Translation from one language to another can be a risky business. On the Pope's recent visit to Cuba, someone wanted to make a welcome banner in English. Unfortunately the Spanish word for Pope... "Papa"... also has a completely different meaning... potato. The result of the well-intentioned but botched translation is seen below.
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| (photo from the web)
Update:
One of my former students did a bit of investigating and discovered that the picture had been "photoshopped".
Oh, well, it still points out how easy it is to make a translation blunder.
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Love this!
ReplyDeleteHi Joan!
DeleteYes, I had to laugh when I saw this. As a former Spanish teacher, I know the pitfalls of translation. In fact I would spend a week with my advanced classes on how to use the Spanish-English dictionary so as to avoid such gaffes.
¡Saludos!
This is awesome. I'll be sharing it on Facebook....
ReplyDeleteScratch that. While looking online, I just found out that the sign in the original image was Photoshopped.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that. Darn! But it still points of the perils of translation.
DeleteThis was very funny, even with the update. Thanks for sharing, I got a good giggle first thing in the AM, which is always good.
ReplyDeleteSaludos,
Kim G
Boston, MA
Where, upon looking up an English word in the Spanish/English dictionary, we always then look up the translation the other way, just to be sure.
Glad to have provided a giggle.
DeleteThat's a good technique for choosing the correct word from the dictionary. Also, sometimes the correct word in Spanish will be a cognate of a related word in English... thus providing a clue. For my students it helped them expand their English vocabulary as well.
¡Saludos!