I want to visit that hotel in Japan, what a lovely uplifting thread. Thank you all. I had a Japanese car that in the manual referred to sun roofs as moon roofs.
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Lost in translation
(39 Posts)From a Japanese hotel brochure:
Getting There:
Our representative will make you wait at the airport. The bus to the hotel runs along the lake shore. Soon you will feel pleasure in passing water. You will know that you are getting near the hotel, because you will go round the bend. The manager will await you in the entrance hall. He always tries to have intercourse with all new guests.
The Hotel:
This is a family hotel, so children are very welcome. We of course are always pleased to accept adultery. Highly skilled nurses are available in the evenings to put down your children. Guests are invited to conjugate in the bar and expose themselves to others. But please note that ladies are not allowed to have babies in the bar. We organize social games, so no guest is ever left alone to play with them self.
The Restaurant:
Our menus have been carefully chosen to be ordinary and unexciting. At dinner, our quartet will circulate from table to table, and fiddle with you.
Your Room:
Every room has excellent facilities for your private parts. In winter, every room is on heat. Each room has a balcony offering views of outstanding obscenity! .. You will not be disturbed by traffic noise, since the road between the hotel and the lake is used only by pederasts.
Bed:
Your bed has been made in accordance with local tradition. If you have any other ideas please ring for the chambermaid. Please take advantage of her. She will be very pleased to squash your shirts, blouses and underwear. If asked, she will also squeeze your trousers.
Above All:
When you leave us at the end of your holiday, you will have no hope. You will struggle to forget it.
Thank you all . Next time I am having a bad day I know where to come to cheer myself up. ??
Thanks Tizliz. It's good to laugh!
My kid was required to take French as a second language from Grades 4-6. On one of the first days of class, a boy in the class needed to use the loo. He raised his hand and said, "Je m'appelle aux toilette" and the teacher replied, "Hi, The Toilet, what do you need?" (What he'd actually said was "My name is To the Toilet".)
So funny ???
English terms and phrases must be hard for anyone to learn.
True story, my pregnant American friend who had recently arrived in France with practically no knowledge of the language, was driven to the hospital by her husband because she has strong contractions.
Doctor: When did you last have a rapport with your husband?
She: On the way here in the car.
"On the East portal you will find the Virgin Mary crowing"
"On your left is the mediaeval knight NN leaning on his cousin"
both of these gems are from the English tourist brochure to a Belgian cathedral. I shan't tell you which.
The effigy of the knight portrayed him lying on a cushion and the Mother of God on the East portal was most definately not crowing. She was crowned as Queen of Heaven.
On a less exalted level, a small riverside mooring site for pleasure boats stated "Dogs must be kept on a lead on port"
No instructions were given as to what we were to do with them on starboard!
I prefered the German town of Gromitz that made the following request both in German and other languages: "Dear dogs, please keep your owners on a tight leash when walking in our town."
I realise this last isn't a translator's error, but a deliberate attempt to capture the attention of the dog owners.
A tourist resort in Java hiring out donkeys more regrettably enquired "Would you like to ride on you own ass?" I suspect the American tourists especially found it hard to keep a straight face when reading that.
And the old hoary chestnut of the Chinese tailor whose sign read, "Ladies may have fits upstairs"
Not amusing, but frankly puzzling to those who know neither Spanish nor Latin was the sign in a restaurant on the pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela "Please do not descalce in the restaurant"
I pointed out to them that "decalzar" translates into English as "to take your shoes off" and that descalsed is only used of the barefooted Carmelites.
I got the point though. I would object heartily to anyone taking their trekking boots or shoes off while I was eating!
Glad I cheered so many people up. Need more of this sort of thing to counterbalance the serious threads.
agnurse
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35840393
there was a famous woman knocker-upper in the london docks who used a pea shooter, mary smith.
Thanks Tizliz - needed that ???
Really appreciate these -I need a laugh today!
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I seem to remember Gerrard Hoffnung with his reading of a continental hotel brochure - something about "you will have amazing views through your French widows".
Instructions for a Japanese single lens reflex camera "Do not touch the flipping mirror!"
I attended an out patient appointment years ago with my late mum who had a quick wit. When asked by the hospital doctor (who wasn’t English speaking as a first language) how about appetite? she replied ‘I think I’ve lost mine and found a donkey’s’ (she was full of ‘sayings’ my mum - such as ‘one volunteer is better than ten pressed men’ etc loads of them really). Anyway a couple of weeks later she got her copy of his letter to her GP in which it stated ‘the patient tells me she has no appetite’. Which was the exact opposite of true! Definitely lost in translation....
Means the same here. Maybe the girls were winding you up?
Kali2
I can speak and read a little French and a little Brazilian Portuguese. I agree with you re: the translation difficulties! Sometimes, too, there are certain words or phrases that do not translate well from one language to another.
welbeck
I live in Canada and teach post-secondary. A colleague of mine told me about some students she had from Britain. They said they were going to get a couple of guys living down the hall to knock them up first thing in the morning. My colleague had to take them aside and explain that this meant something very different in Canada. In the UK, as I understand it, to knock someone up means to wake them up. In Canada, it means to get them pregnant!!!
So funny! Thanks for sharing!
an east african friend kept saying that she would flash me later.
this is what they say there when they send a text message, they don't have credit for a call, so they give a quickly truncated ring to your phone to alert you to read the message.
it is a common phrase and action in nairobi.
i explained that in uk may be better to say, i will ping you.
just tiny differences can make such a difference in meaning.
she also commented on how difficult it was, to get a baby here, compared with at home.
i was a little alarmed, until i realised she simply meant as we would say, have a baby here, ie cope with maternity services.
Brilliant! Thankyou Tizliz. Although I think I'll pass on the food MissAdventure. I seem to have lost my appetite.
https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-723079-menu-fail-jerk-chicken.jpg
https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-881634-menu-fail-sweet-ass-700x726.jpg
https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202110/medium-31758-3f21443b00000578-0-the-translator-probably-meant-to-write-mouth-watering-but-the-re-a-40-1491832322569.jpg
Bon appetit!
Septimia
They do say that you should only translate into your own language........ This seems to prove the point! Love it!
Agree Septimia!
Not always Septimia- but in most cases, yes.
Hilarious!!!
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