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Lost in translation

(38 Posts)
Tizliz Wed 27-Oct-21 17:04:52

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.

Kali2 Wed 27-Oct-21 17:13:34

wow love it.

Ro60 Wed 27-Oct-21 17:14:45

??

labazsisslowlygoingmad Wed 27-Oct-21 17:16:04

love it! sounds like Fawlty Towers

Kali2 Wed 27-Oct-21 17:17:35

BTW as a former translator, I believe most people have no idea just how difficult it is!

henetha Wed 27-Oct-21 17:27:27

That made me laugh out loud. Brilliant!

BlueSky Wed 27-Oct-21 17:35:53

Tizliz thanks for a much needed laugh! Just great! grin gringrin

ginny Wed 27-Oct-21 17:37:47

???

Aveline Wed 27-Oct-21 17:43:01

???

V3ra Wed 27-Oct-21 17:44:59

That's brought tears of laughter, priceless ?

Lucca Wed 27-Oct-21 17:58:17

I was once asked to proofread a holiday brochure which had been translated from Italian. They wanted to explain that the beach was safe for swimming as the water got deep very gradually.
This came out as “ you can plunge slowly into a softly degrading bottom”

silversurf Wed 27-Oct-21 18:06:08

Seen at a hotel pool toilet block in India.
This facility is out of order. Sorry for any incontinence.

Septimia Wed 27-Oct-21 19:07:18

They do say that you should only translate into your own language........ This seems to prove the point! Love it!

MissAdventure Wed 27-Oct-21 19:15:05

grin
Hilarious!!!

Kali2 Wed 27-Oct-21 19:15:58

Not always Septimia- but in most cases, yes.

BlueSky Wed 27-Oct-21 19:20:31

Septimia

They do say that you should only translate into your own language........ This seems to prove the point! Love it!

Agree Septimia!

MissAdventure Wed 27-Oct-21 19:24:00

Some more, just to whet your appetite.

MissAdventure Wed 27-Oct-21 19:25:37

Bon appetit!

mrswoo Wed 27-Oct-21 22:06:11

Brilliant! Thankyou Tizliz. Although I think I'll pass on the food MissAdventure. I seem to have lost my appetite.grin

welbeck Wed 27-Oct-21 22:42:20

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.

OnwardandUpward Thu 28-Oct-21 00:00:43

So funny! grin Thanks for sharing!

agnurse Thu 28-Oct-21 01:31:49

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!!!

Aveline Thu 28-Oct-21 07:58:08

Means the same here. Maybe the girls were winding you up?

Urmstongran Thu 28-Oct-21 08:50:47

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....

Elegran Thu 28-Oct-21 08:56:17

Instructions for a Japanese single lens reflex camera "Do not touch the flipping mirror!"