Comments | nwhyte: Translation note

nwhyte

Translation note

Apr 16, 2007 20:25

Dear author,

I am enjoying your book, with its medieval German setting. But please note that "Lover-God!" is not a good translation of "Lieber Gott!"

Yours helpfully,

nhw
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writer: michael flynn, language: german

Comments 11

uitlander April 16 2007, 18:53:50 UTC

One of my friends from Uni has ended up as a technical translator. A few years back she was given a contract 'rush job' - a text file in one language which contained screen commands, that had to be translated into English and would then be used on an installed system. The company was mainly known for its washing machines, although it made other household electrical goods. No-one at the company was answering her questions, so she concluded they were terse messages to be displayed on a LCD of a rather fancy washing machine and did the job as fast as she could.

About a year later her husband bought a new TV. Laughter started to emanate loudly as he was setting it up. "Come in here and see what some moronic translator has done" he cried. She looked at the text on the screen, had a very bad sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach, and could never quite bring herself to tell him the truth. It's not often you tune a TV by choosing your 'wash cycle'. BBC1 shows up very well on a 'woollens' setting.

bennmorland April 16 2007, 18:58:59 UTC

LMAO

You can't make that up...

matgb April 16 2007, 20:17:10 UTC

Genius, sheer genius.

bellinghman April 16 2007, 20:26:05 UTC

Dear God!

(Which leads us back to where we started ...)

Thread 5

daegaer April 16 2007, 23:18:08 UTC

Ahahahahahahaha!

translation slimmeroftheyea April 17 2007, 02:58:04 UTC

Would Love God be better?

Re: translation nwhyte April 17 2007, 05:15:48 UTC

No, it really means "Dear God!" (See bellinghman"'s comment.)

Re: translation slimmeroftheyea April 17 2007, 09:05:19 UTC

I know!

sevenorora April 17 2007, 12:05:06 UTC

LOL

crazysoph April 17 2007, 15:28:19 UTC

Hee hee hee hee!!!

Among a group of American students in Italy, years ago, the discussion of how much better Italian bread was than American bread (think "Wonderbread") was. One of our number tried to explain what made that so, and said, it was because the bread was full of "preservativi".

Some people will already be laughing themselves silly at this point. For those not yet laughing, the joke is that preservativi will be the word for condoms, and not preservatives.

The punchline? The word we really needed to use was conservativi, and the Americans had a huge laugh then, envisioning the bread full of, well, right-wingers...

Crazy("false friends" can be so seductive! Tradutore, traditore...)Soph