How Not To Write In English: Two Samples

[islander]

a must to avoid: Literal translation

Literal translation, or directed translation, is the rendering of text from one language to another "word-for-word" rather than conveying the sense of the original. (Wikipedia)

[islander]

i've been playing 'zuma' on the computer and there was no escaping these literary pieces:

1)  Congratulations! Interloper of puny!  You suppose the secret of Zuma it is possible to take the knowing so easily?  No!  There is defect for your thinking!  Our cryptic hidden nature cannot be discovered so directly.  Three mystery shrines protect method! Never will you strike past them. 

Ribbit.   

[Lollapalooza]

hahahahahah

[islander]

2)  I see what!?  You have lived still.  Is it possible to be the one of which the ancient prophecy speaks?  It was sent in order perhaps to release me from my wicked capture person finally.  But no namely this was the story of the exactly old wive.  You want to live.  Now retreat.

[islander]

an educator's nightmare.

i suspect this was originally in english that was translated to some other language and then translated back to english courtesy of google translate, hahaha!

[Lollapalooza]

hahahah mali bitaw ning translation sa google.. kadtong nag schooling pako one of my major subjects is Pagsasaling-wika .. sounds easy pero hastang lisuda diay... heheheh

[hubag bohol]

When the Biblical sentence "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" was machine-translated into Russian and then back to English, it became "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten"...

[BolBuhol]

When the Biblical sentence "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" was machine-translated into Russian and then back to English, it became "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten"...

tinonto ma ng imon hao.

Ð"уÑ... бодр, плоÑ,ÑŒ же немощна

[hubag bohol]

tinonto ma ng imon hao.

Ð"уÑ... бодр, плоÑ,ÑŒ же немощна

Bwahaha! Не плоÑ...ая шуÑ,ка сказаÑ,ÑŒ сейчас проÑ,ромбинового индекса!

[BolBuhol]

By the bat cousin to the mouse.
He is likes an aging attic of the house

[hubag bohol]

“English as she is spoke” â€" the best Portuguese/English translation ever
http://deepbrazil.com/





“What news tell me? All hairs dresser are newsmonger” â€" a phrase that you could use to insult a barber.

“It is a noise which to cleve the head” â€" useful if you have to complain against the orchestra.

“Let aim it! Let make fire him” â€" good for hunters.

These pearls are part of the phrase-book “English as she is spoke”, written in 1855 by two Portuguese authors, José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino. They (obviously) didn’t know any English and used Portuguese-to-French and French-to-English dictionaries to build their book. The unintentional humor was praised by (sarcastic) American writer Mark Twain, that wrote in the introduction of the 1883 edition: “it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality is secure. This celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts”.

[hubag bohol]

[islander]

perfect!  boy, do i love english, after all.

[islander]

By the bat cousin to the mouse.
He is likes an aging attic of the house

hehe, the mouse poor the cousin bat
and the house walking in the aging attic.

[islander]

more gems from pedro carolino's book:

The walls have hearsay

According to thy purse rule thy mouth

Big head, little sens

He is beggar as a church rat

The wisdom of these last phrases is not obscured by the peculiarity of their expression. On the other hand, it takes a very wise head to tease the meaning out of:

Nothing some money, nothing of Swiss

He steep as a marmot

Take the moon with the teeth

Cat scalded fear the cold water

Which like Bertram, love hir dog

He turns as a weath turcocl

http://www.verbatimmag.com/Gorman.html