Not Really Correct :3

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Not Really Correct :2

Last time I wrote about mistakes made by people who were historically and geographically hardly meant to be using English. If it wasn't for a relatively rapid development of economic relations started 19th century, they would have probably kept on enjoying their isolated culture. Silly as it may appear, compared to 'the global village thing' we currently believe in, still they could do great without our western kind of help ever before.

Anyway, sociopolitics is not what I planned for today.

Let's rather focus on linguistic mistakes that naturalised into the multi-billion business of visual entertainment. It seems no matter there are people who actually get paid to check if everything is translated correctly, typos, misspellings and grammar goofs find their way into the final product nevertheless. This one's classic:

In other words: 'We have taken all of your bases'. Originally, it 'belong' to a Japanese Sega game called Zero Wing. It is said that introduction of English version was rushed, hence the inaccuracy.

Yet another Japanese game, SNK vs Capcom. Time to leave Engrish be, and move on.

Hollywood* in general rarely bothers to get foreign spelling or pronounciation correct, unless it's Spanish - that would give them away quickly as Latin Americans amount to 15% of the US population. One of my favourite:

Bourne Identity.

Name: Foma, got transcribed into Cyrillic as A-Ssh-SoftSign-F (pronounced 'aśf' ?). It's a long-abandoned Biblical name that came to Russia directly from Greece way before The Great Schism in 1054. It means 'Thomas' but has not been around for centuries. Also, there ought to be a patronym next to the name, as it is inseparable from Russian ID information.
Surname: Kiniaev, transcribed L-Sh-T-Sh-F-U-M. Sounds similar, right? ;) Well, such surname does not exist (I checked), and if it did, it would be written Kinyaev in latin transliteration. Quite brave of a secret agent to have a name so obtrusive.
Place of birth: Moscou
Issued by: Consul de Russie... These are obviously French but... French was used as a second language in Soviet passports prior to 1991. This passport, however, is Russian and dated 1998, so Moscow should be in English and issuing entity should be in Russian. I'm sure of this because I happen to have a RF passport since 1996. Until then, I had a Soviet one.

Bourne Ultimatum, 3:48.

Right this moment, agent Foma says 'Ya ne achu tebe idivat' to a scared militiaman. It's not correct, of course (therefore it's in this post) but resembles 'Ya ne hochu tebya ubivat' which means 'I don't want to kill you'. Looks like the editor decided it's more dramatic to officially sub it 'My argument is not with you'. It helps define agent Foma's kick-ass image.

Another beautiful example is Hitman movie by a self-proclaimed genius Xavier Gens. Apart from turning this potentially powerful drama of solitude, perfection and emotional exile into a salad of evil morons, female nudity, pointless gun-waving, dumb conspiracy, even dumber good guys, and more evil impure-religious-guys-gone-astray morons - he managed to blend in some of the worst portrayal of Russian language ever attempted in high-budget sector. 'Russian' parts were filmed on location in Bulgaria, and there's no language coach listed in the credits. Producers possibly figured it's unnecessary to hire one, which resulted in all Slavic dialogues being incomprehensible gibberish. Nobody really took the trouble to make a single word sound right. They could at least ask their lead actress Olga Kurylenko for a tip - an Ukrainian girl substantially fluent in Russian, English, and French. Here be some nice shots:

It spells O-S-T-R-O-Zh-N-O while it should O-S-T-O-R-O-Zh-N-O. Meaning 'careful'. It's not a typo, every crate on the platform sports this same sticker.

A postbox in 'St.Petersburg, Russia' is labeled P-O-Ssh-A. Actually, it's more like P-O-Ch-T-A.

Guys in black are FSB (something similar to FBI). White letters on their backs read almost OK, there is just a slight misconception about the middle one. It should look like C, not upside down or mirrored. This is a bit puzzling because Bulgarian language utilises Cyrillic script and it's safe to assume locals or Bulgarian art crew know how to write FSB.

This one is a neon sign attached to hotel wall. It reads O-T-E-L-SoftSign (correct) and is pronounced otél', but unfortunately does not mean 'hotel' any more. Technically, it does, but it'd be like saying Gasthaus Marriott in German, which is gawkish. Word 'gostinitsa' is to be used instead. I bet they're not ignorant, only deliberate - otel' is shorter = cheaper to assemble.

There are lots and lots of other mistakes big and small:
'Mumble-mumble ne tolko palets' -> 'Don't touch me, pig!' by Sarah Walker in Chuck TV series
'Mumble-mumble twoja mamusia' -> 'I'll break your arm' ditto, or was it agent Casey
Polish-Russian freestyle by Tom Hanks in The Terminal
Made up countries like Cracosia or Yhmylstan - not strictly linguistic but still... why?
Pseudo-Chinese in Firefly (btw, marvellous series) that was intended to make characters look multi-lingual and erudite.
Broken German in Neon Genesis Evangelion by Asuka Soryu who is supposed to have grown up in Germany.
Game Project I.G.I implying that Karpaty Mts. are situated in Soviet Union.
Evil-and-unpredictable Czech terrorists plotting their evil plan in fine Polish in some action film from early 2000s, SWAT maybe, can't remember.
And so on...

You get the idea.


Now, what do you think?
Why are resourceful people like filmmakers and game producers unable/unwilling to deliver thought-through content that's free from misleading errors? Consumers turn out not only to pay money disproportionate to goods' quality, but are likely to acquire false knowledge, as well. Usually, the first piece of information that we get hold of becomes ingrained in our brain more efficiently than the following ones, thus making it harder to amend our beliefs later on.


*) Note that European movies are far more consistent language- and fact-wise.

Not Really Correct :1

Have you come across the term 'Engrish'?
If not, let's for now say it pertains to the incidence of (usually funny) misuse of English language.
It sprung off the combination of various types of lingustic mistakes that are common among Far Eastern English speaking locals.

There are several direct reasons for said distortion:

» Three most prominent language groups in East Asia are Chinese, Japanese and Korean. None of these distinguishes between phonemes R and L. In most cases both R and L are represented by the same graphic symbol. Difference, if recognised, is assumed to be an alternance or a dialectal nuance. Over millenia this 'limitation' became a racial feature - Asian kids rarely possess an innate ability to hear and, eventually, verbalise the difference. Being half-Korean myself, I've had some of these difficulties until early adolescence. The feeling is quite strange when you articulate an R, and hear yourself pronounce an L ;)

Tokyo Dlift.

R/L jokes are not considered racist, due to overall fairly harmless nature of the problem. Confusing situations are generally wrapped in a comical context when depicted in, say, movies.

From 'Lost in Translation' by Sofia Coppola:
Japanese photographer: - And, uh, 007?
Bob Harris: - He drinks martinis, but okay, I got it.
J - 007, yeah. Loja mool?
B - Loja mool?
J - Loja mool. You know loja mool?
B - Roger Moore?
J - Yeah.
B - Okay. I... I always think of Sean Connery. Seriously.
J - No, no.
B - Didn't you get the Sean Connery one over here?
J - No. Loja Mool.

Note the last dish.

» Another cause would be lexical ambiguity, which often is the very core of a non-alphabetical language. For instance, Japanese official glyph set consists of 1945 different symbols, while obviously the number of words (meanings) used by people to communicate is n times greater. This draws a conclusion there have to be multiple meanings to almost every character. And, Chinese is far more polysemic because it lacks any phonetic mechanism for adaptation of neologisms or foreign terminology. Hence, semantic context is a crucial, and sometimes, the only clue to understanding a particular sentence.

Always recycling.

Your sorrow shall end.

When locals grab their dictionaries and try to pick words that feel suitable, unexpected may occur. It's not very common there to have a native English speaking friend on speed-dial, so mostly an 'average-Joe*-turned-translator' is on his own and has to rely on instinct. If you happen to see a word for the first time in your life, might be not- so-straightforward to decide which is better: gravid or pregnant? handicapped or cripple? Keep in mind it's not easy to cross-check when you have a one-way dictionary, which is the case most of the time.

*) Actually, it would be 'average-Chang' or 'average-Suzuki-san'.

By the honour of Vikings!

Play serious.

» Being accustomed to continuous contextual guess-work, Far Easterners fondly incorporate proverbs, poetry and allegories into everyday talk. No-one laughs or feels ashamed if their boss or some politician throws in a philosophic quote like 'life is a twisty road, similar to ram's intestines'. However, translating poetry is a tough task. Even if one has grown confident with their English skills and easily avoids the majority of pitfalls, cultural incompatibility of a reader - such as association mismatch - is still highly probable.

Translation is literal.

The following one is a gem of deeply overwhelming wisdom, I suppose. Shame, I'm not ready to comprehend it. Yet.

It's an actual soap-wrap.

» Sometimes words are chosen for strictly aesthetical reasons. They look good as a whole, or they just contain a couple of nice letters. Meaning is not taken into consideration. Can't blame them - Westerners, to same extent, love placing pseudo-Chinese symbols everywhere. Remember Coca-Cola? When they first entered Chinese market, their hastily sketched-up logo was composed of four ideograms: (roughly) ko-ka-ko-la. It means 'female horse fastened with wax', among other things. Later, they changed the symbols to achieve the present combination: 'something tasty from which one receives pleasure'.

High-tech.

Coca-Cola story shows that how the word sounds is important no less. When your trademark has a nice audible ring to it, it's rewarded with better recognition. Thus, companies apply reverse transcription, and... get unlucky now and then.

White-on-blue reads: misu puuke [meesoo poo:keh].

» One more thing. English is constructed upon SVO (subject-verb-object) syntax, while all three main East Asian language groups use SOV. What's more confusing, semantic context is built by object-chaining (SOOOOV). Failing to know how to properly transform the syntax may result in Yoda-style or similar awkward-sounding sentences.

Two more examples. Not really hard to understand if your mind is willing. It's all about context. A verbose one.

Don't forget to visit Engrish.com


* * *
Now, our own back yard.
What examples of funny Ponglish have you seen?
If none, just make something plausible up.

I'll start with some real life stuff:
'Now we are croing the tomato small bricks' - Gotowanie na ekranie host, late 90s, co-hosted with an American chef.
'A device electric. A touch threatens to death!' - a sign at Elbląg railway station.