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Home --> Humor --> Adventures in Mistranslation

Adventures in Mistranslation

The English language is difficult enough for those of us who learned it as our native language. In the hands of an inexperienced practitioner, it can produce some truly risible results.

Ratings Key

        Green bullet = true
        Red bullet = false
        Multiple status bullet = multiple truth values
        Yellow bullet = undetermined
        White bullet = unclassifiable veracity

Select this link for an expanded
definition of our rating system.

Red bullet Madonna's interview with a Hungarian newspaper was mistranslated back into English.

Green bullet The instructions for Tounge of Frog.

White bullet A foreign restaurant garbles a menu as only non-English speakers can.

White bullet A foreign airline garbles instructions on a ticket as only non-English speakers can.

Red bullet Disgruntled Random House employee sneaks unusual definition of 'mutton' into the publisher's 1999 dictionary.

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