Hi everyone,
No, I’m not proposing just another «bad/funny translations» list. What I’d like to know is whether you know of any weird/comical situations that came about while translating or interpreting.
Here’s a little story to start us off:
A (Spanish) friend of mine runs a hotel which has a fabulous restaurant with good food, a nice atmosphere (including background music, of course) and friendly service. My friend enjoys getting to know his guests and will often have a good chat with diners who want to know more about the local cuisine.
One day he had a couple of English-speaking diners in the restaurant who enquired about the ingredients of a certain dish. His English is not perfect and he got stuck when it came to translating berenjena. He uttered a » Manuelesque» (- for those who remember Fawlty Towers- ) «Sorry. One moment, please» and dashed off to the computer to consult Google Translate. Whilst he was there, he decided to check on the pronunciation too. Once satisfied that he could articulate «aubergine» as well as any native, he confidently returned to the dining-room only to find all the diners in fits of laughter.
The piped music of the restaurant had been connected to the computer system he used and when he consulted Google, «AUBERGINE» had boomed out through the loudspeakers half a dozen times!
Now it’s up to you. I’m looking forward to hearing your anecdotes in English or Spanish.
Acabo de darme cuenta de que el profesor de Milord se comió la ce de «socks». Por eso dijo que era un guasón…
Monic, como alguien aficionado al spanglish se entere, dentro de poco vemos en Google miles de entradas con «instalment». Al tiempo.
Ay, qué cosas.
Un abrazo, chicos.
Good evening to you all,
Well, I did have a good idea this time, didn’t I? There are some brilliant stories there and I’m really enjoying reading them. Poor chileno, most English-learners hate phrasal verbs on paper but you had to deal with them in practice!
Before I forget, bill, the key to the rabbit story is here. I could also do with an «embarrassed» emoticon because I was stuck with Milord’s socks until Madri explained.
Just like all of us, monic and Madri have also had their awkward moments due to language barriers and that seems a good cue to thank Blasita for this delightful café, where we can solve some of these difficulties (and have fun at the same time).
Finally, I’m going off my own topic a bit but Robin’s account reminds me of another hotel receptionist: a friendly and cheerful creature who has the habit of greeting the guests in the morning with «Buenos días. ¿Han pasado buena noche? …(pause)… ¿o han dormido bien ustedes?»
Hello nibbles and everybody:
Each person learning a new language is going to go through these type things…they are fun, else you don’t learn and shy away from the language. Sad but true.
Another one of mine is that at one time I started to translate at Workmans’ Compensation Court for Industrial accidents and also for Personal Injuries etc…
My boss conned me into staying late for an appearance in court before a judge. That would be my first time before one but my boss told me the judge was very lenient and that I didn;t have anything to worry about.
Things is that the judge is of Hispanic descendant (I didn’t know) was very strict (I learned that from my boss later) and there I am translated in consecutive mode until the client states «Estaba jugando fajado» Which of course I translated as «girdled». The judge stops the process and states «Girdled, uh? Let me check that up» and I swear, he pull out a dictionary that must have been around 16 by 11 inches or bigger, very thick too, and starts to look up the word. After finding the word and a brief moment considering it, he states «Fine, you did fine» and allowed the process to continue…
When my boss heard that, he was just laughing his behind off and congratulated me. 🙂
I could’ve translated that as «Bandaged» but I was taught that changing terms like that is part of paraphrasing, so true to the way I learned, I translated it instead of interpreting it.
Enjoy!
Good one, Chileno.
Your mention of law courts reminds me of another bizarre interpreting episode which happened to me more than 25 years ago.
I was spending the day at a friend’s house when the Guardia Civil turned up saying that they had been searching for me at my home, my workplace etc. They handed over a summons which instructed me to go to the local court immediately, with all the usual threats about what would happen to me if I didn’t «obey».
Naturally concerned, I got there as fast as I could. On my arrival, I was told that a gentleman had been arrested and that both the police and the judge were having difficulty in understanding him and my help was requested. The story so far was that the man had been booted off the train in a nearby city for riding without a ticket and then he had stolen an ambulance and had fled on the motorway until he ran out of petrol and was arrested.
During the interrogation he refused to disclose his name or nationality (his English was more or less understandable but he certainly wasn’t a native speaker). He had some type of severe disability in one leg and claimed that as the ambulance was so ideally suited for him, he had presumed that it had been put there for him (with the keys in the ignition) by Providence!
The only other thing that could be got out of him was that he desperately needed to get on a train to Lisbon in order to embark for America the next day. He kept repeating this over and over again.
The whole thing was surreal and I’ve often wondered if the police and the judge thought I was making it all up.
The outcome was that the man spent the night in a cell and missed his train/boat and I never got paid for my 6 hours unexpected work.
Come on, admit it, you think I’m making it up too, don’t you? 😀
Nibbles, it was interesting and funny, but at the end you state it in such a way that I am not sure if it is true, or maybe you believe what I said it wasn’t true…No problem, but your mentioning that I wouldn’t believe it makes me think that way…:)
I have funny stuff as well as not so funny ones because stuff happens to immigrants…that’s for sure. No apologies necessaries, but an explanation of what you meant would clarify things.
No, Chileno, don´t worry. Nobody’s making things up around here as far as I know. I’m certainly not but I realise that my story sounds a bit far-fetched. And although I actually responded directly to your comment, my «you» was meant to address all the Blasiteros. 😉
Sorry for any misunderstanding.
Ok, no problem, just wanted to clear that up…:) It is always fun to hear the mishaps one get into etc when working as a translator or just being a simple immigrant.
Chileno, perhaps you could open a new entry about those mishaps suffered by immigrants. I’m sure many of us have been in the situation, know someone who is, or have perhaps helped someone who is. And it sounds as if you have a story or two to tell yourself. Just a suggestion.
Regards
Hola a todos de nuevo:
Yo también me lo estoy pasando fenomenal leyendo vuestras anécdotas. 🙂
Me han hecho una pregunta en privado sobre mi anécdota que voy a responder también en público, ya que me parece apropiado y porque me han dado permiso para hacerlo: por qué comprar tres tarjetas telefónicas de una tacada. Mi compañera de piso, que se convirtió en mi amiga, y yo nos dimos cuenta de que si usábamos más tarjetas de menor importe, nos salía más económico que emplear menos tarjetas de mayor importe, es decir, comprar un par de tarjetas de diez dólares en lugar de una tarjeta de veinte, por ejemplo. Esto era para las tarjetas que utilizábamos y en llamadas internacionales; no sé si la situación será igual ahora. Mi compañera de piso tenía también su familia fuera de Rusia y aprovechábamos los fines de semana para llamar a familiares y amigos.
Haciendo memoria, he recordado una ocasión que se ajusta más a lo que nos pediste en un principio, Nibbles. En aquella época trabajaba por las noches —y, en realidad, en cuanto podía sacar alguna hora libre— en un bar-restaurante en Australia, y una noche vi que una camarera no paraba de hacer gestos extraños ante unos clientes, quienes a su vez le «contestaban» con otros de idéntica índole. Algunos comensales se habían levantado de sus mesas y ya estaban rodeando la mesa en cuestión, aparentemente intentando ayudar. Yo estaba con mis cuentas y la camarera, australiana, se acercó a mí para pedirme ayuda: dos clientes no entendían lo que era un Aussie kangaroo pie. Me dijo que unos clientes —creía que argentinos— no entendían lo que era kangaroo y que, como yo sabía español, a ver si le podía echar una mano. Me hice hueco en lo que era ya un notable grupo de espectadores rodeando la mesa del kangaroo pie y pregunté, en español, a los clientes gesticulantes cuál era el problema. Resulta que ese pie lo habían tomado como «pie» (foot) y creían que les iban a servir un kangaroo foot («pie de canguro»). Les expliqué que en este caso pie (/pai/) era en inglés como un pastel, en este caso de carne de canguro, y quedaron satisfechos con la explicación.
Tengo que decir que ya en frío, cuando lo pensé tranquilamente después, me resultó algo raro e incluso pensé que se podían haber estado quedando con la camarera. En fin, eso da absolutamente igual, porque el caso es que todo salió bien y los comensales disfrutaron de lo lindo con la comida, y ellos y yo con nuestra conversación posterior.
Buenas noches.
Blasita, bien gracioso lo que siempre pasa con todos nosotros los inmigrantes…para los que deciden tomárselo con gracias y echar pa’elante. 😀
Jajá. ¿Y qué más da pie que lomo que costillas, Blasita? Seguro que todos están muy ricos 🙂
Great, guys!
Dear Nibbles, stop me if I’ve told you this one … (too late …! 😉 ). Australia, many years ago …
Dick, a colleague of mine, and I rushed out to the supermarket to grab something for lunch. When we got to the checkout, the queue wasn’t too long and soon it was our turn. Dick, a Brit, said something I didn’t hear to the man on the till — I was behind him in the queue —, who then said to my colleague *’She’ll be all right, mate’. Dick turned to me and asked ‘She? You? Who?’. ‘I don’t know’, I said, shrugging my shoulders — actually I was hungry, had no time for that and just wanted to pay for my sandwich and leave —. They started talking: a discussion that turned into a heated argument. Everyone in the queue was getting impatient and many were curious about what was going on. I just wanted to buy my sandwich and I really didn’t know what the fuss was about.
A security guard emerged from nowhere and that boy on the till angrily shouted ‘Take this **Pom and … his … friend out of here!’. And the guard kicked us out.
* She’ll be alright is an Australian phrase. She doesn’t refer only to she (ella). It means: (no problem) it will be okay, everything will be all right (worrying about it is unnecessary). No probs, no worries, she’ll be apples.
** Pom (also Pommie, Pommy) is how British people are called in Australia. Mainly pejorative.
That’s a good one. 🙂
Oh dear, Blasita. I take it you were thrown out without the sandwich?
But I’m not sure why Dick got so upset. Was it a «Who’s she? The cat’s mother?» type of situation? Or didn’t he like your being labelled as «all right»?
Thanks a lot, Chileno and Nibbles.
I don’t know why he got so upset either; sorry, Nibbles. I was distracted looking at some goodies near the checkout counter, at the ‘impulse racks/shelves’, and that was the only phrase (‘She’ll be alright’) I heard. It seemed they were arguing about idioms (i.e. Austrialian English vs British English, and so on) but people in the queue kept on asking me what was going on and I lost track of what they were saying. I was trying to calm Dick down when, all of a sudden, the supermarket security guard appeared. Dick never talked about this incident afterwards and I decided not to ask him about it.
And that’s right, Nibbles, we were thrown out without our lunch and I was starving!
Mi primera vez en Australia y con un inglés limitado. En un momento determinado tuve que pasar pruebas, entre ellas una que consistía en mecanografiar unos monólogos —discursos, reflexiones personales, clases de universidad, etc.— grabados y reproducidos con un dictáfono. En muchos casos abundaban pequeñas pausas, y especialmente había un tipo de pausas que me intrigaban y no lograba entender. El conferenciante dudaba en ciertos momentos o, quizá, hacía tiempo para que los temporales y aplicados mecanógrafos pudiéramos seguir el acelerado ritmo que imponía en su conversación.
Voy al grano. Se trataba de conversaciones largas. El caso es que decían bastantes veces /ei/ … tal, /ei/ … cual y yo estaba totalmente despistada: no sabía a qué se referían. En aquel momento, con las prisas y los nervios, no di con lo obvio; se estaba pronunciando el determinante a de manera fuerte (strong form) en lugar de la débil (weak form, schwa /ə/) por los parones. Decidí tomarlo como lo único que me sonaba y escribí ey!, con i griega para intentar hacerlo más inglés, como si dijera en español algo como «¡ey, qué pasa!». Ante todo, ey no tenía sentido al ir directamente seguido de un adjetivo o un sustantivo y, en fin, que quedaba ridículo e irrisorio en el texto mecanografiado. Menos mal que la profesora-examinadora tenía un sentido del humor admirable y, como la mayoría de australianos de aquella época, estaba muy interesada en conocer de primera mano la historia y literatura de otros países, especialmente de España. Como era muy easy-going —como casi todos los australianos— el tema le pareció muy interesante y me dio una buena nota.
NOTA: Ni ey ni hey han entrado aún en el DLE. Sí se menciona en la NGLE, en el apartado 32.6i: