Lost in Translation

[mixed_biscuits]

Watching Channel 4 news last night, there was a segment on 20 Romanian immigrants being arrested in Slough for suspected child slavery. Towards the end of the piece, the voiceover intoned gravely that profits made here were funding lavish lifestyles in the East and we were shown a slogan daubed on some kingpin's abode: 'nunta lui Maradona Anglia, UK.' We were told that this reads 'Conman's House, thanks to the UK.'

Unfortunately, it actually (and oddly) means, 'Maradona's wedding, England, UK.'

From what I've seen of translations of Romanian in the UK press, a third is passable, a third is tangentially related and the rest is just fabricated to fit.

This definitely falls into the last category. Weak.

Pronunciation of foreign names is one of my other bugbears.

 

[mistersloane]

Watching Channel 4 news last night, there was a segment on 20 Romanian immigrants being arrested in Slough for suspected child slavery. Towards the end of the piece, the voiceover intoned gravely that profits made here were funding lavish lifestyles in the East and we were shown a slogan daubed on some kingpin's abode: 'nunta lui Maradona Anglia, UK.' We were told that this reads 'Conman's House, thanks to the UK.'

Unfortunately, it actually (and oddly) means, 'Maradona's wedding, England, UK.'

From what I've seen of translations of Romanian in the UK press, a third is passable, a third is tangentially related and the rest is just fabricated to fit.

This definitely falls into the last category. Weak.

Pronunciation of foreign names is one of my other bugbears.

That's fantastic. In the Illuminatus trilogy there's a character called Markoff Chaney who changes sign wordage in order to immanentize the eschaton, sounds like he's working for Channel 4 at the moment.

Other good ones are watching the subtitles for the deaf on live chat shows, the subtitlers can't keep up and it just descends into total gibberish at points.

 

[IdleRich]

"Other good ones are watching the subtitles for the deaf on live chat shows, the subtitlers can't keep up and it just descends into total gibberish at points."

One of my friends does that for a living and the other day he just totally forgot to do two live spots so they went out without any subtitles. Weird that there are no safeguards at all I thought.

 

[noel emits]

Remember watching a late night signed edition of a Panorama thing about drugs and laughing at the sign language for cocaine which appears (?) to be holding in one nostril while moving the forefinger of the other hand under the other nostril