The sign shown above is near Swansea in Great Britain. It seems clear enough to us English speakers. It bans heavy trucks from going down a residential road. There's only one problem -- the Welsh translation underneath the English doesn't say that.
All the official road signs in Wales are supposed to say the same thing in both English and Welsh. But the Welsh writing on this sign says "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated". How did that happen?
It seems that once the Swansea Council decided what they wanted the sign to say, they e-mailed the English version to their in-house translation service. Their e-mail was answered by an e-mail saying the translator wasn't in his office and to send it to him. But since no one on the council spoke or read Welsh, they thought they had received their translation and put it on the sign. How embarassing!
Sounds like the Swansea Council needs to hire a Welsh speaker, or at least let a Welsh speaker read their translations before they use them.
How funny!
ReplyDeleteFunny indeed!
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of a film I saw while attending the U.S.Army interrogtion course in 1975 that demonstrated the importance of beng able to at least spot check the reliability of translations.
The film was of an interview of a Vietnamese village chief by an American journalist, conducted during the Indochina War in the early 1950's. Not knowing Vietnamese himself, the journalist used a local interpreter.
The journalist asked a question in English, the interpreter translated the question into Vietnamese and then provided an English translation of the village chief's answer.
As the interview progressed, it became apparent to the journalist that the village chief had no use for the Viet Minh (Ho Chi Minh's liberation movement).
When the journalist brought the film back to the States, someone who actually knew Vietnamese watched it and was at once shocked and amused. Here's a paraphrasing of one of the exchanges, as best as I can remember it:
Journalist (in English): How do you feel about the Viet Minh?
Interpreter (in Vietnamese): Count to 10 very fast. Do it. Do it right now.
Village chief (in Vietnamese): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Interpreter (in English): He said the the Viet Minh is no good.
Is there any wonder why the Department of Defense runs its own foreign language school (the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California)?
One more language story, and then I'm done.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the TV commercial that starts with a guy talking to his therapist about a dream he had, only to have the therapist look at his pen and reply in a foreign language? Being a former Polish linguist in the Army, I can understand him just fine. Here's what he says:
First line: There's no ink in this pen. (W tym piórze nie ma atramentu.)
Second line: And only then can we begin to work. (I wtedy możemy zacząć dopiero pracować.)
Unlike the Vietnamese interpreter in the last comment, I'm actually giving you an accurate translation :)