The Danger Of Buffet
The word they were looking for is “crab”, obviously. It’s very easy to mess up trailing consonants in English.
A funny mistranslation (or even just an unfortunate spelling error, as in this case) can be something to treasure. Ask any language teacher and they’re bound to have one or two good stories. One of my favorites comes from a friend who was studying French in Quebec. While having dinner she noticed that the chicken was undercooked, so she tried to tell her friend that the meat was bad: “Mon poulet est mal!”. Her friend poked the chicken with a fork, turned to her sadly and said, “Mais non, ton poulet est mort.”
There’s also the time I tried to offer Eunsuk’s friend a seat but instead said “please embrace me”.
Once, a student turned in a homework assignment which began “My family burned the train to Seoul”. Translate it into Korean and the intended meaning becomes apparent.
December 4th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I had to drive to Roseville, MN to meet my Korean friends at a mall. I looked up Roseville in my map book. I caught myself looking under “L”…
October 18th, 2010 at 12:21 am
[...] note: we all know how annoying or whimsical Konglish can be in public places. But this Rant is a different consideration on [...]