Translation mistakes can be hilarious. A road sign in Swansea (Wales) is a classic example. The English is fine; it’s the Welsh “translation” that’s the funny part.
Do you know what I like best about this sign? It’s someone else’s mistake! It’s harder to laugh at my own mistakes, but I do try to. The humiliation may sting for a while, but eventually those embarrassing mistakes become funny stories to share and learn from.
That one’s a classic. I bet the out of office is in both languages now, although to be honest, I think an out of office is pretty obvious by the speed with which it arrives. No matter what language it’s in.
But anyway, I’ll always find mintranslations funny and I won’t apologise for that but I’m not going to sneer at someone else’s efforts either. Not every company has the budget for professional translation companies and there can’t be many individuals that do either. Besides, whatever effort they make in English is already far superior to my command of their language.
I made some very limited attempts in Spanish a few years back but I never got very far because I was too afraid of making a mistake. My mum, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to jump in with both feet and began her linguistic experience by asking one member of the bar staff how old he was. And she made the one tiny mispronunciation that turns the question into something quite rude.
I think he’d've let it go but I was in on the joke and he read that in my face, so he just ended up laughing. So did my mum once we could stop giggling long enough to explain.
I’d like to learn another language at some point. I doubt I’d ever achieve fluency but moving slightly beyond the basics in anything at all would be nice. I’d definitely have to get over the whole “I must not make mistakes” thing though.
You bring up a very good point, Jodie. One must be willing to make mistakes to learn a new language! It can be very embarrassing, but the rewards are not only new language skills, but an ability to laugh at oneself!