When Lettuce is Deadly and Milk Makes Paper

By Beth Green

No matter where I travel, I love taking pictures of signs, labels or T-shirts with silly translations and malapropisms.

And while I’ve seen some of these in English-speaking countries (The USA’s “slow children” road signs are a prime example of poorly used English, in my opinion), of course when things are translated from another language into English, the potential for snicker-worthy results is raised.

In China, most people you meet who are in their mid-30s or younger will have had some exposure to English in their schooling. Whether that experience went beyond learning the ABCs or not, everyone’s got some level of familiarity with it. Couple this with the craze for Western luxury items like iPhones, Louis Vuitton and, yes, McDonald’s, and you’ve got an instant way to make your product seem more appealing, exotic and valuable: splash the packaging with English words.

A new shopping mall (housing not only a McDonald’s but also a KFC, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Wal-Mart and Pizza Hut) recently opened a few blocks from my apartment. Intrigued by the progress, I walked by a few weeks before it was fully opened. The ongoing construction was discreetly screened from pedestrians by large canvasses bearing images of classy-looking people and slogans such as the following: “Reluctant to leave for myself.” Obviously, some designer picked words at random and put them on the banner to give it a little oomph. Too bad it’s nonsensical.

Reluctant to...what?

Perhaps my favorite example of a strange translation is this one, which I found at the local bulk foods supermarket. The label reads like a bizzaro newspaper headline:

That dastardly lettuce.

Other advertisements in China that use English may actually make their product sound not only silly, but also of poor quality. Consider the bus I saw completely covered with this slogan: OK Manly Banner. The best they could say about it was that it’s just OK?

Better than Not Very Manly, I guess.

Or this one, which I’m sure Pepsi can’t have been pleased about:

Perhaps "economical" would sound better? Nah.

This restaurant is also quite modest:

Want to go somewhere "nice" for dinner?

And this shop actually says that they are “no right, just suitable.”

Suitable, but not right?

I found this restaurant ad in Hong Kong downright unappetizing:

Guts for lunch?

Others are just curious…should I write on this or eat it?

I'd heard of onion-skin paper before, I guess...

Some slightly risque (or maybe dangerous?!):

At least they're small.

And still others, kind of sweet:

Me so happy too.

What examples of silly English have you found on your travels? Please share with us in the comments section below.

Lost in Translation

St. Jerome, patron saint of translators

Years ago, in graduate school, a professor offered a piece of advice that has remained with me throughout my translation career: “We don’t translate words,” she said. “We translate the ideas behind the words.”

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s easier said than done because it implies that the translator can always identify those sometimes elusive ideas. Any writer who’s ever been in a critique group has probably heard herself say: “But what I meant was…” Right. What we want to express isn’t always what ends up on the page. It’s all too easy to get lost in the words.

People often say that language reflects culture, and the way we express ourselves in our native tongues shows how we think and relate to the world around us. Extrapolated onto the translator’s work, this means that it’s not enough to know grammar and vocabulary. We need to have a thorough understanding of both the source and target cultures to do justice to our text.

As a translator, I like to think that there is no such thing as an untranslatable word, phrase, or concept. Sometimes the ideas behind the words are not immediately apparent and you have to dig deep to understand these notions and find a way to convey them in another language. Often this involves a lot of reflection, discussion with other translators, or asking native speakers, “what does this mean to you?” But in the end, we are all human and can connect on some level, right? Put two people without a common language in a room and they will eventually find some way to communicate, even on a very basic, non-verbal level.

Yet I have to acknowledge that some things do get lost in translation. Not so much the ideas themselves but rather their emotional impact.

Case in point: A few months ago, I translated a short story by the German crime novelist, Nina George. “The Light in the West” (published this month in World Literature Today) tells the tale of an East German man who attempts to flee to the west with his girlfriend, but something goes wrong and he is forced to leave her behind.

The German word that gave me the greatest trouble in the story was a seemingly simple and innocuous one: drüben. On the surface of things, this word means “over there” as in across the room, across the street, or on the other side of a vaguely defined space.

But to any German who lived through the Cold War, drüben also has a very specific and highly emotional connotation. It means “on the other side of the Wall,” that ideological and political barrier that divided a nation, a culture, and entire families.

So how do I convey that emotion to an English-speaking readership, especially those who haven’t a clue what it feels like to grow up in a physically divided country?

The short answer is that I didn’t even try. Drüben occurs three times in the story, and each time I translated it a little differently. Or, more accurately, I didn’t translate the word at all but the meaning behind it, using selected phrasings like “east-west” and “divide.” Not once did I translate it as “over there.”

In the end, the emotional impact of drüben wasn’t entirely lost in translation, thanks to Nina George’s powerful storytelling. You can’t come away from this story without feeling the trauma that crossing this divide exacted on the people who attempted it—and especially on those they left behind.

Do you sometimes translate from another language? What words or emotional connotations get lost in translation?