Thinking out of the rectangle

Coupon clipping lately? Have you noticed that many of the coupons in your Sunday paper are now bilingual in English and Spanish? I noticed the translations don't look too good but this might be the best worst one I have seen!

The images are some fine specimens. One is of a bad translation and one good one, right next to each other, like two ships in the night. No proof-reader in their department.

Both coupons are essentially the same product, a box of hair color. Compare the translations with each other, and, well amigo mio, that's a hair of a different color.

You'll need to think out of the rectangle to get this one.

$2.00 OFF ONE BOX OF BRAND-NAME HAIR COLOR.

ONE BOX. one rectangle? UN RECTANGULO? No, not that kind of box. UNA CAJA is the correct translation for BOX in this context.

HAIR COLOR. COLOR DE PELO? No,not hair color as in your height, eye color, hair color. They're selling hair dye. The Spanish word for hair dye is TINTE.

Keep your eyes out for more like this and send them to me! Mchenry.Spanish.Tutor at gmail. thanks!!

Analysis: Translations: Is this the Spanish U.S. Hispanics Deserve?

Another case of poor translations done by machine instead of a professional HUMAN!

Read here: Analysis: Translations: Is this the Spanish U.S. Hispanics Deserve?

Is it that companies don't care or ????

Sunday Funnies

At least I can admit it, but I am addicted to StumbleUpon. Sunday coffee and Stumbles, that's the life!

I stumbled across this jewel this morning, enjoy!

Tractor Toss

My inner Spanish Teacher had a field day with the red ink here. I came across this gem in a stack of pending ads. The client tried to save a few bucks by doing it herself. She doesn't even know she's a comedy writer!

Some of the highlights of the fair are the Tractor Toss, Demolition Mushroom, The Display of Direct Music, Entertainment in Sand, Queen Parade, Judgemental Cattle, the zoo that gives you tender lovin'...

In the real world, you don't get points for trying, people just won't come to your event.

They don't not come to be mean, they don't come because they don't know what you mean. (I wonder how that sentence would come out with an electronic translator???)

To be fair, I have blocked out any identifying information from the ad.

Think about that phrase, to be fair, in this context. The writer confused Fair (carnival) Feria with Fair (just, equitable, impartial) justa. Con admisión justa. The intent was that admission to the concert is free with Fair admission but that's not how it came out.

Translating this piece is challenging because some of the themes are very American and you wouldn't find them in the RAE Real Academia Española Dictionary of Spanish. Tractor Pull, Petting Zoo, Carnival Rides, Demolition Derby, Monster Trucks are typical of a Red-White-and-Blue country county fair. But the world is getting smaller and some of these events have spread south of the border. A Google search would have found examples of how these events are named or how Hispanic ex-pats living here in the USA try to describe the phenomena to their back-home families. Tractor Pulls are found in some places in South America and Spain and they are called Carreras de Tractores, literally, tractor races, which is essentially what they are. Tractor Tira brings images of something completely different.

For me, it brought up a mental image of a Tractor Toss. I'd pay a fair admission to see that, yippe-ki-ay!

Like a Good Adjacent, State Farm is there

I stopped by on the Web to see a State Farm agent's site today. The company does a lot of marketing to woo the Latino customers. They have this link to their site in Spanish on the agent's main page

	Language Options
	Opinión Este Sitio En Español

Translation: Opinion this site in Spanish.

What?

I'll give you my opinion, maybe I won't even click it. But I am curious so I did.

Once on the Spanish side, you see the link says View this page in English.

Points for you if you connected the dots that opinion is a synonym for view when it's a noun.
Bonus if you can name which part of speech view is meant to be used as.

Why does a company spend so much money to have their hard work wiped out by an obvious error? The State Farm websites are all corporate and the same, an agent just plugs their name and contact info into it. This isn't the individual agent's fault, it's actually on every agent's site.

So I dedicate this post to State Farm.
Here's your free consult;

Para ver este sitio en español


Like a Good Translator, I make sure it's right.

Lost in Babelfish translation

Inspired by signs in NYC tenement doorways, this guy printed up a little sign

"No Menus or Flyers Please"

in a few languages using an online translator to let the local delivery guys know that their litter isn't welcome on his Chicago doorstep.


So what does the Spanish really say?


"Not any menus or aviators satisfy"

leaves the güeys from Taco Rápido wonder why these yuppies are displeased with the fly guys.