fuck the certain price of goods

[eirias]

One of my favorite series of Language Log posts has to do with bad machine translations from Chinese to English. Click the links below to see how certain Chinese meanings were mistranslated:

Loose dried fruit
Dry seasonings section
Canada Dry
Dry foods price counter

The folks at LL explain the origin of the problem, and its pervasiveness.

Today there was a new post containing a gold mine of like mistranslations, but also a more novel one. Also, ukelele pointed me to this amusing image, presumably the fault of someone who translated the wrong text in the first place.

Comments

[drspiff.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information.
Personally I couldn't stop laughing when I got near the bottom of the LL page and say the "Fuck to adjust the area" sign. Indeed. Those instructions might be true even if it was not intended!
Sometimes I use babble fish to get a quick and dirty translation of something. But if I'm going to base anything important on that translation, I always try to find a fluent speaker to consult.

[oonh.livejournal.com]

that's an amazing amount of fail in the last link you've got there...

[sam16.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to "The shrimp fucks the cabbage". It sounds like the caption to the most awesome photograph ever.

[ovariance.livejournal.com]

Fuck a fish head indeed!

[blimix.livejournal.com]

Oh my gods. I saved the "gold mine" for last, was already laughing hard, and laughed until I cried when I got up to "Fuck a bullfrog".

*gasp* *gasp*

*breathe* *sigh*

Wow.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

*G* Glad to be of service. :)

[ksledgemoore.livejournal.com]

I love the Translate Server Error. That is the best one by far.