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Thread poster: xxxLia Fail
Off topic: this has to be the most hilarious menu translation ever!
xxxLia Fail  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
May 30, 2005

I frequent a small restuarant in the Raval area of Barcelona, on the odd occasion that I cross the Ramblas

As it happened, we were a large group and so got a mix of ES and EN menus (before we had always gotten the ES ones only)....

The EN was so off-the-wall that we actually thought it was deliberate....eventually we figured out that the menu had been machine translated, with hilarious results that kept us in stitches for a good hour, as we kept going back and finding more howlers....


Some samples:

Entrantes arabes/cubanos, etc = Arabic/Cuban inlets

Baba ganugh = Slobber Ganugh

Aráis de Queso = You Plough of Cheese

Pan Pita relleno con carne = Bread whistles at landfill of meat

Table de Quesos = Table Gives Cheeses

Papa rellena = Dad Refills

Yuca con Mojo = Yucca with I Wet

Platano Macho Crujiente = Banana Macho Creaking

Picadillo a la habanera = Hash to the Cuban Dance

And plenty more of the same...

My favourite is possibly:

Tart of Card Game Banana

Guess the Spanish?


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Rebecca Hendry  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:37
Member (2005)
Spanish to English
Yucca with I wet! May 30, 2005

"Yucca with I wet" has to be my favourite! I can just imagine a bunch of poor unsuspecting English-speaking tourists with very baffled looks on their faces as they sat down to lunch

The last one has me stumped though... tarta de no sé qué de plátano....


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Cindy Chadd  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
a guess... May 30, 2005

tarta de mus de plátano?

Great menu, Ailish, thanks for sharing!


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Lesley Clarke  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 17:37
Spanish to English
nothing like a machine-translated menu to confuse the tourists May 30, 2005

I was in a restaurant in Chiapas recently that offered such delicacies as Fried Popes and Fried Banana Trees.

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GoodWords  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 17:37
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Were you discreet? May 30, 2005


Ailish Maher wrote:
... results that kept us in stitches for a good hour, as we kept going back and finding more howlers....


Did the restaurant staff notice?


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xxxLia Fail  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
well done cindy...spot on! May 30, 2005


Cindy Chadd wrote:

tarta de mus de plátano?

Great menu, Ailish, thanks for sharing!


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xxxLia Fail  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Hopefully not! May 30, 2005


GoodWords wrote:


Ailish Maher wrote:
... results that kept us in stitches for a good hour, as we kept going back and finding more howlers....


Did the restaurant staff notice?


Hopefully not!

I decided against naming it, just in case they might be offended....and it's a nice bar, I don't want to be banished from there


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Cindy Chadd  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
another one May 30, 2005

I just came across this one while struggling with my own menu translation:

"The Mediterranean kitchen of their letter offers dishes like the vegetableses of season with |parmentier| of eggplant, the trunk of hake in hair in curlpaper to the digging and banking of vines with verdures, the feet of boneless and full hog with crustacean or the thigh of sucking kid roasted with sage and |miljohas| of vegetableses."

There is also a typo in the Spanish version that's pretty good: the restaurant specializes in "pecados" (sins, for those who don't speak Spanish, a misspelling of "pescados," fish).


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Stephanie Mitchel  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:37
French to English
+ ...
Sins of the papas May 30, 2005

I'll take some Fried Popes with my sins! And a beer to wash it all down.

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Nancy Lynn Bogar  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 18:37
Member (2002)
French to English
+ ...

MODERATOR
Moving this thread May 30, 2005

... to the Lighter Side of Translation and Interpretation forum.

Nancy


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Gayle Wallimann  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 00:37
Member (2001)
French to English
+ ...
How funny! May 30, 2005

Thanks Ailish,
I just woke my husband up laughing, I better stop reading the forms so late at night!

Gayle


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Javier Herrera
Spain
Spanish
No, Ailish. This is not the most hilarious menu translation ever May 30, 2005

This is the one:
http://www.proz.com/post/167299#167299
(In Spanish)
Just in case somebody is not used to Peninsular Spanish colloquialisms, "pollo" is the usual word for chicken, the one used instead, one letter away, is a dirty one.


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Deschant
Local time: 23:37
Urban legend May 31, 2005

I received a mail with a funny menu translation some time ago (http://www.arrakis.es/~olivenza/humor/casa.html) . I thought it wasn't real, of course, but now I've started to wonder...

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Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 00:37
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...

MODERATOR
There are nuts, and then there are nuts... but it should have been coulis May 31, 2005

I once spent a lot of time searching the Internet for 'couilles', which was on a menu as part of a dessert.

The client's contact person assured me it wasn't a typo, but it wasn't in my dictionary of cuisine French either...

When I did find it, I got the contact person to check with the cook and change the Danish source text - they meant coulis of course.



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AnneM  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 00:37
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Great May 31, 2005

and let's not forget the famous monkfish dish in a restaurant in Sitges.

Rape Fisherman's Style...


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