Wednesday 2 June 2010

Mistraduku


…de Today Translations:

There are literally hundreds and thousands of examples and they can be found all over the world but lets start at home, the UK.

This bilingual road sign left many cyclists confused, telling them that they have problems with an inflamed bladder. The most popular theory behind this mistake is that an on-line translation engine led to confusion between cyclists and cystitis. Thankfully Glamorgan Council were informed and replacements for the sign were made, however what this highlights is how a small mistake can easily be amplified with bad language translation.

Another classic error made with a bilingual English to Welsh road sign is pictured to the left. When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the e-mail reply was what was required.

Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”.

2 comments:

Jodie said...

Harsh as it sounds, I think that I might just have realised that the "translation" wasn't the translation. Not because I understand a single word of Welsh but I just can't imagine that there are many translation companies that'll have the text to you in less than three seconds. An almost instantaneous reply probably means that it's automated.

Bit weird that the translator's out of office wasn't in both English and Welsh though.

Per Spegulo said...

Mi estas malgxoja. Mi kredis tion, ke vi skribos esperante. :-(