This is too funny to be true! A contract company in Egypt was asked to put “Diesel Fuel” and “No Smoking” IN ARABIC on a line of fuel-tankers. This is the final product:
HA! HA! Priceless! 🙂 Talk about “lost in translation” or following something so literally that you miss the entire point! And if you think I’m making this up, check out the source here at The Guardian in the UK.
Posted in Humor, Language Problems
Tagged diesel fuel, diesel fuel in Arabic, fail, lost in translation, no smoking in Arabic, translation fail
Posted in Humor, Language Problems, Some Thoughts, UAE
Tagged Engrish, funny sign, hard to translate, Holy?, language problems, lost in translation, odd, strange, strange translation, UAE
More head scratchers from “Al Waseet” classified ads! What on earth is an “Iraqian male Master“?!?! Now that is some bizarre choice of language, ha!ha! The ad on the top is correct with “looking for” but the rest all read as if the editor of Al Waseet is taking lessons in Eubonics! 🙂
“…the crescent WILL BE BORN”?!?!” Am I missing something here in the translation?!
“Building and keeping trust is IN THEIR DNA”?!?! I would be extremely wary to deal in business with any person or group that claims that trust “is in their DNA“.
This ad doesn’t seem strange in and of itself…But when you read the fineprint (*offer valid until September 10,2010) and realize that the paper it’s printed in is dated October 14th, you got to wonder why they don’t either adjust the fineprint or pull the ad from the paper! Ads like this end up creating more questions in the consumers’ minds than they end up answering!
“So good your mouth hurts”?!?! Say again?! If my mouth hurts after eating something, does that qualify as delicious?! Huh?!
Posted in Humor, Language Problems
“Waseet” is a free weekly classified paper handed out to homes in the Muscat area. I’m not sure if they actually have an editor because it always seems to be filled with mistakes. Some are your normal run-of-the-mill errors that one would expect from a non-native speaker writing in English while other mistakes either leave the ad as a hilarious mistranslation or leave you wondering just what the heck they wanted to convey in the first place! 🙂 The free paper states, “Please say you saw it in Waseet!” I don’t think this is what they had in mind, ha!ha! Here are a few examples for your viewing pleasure. 
I think that if someone runs a limousine rental company and advertises in English, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to double check the spelling of “limousine“! 🙂 Just a thought!
This ad for a 2006 Corolla mentions that it has a “good location“. ?!?! Good location would obviously be important for a business or home, but for a car?! I think this is one of those “lost in translation” moments where they might have meant to write “good condition“! 🙂
“Foud Marketing“?! “Foud” is actually a British word meaning “a bailiff, magistrate or legal official”. I’m guessing they meant “food marketing”!
This is a pretty funny one, me thinks! What on earth do you think they mean by “responsible store“?!? “He have university or college certificate & He know English”. Perhaps if they find this salesman “who know English” he could give them private lessons while he’s at it, ha!ha!
“In seed“?! There are 3 possibilities here: 1) They are being poetic and talking about the growth of a new school, 2) There is an area unknown to me known as “Seed”, or 3) They misspelled “Seeb“. Hmm.
And saving my favorite for last
The funny thing about this one is that with the misspelling of “housemaid” and incorrect word order, this may be closer to the truth than the person posting this ad may realize. Many Filipinas (and women in general, am I right?! 😉 ) are indeed “housemad” (meaning “crazy about or has a huge interest in houses“.)
The great thing about Waseet ads (read their online version here) is that you never know what you’re going to read next! 🙂 Thanks for the laughs, Waseet!
Andy in Oman 