Lost in Translation Class Examples:
In your own words, take a stab at providing examples:
David
The best example i can think of for failed translations are the movie names when they are translated to other languages (for example spanish) a movie such as SAW is literally translated to "the game of fear" (el juego del miedo) and even worst, sometimes in the subtitles of movies: "im excited to see u" translation: "estoy excitado de verte".... failure!!
Leo
In german thanks its DANKE . In Spanish danke sounds like a tanque , so they may seem a little bit rude but no. They are nice people .(not the better example of lost in tranlation but.. )
Kati Temonen, Finland:
In Finnish we have no "he" or "she" even for people. We us "han" which is both and gives us a gender-neutral language. It's not confusing because we add extra words in a context where it's relevant to know whether someone is male or female.
emily
finnish, just like hungarian and turkish and estonian have a common point, that all three languages are somehow connected to what used to be known as the ural-altaic family and they are all agglutinative(?) languages. (that's what kati temonen from finland mentions, that they add extra things to the words. In turkish everything sounds like it's pronounced with -ben-biz-men-sen-le-te-me-he at the end)
Mila
In Latin, the meaning of many words has been defined. However, since today's historians do not have enough knowdlege of the Ancient Roman society, and language goes beyond simple words, many expressions are not understood, or their meaning has been lost through translation.
There are also several entries in famous fail blogs of tico translations of certain foods. For example: pinto con huevo= i paint with eggs, cerveza corona= Beer he crowns, etc. I have seen this with my own eyes in Cartago.
Daniela
I remember I went to this Chinese restaurant on the beach once, and the menu was a classic example. It said 'married with chicken' for 'casado de pollo'. And 'lonely hamburger'. Anyway.
I also love to visit Engrish. It brings me much joy. Just you take a look:
emily
In german the verb to recieve is 'bekommen', which is very similar to the english become.
Something similar happens in brasilian portuguese where 'esquisito' means 'odd' or 'weird'.
Jonathan
Once i read a book called "Women on the Edge of Time". One of the best books I ever read! It helped put words an explanations to many ideologies and feelings I have. Anyway, one of the small but cool things about it is that, just like "Kati Temonen" from Finland, the characters use PER instead of him or her. It is an attempt at a non sexist, non gender involved and equitative way of reffering to people. I like this idea, as a way not only to not "get lost in translation", but also forget about many of the gender, sexist involved ideals and stereotypes that create division in society today. Women on The Edge of Time
Cora
I see examples for lost in translation to be more along the lines of what Daniela showed
this is what i see more as lost in translation, it constantly happens with me with my lack of spanish skills. I have friends here who only speak spanish and for example they will constantly say "di mae" and there is no literal translation for that into english that makes sense (from what I am told)
Andrea
A couple of months ago some of us had to attend a school meeting for the first and second graders. Miss Anne, as always, gave the parents a speech on how they shouldnt allow their children to eat fast food, watch TV, use the internet, etc. While she was in the middle of explaining them not to celebrate their kids birthdays at McDonald´s, her native language suddenly came out to the surface and instead of saying "Cumpleaños" she told the parents not to celebrate their "Aniversarios" in McDonald´s. I think not many parents were aware of the french word for birthdays, so they looked pretty shocked.
Brenda
Similar things happen here in CR in national parks, restaurants, etc. ha
Ginna
@ andrea hahahhahaa nice ! :D
this is very frequent and irritating. many of times in Costa Rica someone will say some sort of expression that has to do with cows or dogs or some random animal and its random way of life? i cannot remmeber any specific example for the time being but when i do i shall post it , if i remember, the person that says it usually laughs, i somtimes end up feeling insulted, or end up with the convinced that the person speaking to me is nuts because when i translate it back to english i do not get the point of the expression and thus i get lost. :) which iam sure happens to others too.
Sharon Daniela Mendoza Monge says:
i went to the "jonas brothers and camp rock 2" concert last year. One of the girls opening the concert tried to speak in spanish and said: " HOuLA COuSTA RICAAA!! COuMO ESTANN!!?? iO ESTOY MUY EXITADA DE ESTAR AQUI!" when she actually meant (hopefully): " Hola CR!! Como estan?! Yo estoy muy ENTUSIASMADA de estar aqui" but because in english excited means: "to arouse or stir up the emotions or feelings of" i guess she thought Exitada meant the same thing in spanish... who knows what she was doing before the concert....
cata and emily LIKED the previous comment ;)
hahahahaha sharon....this made my day hahahhaha.........-malu-
Chepe
in Costa Rica if you say "pendejo" you mean that you are not brave, but in Mexico if you say "pendejo" you are telling the other person gay but in a offensive way.
Wagner J.
FAIL -Malu-
Nishesh
in the language hindi, people use " aap" as in a form of using you but with respect to elders. On the other hand in English, there is no pronoun that has the same definition as "aap", its just " you" for every type of individual
Malu
I used to have a neighbor who came from Bolivia. she always kept on telling me this story about her leaving in some other place in heredia before she came to our building. she said she would hear every single day a man saying "cajeta a 200, cajeta a 200, comprelo aqui!" or something like that. however, she didnt understand what the guy was doing and she thought he was an old man being pervert every day since in Bolivia "cajeta" is the womens private part....then she realized. it sounds like a fun story. jajajajjaja...lost in translation. for sure. =S
Ariana
what?
-Nacho-
When I was in Panama, I took a cab to Almirante, and there was a lot of traffic. I told the guy that why was that the there was so much ¨presas¨ and he looked both ways and told me he had no idea what i was talking about. Presas in Spanish is traffic or the female inmates. In Panama they use the second definition.
-Mateo-
I was reading a book last summer titled The Name of the Wind. it was originally written in english but i could only find the spanish translation. the title of the prologue was " El Siliencio Triple", literally the triple silence, and then it went on about this very confusing explanation about three different types of silience. when i found the english verision i noticed that the actual title was " The Silence of Three Parts", now everything makes sense.
Cata.
Well in Russian, the alphabet and letters they use are very different from the one we use, for example the sound for N is given to the letter "н", which is an h for us, and the sounf for I is и, which is and N inversed, so it gets to be very confusing becuase you have to go back to your basic information about communication and language and RE organize the connections between sounds and images in order to be able to read something!
Class Examples:
In your own words, take a stab at providing examples:
David
The best example i can think of for failed translations are the movie names when they are translated to other languages (for example spanish) a movie such as SAW is literally translated to "the game of fear" (el juego del miedo) and even worst, sometimes in the subtitles of movies: "im excited to see u" translation: "estoy excitado de verte".... failure!!
Leo
In german thanks its DANKE . In Spanish danke sounds like a tanque , so they may seem a little bit rude but no. They are nice people .(not the better example of lost in tranlation but.. )
Kati Temonen, Finland:
In Finnish we have no "he" or "she" even for people. We us "han" which is both and gives us a gender-neutral language. It's not confusing because we add extra words in a context where it's relevant to know whether someone is male or female.
emily
finnish, just like hungarian and turkish and estonian have a common point, that all three languages are somehow connected to what used to be known as the ural-altaic family and they are all agglutinative(?) languages. (that's what kati temonen from finland mentions, that they add extra things to the words. In turkish everything sounds like it's pronounced with -ben-biz-men-sen-le-te-me-he at the end)
Mila
In Latin, the meaning of many words has been defined. However, since today's historians do not have enough knowdlege of the Ancient Roman society, and language goes beyond simple words, many expressions are not understood, or their meaning has been lost through translation.
There are also several entries in famous fail blogs of tico translations of certain foods. For example: pinto con huevo= i paint with eggs, cerveza corona= Beer he crowns, etc. I have seen this with my own eyes in Cartago.
Daniela
I remember I went to this Chinese restaurant on the beach once, and the menu was a classic example. It said 'married with chicken' for 'casado de pollo'. And 'lonely hamburger'. Anyway.
I also love to visit Engrish. It brings me much joy. Just you take a look:
emily
In german the verb to recieve is 'bekommen', which is very similar to the english become.
Something similar happens in brasilian portuguese where 'esquisito' means 'odd' or 'weird'.
Jonathan
Once i read a book called "Women on the Edge of Time". One of the best books I ever read! It helped put words an explanations to many ideologies and feelings I have. Anyway, one of the small but cool things about it is that, just like "Kati Temonen" from Finland, the characters use PER instead of him or her. It is an attempt at a non sexist, non gender involved and equitative way of reffering to people. I like this idea, as a way not only to not "get lost in translation", but also forget about many of the gender, sexist involved ideals and stereotypes that create division in society today. Women on The Edge of Time
Cora
I see examples for lost in translation to be more along the lines of what Daniela showed
this is what i see more as lost in translation, it constantly happens with me with my lack of spanish skills. I have friends here who only speak spanish and for example they will constantly say "di mae" and there is no literal translation for that into english that makes sense (from what I am told)
Andrea
A couple of months ago some of us had to attend a school meeting for the first and second graders. Miss Anne, as always, gave the parents a speech on how they shouldnt allow their children to eat fast food, watch TV, use the internet, etc. While she was in the middle of explaining them not to celebrate their kids birthdays at McDonald´s, her native language suddenly came out to the surface and instead of saying "Cumpleaños" she told the parents not to celebrate their "Aniversarios" in McDonald´s. I think not many parents were aware of the french word for birthdays, so they looked pretty shocked.
Brenda
Similar things happen here in CR in national parks, restaurants, etc. ha
Ginna
@ andrea hahahhahaa nice ! :D
this is very frequent and irritating. many of times in Costa Rica someone will say some sort of expression that has to do with cows or dogs or some random animal and its random way of life? i cannot remmeber any specific example for the time being but when i do i shall post it , if i remember, the person that says it usually laughs, i somtimes end up feeling insulted, or end up with the convinced that the person speaking to me is nuts because when i translate it back to english i do not get the point of the expression and thus i get lost. :) which iam sure happens to others too.
Sharon Daniela Mendoza Monge says:
i went to the "jonas brothers and camp rock 2" concert last year. One of the girls opening the concert tried to speak in spanish and said: " HOuLA COuSTA RICAAA!! COuMO ESTANN!!?? iO ESTOY MUY EXITADA DE ESTAR AQUI!" when she actually meant (hopefully): " Hola CR!! Como estan?! Yo estoy muy ENTUSIASMADA de estar aqui" but because in english excited means: "to arouse or stir up the emotions or feelings of" i guess she thought Exitada meant the same thing in spanish... who knows what she was doing before the concert....
cata and emily LIKED the previous comment ;)
hahahahaha sharon....this made my day hahahhaha.........-malu-
Chepe
in Costa Rica if you say "pendejo" you mean that you are not brave, but in Mexico if you say "pendejo" you are telling the other person gay but in a offensive way.
Wagner J.
FAIL -Malu-
Nishesh
in the language hindi, people use " aap" as in a form of using you but with respect to elders. On the other hand in English, there is no pronoun that has the same definition as "aap", its just " you" for every type of individual
Malu
I used to have a neighbor who came from Bolivia. she always kept on telling me this story about her leaving in some other place in heredia before she came to our building. she said she would hear every single day a man saying "cajeta a 200, cajeta a 200, comprelo aqui!" or something like that. however, she didnt understand what the guy was doing and she thought he was an old man being pervert every day since in Bolivia "cajeta" is the womens private part....then she realized. it sounds like a fun story. jajajajjaja...lost in translation. for sure. =S
Ariana
what?
-Nacho-
When I was in Panama, I took a cab to Almirante, and there was a lot of traffic. I told the guy that why was that the there was so much ¨presas¨ and he looked both ways and told me he had no idea what i was talking about. Presas in Spanish is traffic or the female inmates. In Panama they use the second definition.
-Mateo-
I was reading a book last summer titled The Name of the Wind. it was originally written in english but i could only find the spanish translation. the title of the prologue was " El Siliencio Triple", literally the triple silence, and then it went on about this very confusing explanation about three different types of silience. when i found the english verision i noticed that the actual title was " The Silence of Three Parts", now everything makes sense.
Cata.
Well in Russian, the alphabet and letters they use are very different from the one we use, for example the sound for N is given to the letter "н", which is an h for us, and the sounf for I is и, which is and N inversed, so it gets to be very confusing becuase you have to go back to your basic information about communication and language and RE organize the connections between sounds and images in order to be able to read something!