decot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot) (10/21/83)
I have always been amused by poor translations from one language into another. One of my friends went into uncontrollable and interminable hysterics after reading the instructions on a video game by Namco. I believe it is possible to detect the country of origin of bad translations by examining the particular peculiarities that seem to occur regularly. Was the "Snake Cube" produced in Japan? When I asked my Dad (not a Japanner) how to say goodbye in Japanese (this was some time ago when I was younger and less old), he said, "Say onara." So the next week in school I said "Onara" to one of my Japanese classmates and practically got hit. If you don't know why, ask a person who understands what "onara" means (they might not tell you in mixed company). ---------------------------------------- Dave Decot ..!decvax!cwruecmp!decot
pklingsb@sjuvax.UUCP (11/28/83)
When I was taking French in high school, my (young and inexperienced) teacher would sometimes point at an object and ask, "Qu'est-ce que c'est?" The student queried would reply with the name of the object: "la fenetre." Teacher would agree: "C'est la fenetre." Student would comply with this instruction and say "la fenetre".