This is why when we get scripts translated we use native speakers of the language. Literal word translations can be very amusing. One of my favorites was the Chevy Nova. When they started selling the car in Mexico and other Latin American countries, they discovered that no va means it won't go. And I was doing a French translation one time when the translator called me up, still laughing like crazy. Turns out one of the brand names was a dirty word in French.

Oh yeah, it happens quite frequently. In Poland for example, OSRAM is marketing their lighting equipment, but their brand name is quite dirty word in Polish, very close to sh*t. Coca Cola had similar problems in some countries as far as I heard.

Let's just get what we can from this particular article and have fun of all the rest without complaining too much. Hey, at least we can have some laugh which original version does not deliver, and article is still useful.

Or there was that time when the foreign furniture company tried to sell a dining room set in the United States under the name "Notable" and it failed miserably because everyone thought it didn't come with the table.

The classic example of this kind of horribly literal mistranslation is the infamous Portuguese-English phrasebook English As She Is Spoke.

:)

I am always amazed by how well Japanese and Chinese (and of course many other Asian languages) native speakers manage with the English language as their own languages are fundamentally different in their construction.

The automated translation software gives us a tiny insight into the mental gymnastics that are being performed daily by some non-native English speakers on these fora. Respect...

TT

I second that.

Thank you Tony -- that's really a very good way to (finally) close out this thread.