Then we'll grab a bite at 404 Not Found
Of all the poorly translated signs that can baffle English-speaking visitors to China, this one takes the cake for the most epic of all possible fails. And, as Dear Jane Sample notes, it’s also a good reason to invest in something more than a Web-based translator. —Posted by David Griner |
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*MOAHAHHAHA* Oh man that's just perfect!
Posted by: Dabitch | Jul 10, 2008 5:39:51 AM
Excellent, I just love this!
Posted by: Kristof | Jul 10, 2008 5:57:08 AM
OK, let's babelfish this blog from English to Dutch, and back:
"Of all badly translated signs that English-speaking person can bring visitors to China in the war, this one takes the cake for most epic of already is possibly lacking. And, since the bests nota' s of Jane Sample, it also is a good invest reason in something more than one Web-based translator."
Posted by: Jeroen Mirck | Jul 10, 2008 8:04:45 AM
And now a translation from English to Chinese, and back:
"All insufficient translation's symbol possibly baffles English visitor to arrive at China, this most adopts all possible defeat epic poem the cake. And, takes the dear Jennie sample note, it is also a sufficient reason investment is more than one based on Internet's translator in something."
That's worse indeed... ;)
Posted by: Jeroen | Jul 10, 2008 8:09:56 AM
Hahah, I love that Jane becomes Jennie in the Chinese translation. Nice one, Jeroen.
Posted by: David Griner | Jul 10, 2008 8:45:30 AM
That is really great!
Reminds me of "All your base are now belong to us."
Posted by: Douglas Keachie | Jul 10, 2008 3:34:13 PM
Finding this makes you my hero!
Posted by: Nanci | Jul 11, 2008 12:21:52 AM
I like the English-Korean-English babelfish interpretation. Makes it a poem, almost.
In China the English use visitor poorly all will can break down, this of the indication which translates all has the cake for the epic poem of the failure which is possible most and goes. And, Jane sample which are valuable mainly, also invests the fact that in the silence is more web base interpretation is a good reason. - Bead Griner arranges,
Posted by: Mark | Jul 14, 2008 12:17:00 PM
If I translate to Chinese and back, I get this:
Translate Server Error
Posted by: Dmitri | Jul 16, 2008 2:22:41 AM
The nice part is the Chinese actually just translates to 'restaurant'. Not exactly the hardest translation.
Posted by: will | Jul 16, 2008 2:36:40 AM
I translated this to Swedish and back in google translate and got the same English text back! The first paragraph of the Swedish translation is awful though.
Av alla de dåligt översatt tecken som kan mysterium för engelsktalande besökare till Kina, denna man tar kakan för de mest episka av alla möjliga misslyckas. Och som Dear Jane Sample konstaterar, det är också ett bra skäl att investera i något mer än en webbaserad översättare.
Posted by: m | Jul 16, 2008 4:42:54 AM
Maybe the translation software just output "translate server error" because it encountered an error, and they just printed it?
Posted by: Marty | Jul 16, 2008 9:38:33 AM
i've seen a lot of shops in my day.
Posted by: kevin | Jul 16, 2008 10:30:58 AM
boy, that m i sharp.
Posted by: j | Jul 16, 2008 11:37:27 AM
You know, I think there's more going on here than meets the eye - in fact, I do believe this is an attempt at a pun, based on the fact that "server" denotes both a powerful computer and a waiter.
Translate: to turn one thing into another, be it a piece of written or spoken text, or the more loosely-defined usage in which it is a synonym for transmogrify, or transcend, or... something like "his lame attempts at cutting wit translate into much laughter for his opponents."
Error is clear enough.
I think the restaurant's owner was trying to say, "Don't go to the competition, whose waiters are terrible - turn all that frustration at their incompetence into a wonderful dining experience here!"
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Posted by: J. Tode | Jul 16, 2008 12:09:19 PM
Maybe the translation software just output "translate server error" because it encountered an error, and they just printed it?
Posted by: Marty | Jul 16, 2008 9:38:33 AM
Marty, have you considered a career in rocket science or brain surgery?
Posted by: Ritzer | Jul 17, 2008 1:47:58 AM
Having been in Asia on business and studying over the years, I know that none of the people involved with this restaurant will welcome someone telling them their translation is wrong. Over and over I found badly translated English signs that no one would correct because the act of correction would make the person who made the error feel bad. It always makes me wonder how they do so well in the world. But, nevertheless they do!
Posted by: Jeff | Jul 17, 2008 11:25:04 AM
I"m reminded of the chinese restaurant in Plano TX that was subtitled - Typical Chinese Food.
Most everyone thought it was supposed to be self-depracating. It took a while to realize that they had translated "Authentic" as "Typical". It made a lot more sense then.
Posted by: randy | Jul 17, 2008 11:47:59 AM
I remember I was writing the user interface for an IPTV solution, and it had to support multiple languages. I was having a hard time rendering asian languages because i thought the Chinese character set was Japanese and vice versa. For some reason, the language type wasn't matching the character sets and I had no idea why. Luckily my Korean friends were there to help me, and it was pretty funny that it wasn't a technical problem per say, but I had no idea that I was not matching the language encoding (JA,ZH). This was a case of no matter how much technical knowledge I had it wouldn't help.
Posted by: Mark Brito | Jul 17, 2008 11:55:28 AM
I translated this to Swedish and back in google translate and got the same English text back! The first paragraph of the Swedish translation is awful though.
Av alla de dåligt översatt tecken som kan mysterium för engelsktalande besökare till Kina, denna man tar kakan för de mest episka av alla möjliga misslyckas. Och som Dear Jane Sample konstaterar, det är också ett bra skäl att investera i något mer än en webbaserad översättare.
Posted by: will | Jul 16, 2008 2:36:40 AM
It looks awful to me, too, and I don't even know Swedish!
Posted by: Arwin | Jul 17, 2008 2:23:31 PM
Hilarious stuff, I couldn't help mentioning it in a post of my own.
Posted by: Megan | Jul 17, 2008 6:21:47 PM
Anyone know what the those Chinese symbols really mean? Just curious what they are selling there :))
Posted by: anonymous | Jul 18, 2008 3:28:35 AM
In Chinese it says : canting, meaning 'canteen' or 'restaurant'.
the sign is hilarious!
Posted by: kattebelletje | Jul 18, 2008 5:51:39 AM
This sounds like the type of language universal that my grandson (age 2.5)speaks in Chinese and English. His sentences can contain 3 verbs.
Posted by: beverly hong fincher | Jul 18, 2008 10:35:15 AM
Hey, this is very funny. But I disagree that the Chinese will be offended if you tell them something was wrong. In the past, yes, it will happen, but things are changing day by day. Many people in China are learning English, especially the younger generation. If you show them something is wrong, they will accept and they will learn. For someone who doesn't understand the language, things like this happens, and it's hilarious.
Posted by: rweasley | Jul 18, 2008 5:46:43 PM
I believe that in Soviet Russia, sign translates you.
Posted by: Tim Drake | Jul 19, 2008 1:37:44 AM
"Having been in Asia on business and studying over the years, I know that none of the people involved with this restaurant will welcome someone telling them their translation is wrong. Over and over I found badly translated English signs that no one would correct because the act of correction would make the person who made the error feel bad. It always makes me wonder how they do so well in the world. But, nevertheless they do!"
Two words:
"CHILD LABOR"
Posted by: Felis Horribilis | Jul 19, 2008 8:35:57 AM
"Having been in Asia on business and studying over the years, I know that none of the people involved with this restaurant will welcome someone telling them their translation is wrong. Over and over I found badly translated English signs that no one would correct because the act of correction would make the person who made the error feel bad. It always makes me wonder how they do so well in the world. But, nevertheless they do!"
Two words:
"CHILD LABOR"
Posted by: Felis Horribilis | Jul 19, 2008 8:36:12 AM
What this sign is telling us is that they used software to do the translation, and the quality control when printing this sign was poor. And this is a hilarious mistake. It has nothing to do with anything political.
"Having been in Asia... over the years..." And you think you know the place well?
Posted by: rweasley | Jul 19, 2008 1:42:36 PM
nice, thanks for sharing.
Posted by: paresh | Jul 20, 2008 5:18:00 AM
THIS IS LOOOL
Posted by: Kmate | Jul 20, 2008 1:41:36 PM
QUOTE: "What this sign is telling us is that they used software to do the translation, and the quality control when printing this sign was poor. And this is a hilarious mistake. It has nothing to do with anything political.
"Having been in Asia... over the years..." And you think you know the place well?
Posted by: rweasley | Jul 19, 2008 1:42:36 PM"
rweasley, you are the most brilliant being to grace the Internet. Did you figure out they were using software all by yourself? Wow! So smart!!
fucking dolt.
Posted by: weasleIsDumb | Jul 20, 2008 6:52:13 PM
Posted by: AtomErik | Jul 21, 2008 10:41:49 AM
Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space.
Posted by: Chris | Jul 21, 2008 10:56:45 AM
Any of you read the Galactic Pot Healer by P.K.Dick? It had a secret game of bored guys trying to found the original text after an English->Japanese-English or other translator pipe.
Man P.K. was a genious.
Posted by: Cockroach | Jul 21, 2008 1:33:47 PM
It's a bit dumb that the translation software returns error messages in the target language (or always English) rather than in the source language that the person using it actually understands.
Then again it's also dumb that they didn't double-check the translation by round-tripping it back to the original language.
Posted by: Leo Davidson | Jul 21, 2008 6:04:57 PM
Terrific! That is hilarious
Posted by: Online Advertising | Jul 23, 2008 2:39:57 PM
The chinese on the sign says:
Stupid English, you will wastehours of your lives on a website debating how poor translation software is, whilst we make cheap things, work hard and take over the world
It seems to be working...
Posted by: Anon | Jul 24, 2008 8:24:07 AM
if we notify he restaurant owners about the mistake their gonna have to redo the whole sign. they might have even put "translate server error" on their menus and ads; so theyre gonna have to redo that aswell.
It cheaper for them to keep the sign that way.
:P
Posted by: Z man | Jul 25, 2008 9:59:39 PM
That's so bad it's good.
Posted by: Bortle | Jul 26, 2008 1:04:33 AM
golden.
Posted by: Recruiting Services | Jul 29, 2008 2:01:05 PM
Uh, who cares?? We've got a stupid war we shouldn't be fighting, gas at >$4.50/gallon, a retard in the white house, a depression looming over us...
Posted by: dickles | Aug 1, 2008 12:51:15 AM
quote:
The chinese on the sign says:
Stupid English, you will wastehours of your lives on a website debating how poor translation software is, whilst we make cheap things, work hard and take over the world
It seems to be working...
but..chinese still look to the west for influence in most multimedia, and only now have they embraced capitalism culture. Shop till ya drop
Posted by: | Aug 2, 2008 1:26:28 AM
Hey Marty, you're too smart !
Posted by: Toto | Aug 2, 2008 5:02:30 PM
People should learn the damn language if they're going to go there. We expect it here, and most Asians comply.
Posted by: Trotka | Aug 3, 2008 1:10:01 AM
They should keep this sign, it will probably bring more customers then any other name would have.
Posted by: Ashimjyoti | Aug 3, 2008 1:24:37 AM
Reminds me of:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005189.html
Posted by: Josh | Aug 3, 2008 1:34:28 AM
Honestly, this may be intentional. Just look at all the free publicity they've got.
Posted by: Arun | Aug 3, 2008 1:45:48 AM
What do you know, Babelfish has a "non sequitur filter" too. Thank you to dickles for demonstrating it for us.
Posted by: Brian Tiemann | Aug 3, 2008 1:46:23 AM
super karate monkey death car. enough said. (hopefully someone out there is a news radio fan)
Posted by: adam | Aug 3, 2008 1:47:10 AM
