Fun with wordplay in Chinese. Summary of the article and associated links:

The Cantonese phrase for "fuck your mother" sounds a lot like the English phrase "Delay no more", and it is a homophone for the Cantonese phrase "burn your financial ledgers". These phrases are used as double entendres and codes in politics and journalism.

Anybody know what : 調理農務化系 (Agricultural Affairs Management Chemistry Department) is a pun for?

I haven't run the ag bit through a translator, but you reminded me that some years ago I dated a Cantonese (from Hong Kong) woman whose late hubby was Mandarin. She told me many funny misunderstanding stories about the two of them.
She said that once he had asked her to bring him something from the kitchen, so she cleaned the floor! I think such stuff could make for a good comedy show - IF you speak both Chinese dialects.

Some time ago I mentioned how fun it is to run something through one language translator, then another one, then back to English. It's often hilarious!

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Some time ago I mentioned how fun it is to run something through one language translator, then another one, then back to English. It's often hilarious!

I hope this isn't old news to y'all (I haven't -- yet -- read ALL the old postings in ALL the fora), but we translators have our own set of jokes & anecdotes, some of which we think are true but may not be.

One old story has it that the NSA was working on Russian-English bidirectional translation software, and the way they'd test it was to input an English sentence or phrase, have it translated into Russian and then use the output as input to the Russian-to-English module, then compare this to the original English.

Two phrases and their results:
out of sight, out of mind > invisible idiot
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak > the liquor is acceptable, but the meat tastes bad

JFK, in his famous speech in Berlin, said "Ich bin ein Berliner." Berliners understood him to say that he was a jelly doughnut (called a Berliner). When saying what town you're from in German, you leave off the indefinite article: "Ich bin Berliner."

The results are not always hilarious; they can be embarrassing to fatal. This is especially true of interpreters in a political/diplomatic context.

Poor President Carter, giving a speech in Warsaw, said in English that he admired the Polish people; his harried interpreter flubbed it and said in Polish that the President lusted carnally after the Polish people.

For tragic if true, there's the WWII story (which may not be true) that the Japanese response to the US request that they surrender unconditionally included a phrase that, in Japanese, could mean either "we are considering it" or "we are ignoring it" -- and that the later was the translation that the White House got.

David

nevau, I don't know enough Chinese to fill a thimble. But according to Bill Bryson, at page 16 of The Mother Tongue:

In Cantonese, hae means "yes." But, with a fractioal change of pitch, it also describes the female pudenda. The resulting scope for confusion can safely be left to the imagination.

Pitch in Chinese, and other pitch languages, is as significent as using a different phoneme. As different as between English sheet and sheep.

Repeat rapidly, "A sheet I slit; I slit a sheet; so on the slitted sheet I sit."

So how come we never started a tongue twister thread?

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
So how come we never started a tongue twister thread?

I don't know. Why don't you start one?

Tinman

I agree, Asa. Start one already!

My mother used to crack up over that "sheet slitter" tongue twister.

I read years ago that cat in Chinese sounded like 'meow'! I suspect it's total cobblers but is it?

I thought "cat" in Chinese sounded like "food," but, Hu knows! (Hu, the Chinese leader, that is!)

Good of you to join us, Erik!

The Madnarin Chinese term for cat is māo (猫). It lacks the i/y sound of the English.

Froeschlein, I loved your examples. I had written about the Japanese one in this thread.

A year ago we had the Queen of Jordan visit us. In order to prepare, our organization hired someone to educate us on some of these nuances. Besides language, there can be mistakes with simple nonverbal communication, such as making the "okay" hand signal.

I have a very good friend who is Chinese, and she has been teaching my son and I some of her language. It's been very interesting to see my son (who is an artist) writing the figures. She was so impressed by his skills with the brush that she very generously gave him one of her brushes and an ink cake, etc. I love how the figures have similarities, base parts, and differences. Too bad I'm so terrible at remembering things like that.

Does anyone have some suggestions for remembering a new language? I've always struggled with remembering vocabulary. Jerry has suggested I learn to count, and then count everything in that new language, and I'm going to try that. Any other tips?

Caterwauller, you could have yourself kidnapped and dumped into the foreign country of your choice. I guarantee you'll learn the language! While working with a pack of Frenchmen, I learned most of the four-letter French words, plus a bit of polite conversation, in a matter of weeks. Same with Swedes and Italians, but with the Germans I worked with, I only learned technical terms. I'm not sure what that says about different cultures. I san say, "poontang" in French, Swedish, and Italian, but not German. Hmmmmmm.....

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
The Madnarin Chinese term for cat is māo (猫).

No relation to the late Chinese dictator, I suppose, although he did always wear a funny hat, so maybe a Dr. Seuss character ruled China?