as "depressed chickens." I bet they were!
| | | | alexr
Local time: 02:35
English to French
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I've seen "pavé de veau" translated as "paving stone of calf" but the very best was, wait for it, "ris de veau" translated as... "laughter of young cow"...
Alex R.
| | | | adamsky21
Local time: 02:35
Hungarian to English
Richard Robinson wrote:
And a tin of sardines in tomato sauce was labelled on a supermarket shelf in Hungarian as "paradicsomos szar"
meaning "some shitty tomato stuff"
Err, you may have stopped reading too early. It's actually paradicsomos szardínia, which does mean sardines in tomato sauce.
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A favorite Chinese restaurant in Montreal was offering frogs' legs in various different preparations translated on the menu as "jambettes de grenouille"! The only other context in which I heard the word "jambettes" was in a somewhat racy songs interpreted by Mistinguett, a famous Belle Époque music hall artist. At a time when legs were well concealed, talking or praising one's legs was a tad provocative.
I never tried that restaurant's frog's legs but, according to the menu, they must h... See more A favorite Chinese restaurant in Montreal was offering frogs' legs in various different preparations translated on the menu as "jambettes de grenouille"! The only other context in which I heard the word "jambettes" was in a somewhat racy songs interpreted by Mistinguett, a famous Belle Époque music hall artist. At a time when legs were well concealed, talking or praising one's legs was a tad provocative.
I never tried that restaurant's frog's legs but, according to the menu, they must have been sexy frogs' legs! ▲ Collapse
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Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 01:35
Member (2007)
English
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| Do you like your food rusty? | Sep 1, 2012 |
You need to develop a taste for it in the south of France. One of the favourite sauces down in the Midi is "rouille" - probably it owes its name to its rusty colour, but I'm not really sure. But I am sure that a restaurant where I used to live would have been better off offering "cuttlefish with rouille sauce" than "rusty cuttles".
| | | | | School dinner menus | Sep 1, 2012 |
My son's school dinner menu is provided in both Spanish and English, and last year included the likes of "gardener cream" (crema hortelana), "hake to the oven" (merluza al horno) and "stew of bird" (estofada de ave).
I also once ate at a restaurant offering "kitchen wings" rather than "chicken wings".
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Reading the menu in an Indian restaurant in Ireland, I came across various dishes with 'sweat and sour sauce'. Yum, yum.
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