Humor Confusing English translations of local signs

[SiberianTiger]

Last summer I have seen and photographed this sign near a toilet flush button in a train from Moscow to St. Petersburg:

And this pic (hotel door signs from Bryansk) I've just found on the net:

Did you find any other confusing translations in non-English countries?

 

[Artlav]

Not so much english as russian.
Somewhere on Hainan, China:

 

[Ripley]

I don't have personal pictures to show, but here in Italy usually public offices, buses, museums and taxicabs are the places where you can read some poorly pathetically translated phrases...

Oh! Thanks Google images:

 

[dgatsoulis]

Major gym sign fail

Greek restaurant

 

[Ripley]

What does "Pathetiki" mean in this context?

 

[Ghostrider]

I know your pain, Ripley... Those are some I collected myself.

Oh, the humanity! Traduttore, traditore indeed!

 

[jedidia]

Tons and tons in Bosnia. The evergreen is the (old) translation of the broshure about the City of Travnik in the tourism office. The german translation was much worse than the english, though, but in all cases Google translate would have done a much better Job (even back in those days). They even made up words and had spelling errors galore in them.

That the original text was very flowery and poetic, and practically required you to know the city to make sense of its references didn't help much either. Not a single person I showed the text in german or english understood what it was supposed to mean, but everyone was rolling on the floor laughing...

 

[dgatsoulis]

What does "Pathetiki" mean in this context?

Passive. The word Pathetic is an ancient Greek word {Παθητικός (male) Παθητική (female) Παθητικό (neutral)} but it is used as "passive". I am not sure why it has the meaning "arousing scornful pity or contempt" in English.

EDIT:
The sign would be correct if it said:
"Passive gymnastics health club"

 

[Izack]

Passive. The word Pathetic is an ancient Greek word {Παθητικός (male) Παθητική (female) Παθητικό (neutral)} but it is used as "passive". I am not sure why it has the meaning "arousing scornful pity or contempt" in English.

Hm, that's news. In some small defence, the 'scornful' intention is a recent change; once upon a time it meant only 'evoking pathos' which I was told was a Greek word meaning something along the lines of sympathy, or sympathetic emotion.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Passive. The word Pathetic is an ancient Greek word {Παθητικός (male) Παθητική (female) Παθητικό (neutral)} but it is used as "passive". I am not sure why it has the meaning "arousing scornful pity or contempt" in English.

Interesting, in modern Russian the word "Патетический" means full of Pathos (highly emotional rhetoric). Still not the same tint of meaning as in English.

 

[dgatsoulis]

Hm, that's news. In some small defence, the 'scornful' intention is a recent change; once upon a time it meant only 'evoking pathos' which I was told was a Greek word meaning something along the lines of sympathy, or sympathetic emotion.

The exact translation of πάθος/pathos is passion.
The root is from the passive past tense of the verb πάσχω/pascho → έπαθον/epathon which in modern Greek means "to experience something unpleasant/to suffer". (the passions of Christ)

IIRC from my ancient Greek class in highschool the original meaning of the noun pathos was "overwhelming/irrational feeling", but it was used differently according to the context of the sentence.

Throw in the usual prefixes (anti- syn- apo- hypo- peri- hyper- ana- kata- para- dia- ) and you have the exact word to use in any occasion. For example antipathy means "dislike" in modern Greek.

The English etymology is a bit fuzzy. I think that's because it's based on the "latinization" of the original Greek pathetikos → patheticus which was probably used in the context of "evoke pity".

 

[Izack]

Ah! Thanks for the explanation. One learns something new every day.

The English etymology is a bit fuzzy.

In English, almost all etymologies are a bit fuzzy. An interesting language, surely.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The English etymology is a bit fuzzy. I think that's because it's based on the "latinization" of the original Greek pathetikos → patheticus which was probably used in the context of "evoke pity".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pathetic

pathetic
1598, "affecting the emotions, exciting the passions," from M.Fr. pathétique "moving, stirring, affecting" (16c.), from L.L. patheticus, from Gk. pathetikos "sensitive, capable of emotion," from pathetos "liable to suffer," verbal adj. of pathein "to suffer" (see pathos). Meaning "arousing pity, pitiful" is first recorded 1737. Colloquial sense of "so miserable as to be ridiculous" is attested from 1937. Pathetic fallacy (1856, first used by Ruskin) is the attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

This sums up the English language rather well:

 

[Linguofreak]

This one is quite intelligible. The style isn't quite what any native English speaker would use, but it's grammatically, lexically, and orthographically correct (except maybe that there should be an "a" before "faulty ticket machine", but even a native speaker might omit that in certain situations) and conveys its message clearly.

This isn't very bad either. Once again, it's a bit stilted, but intelligible. You'd probably see "Ferry to [name] island" on a sign written by an English speaker, but other than that nothing would be much different.

Tons and tons in Bosnia. The evergreen is the (old) translation of the broshure about the City of Travnik in the tourism office.

While English does have a word "evergreen", and while the German word "Evergreen" definitely has its origins in that word, the German and English meanings do not match. "Evergreen" in English means "immergrüne Pflanze". The German word "Evergreen" means "classic".

Also, "brochure" is of French origin, and is spelled accordingly.

Thus:

Tons and tons in Bosnia. The classic is the (old) translation of the brochure about the City of Travnik in the tourism office.

 

[jedidia]

"Evergreen" in English means "immergrüne Pflanze". The German word "Evergreen" means "classic".

I knew the literal translation, but wasn't aware that it doesn't have the "classic" conotation at all in english... But after all this is a thread about bad english translations, so it should feel right at home :lol:

 

[Linguofreak]

I knew the literal translation, but wasn't aware that it doesn't have the "classic" conotation at all in english...

It's an apt enough metaphor that it can be given the "classic" connotation by explicitly setting it up ("This perennial favorite, like a thriving evergreen, has withstood the test of time, blah blah blah, etc."), but it's not idiomatic, so it can't be used without setting up a context in which the metaphor is self-explanitory.

I wouldn't be surprised if the term didn't get into German by means of an English speaker using it as a one-off metaphor, with a listening German speaker mistaking it for an established idiom.

 

[Notebook]

Must admit this comes to mind when I hear the word :
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen"]Evergreen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Not used much outside the gardening world I think, at least in my hearing. Its other use tends to be more in the show-biz world, alluding to it being a "timeless classic act/song/performer". They like that flowery language...

N.

 

[Izack]

Not used much outside the gardening world I think, at least in my hearing.

It's fairly commonly used here, referring to the spruce and fir in the temperate mixed woods covering the province, and the taiga farther Northwest.

 

[Urwumpe]

well, "Evergreen" is not exactly classic. An "Evergreen" in German, is usually meaning a song, that is despite its age extremely popular. It must not be a classic song of a genre.

The most accepted definition for a song being an "Evergreen" is:

• It has last many years
• It is pretty simple in tune, harmony and rhythm
• It is still popular among the population

So, a bit more complex than just a classic... It also only seems to be a German concept... other countries don't seem to waste so much energy on old good songs and tunes to give them a name. Many Beatles songs are considered Evergreens in German music theory for example. But not songs of the Rolling Stones.