Archive for Lost in translation

Crab raccoon

From the menu of a Chinese restaurant in Eden Prairie, MN:

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It's Japanese soup

A Facebook post sent to me by shaing tai:

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Harsh brown

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Dangerous opportunity

Lord knows we've encountered many bizarre translations and explanations of the much maligned Mandarin term, weiji (see "Selected readings") below, but this is one of the weirdest crosslingual definitions that has ever come to my attention:

Suicide is usually an attempt to deal with a crisis.  The Chinese character for "crisis" translates into "dangerous opportunity."    Suicide is a permanent solution, and eliminates other options.  So if you're hurting so much that you are willing to pass the pain on to those who care, perhaps you could use this dangerous opportunity to try some other options first.

(Source:  Hannah Zeavin, The Distance Cure:  A History of Teletherapy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021), ch. 5, p. 178)

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Jumbled pinyin

I spotted this not-too-old post on Stephen Jones: a blog, "Interpreting pinyin" (10/9/17).

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Handsome court — translation / transcription hybrid

Schematic map of bus stops in the vicinity of Lingnan University, Tuen Mun (below Castle Peak), Hong Kong.  Note the tenth stop outbound, which is "Handsome Court" (to be explained below):

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Mental health prevention

Shared by Tuomas in Shaanxi, China:

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The future is dangerous: Anglo-Nipponica

Sign at a hotel in Japan:

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Pelvic floor wrench

Victor Steinbok said that he found this on Wish:

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Reincarnation machine

From the Engrish in Japan Facebook page, posted by Yukie Masumoto:

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My foci cup

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Chinese buzzwords for 2023

The Shanghai language and linguistics journal (some say it's a literary journal — I think it's none of these three "l's", but more of a sociopolitical magazine), Yaowen Jiaozi*, announced China's hottest words of the year.  

Leading the list is the amazing term "xīnzhì shēngchǎnlì 新质生产力" ("new quality productivity").  Naturally, it was coined by President Xi Jinping.

[It] captures a key shift in the nation's economic characters. This concept represents not just a leap in production methods, but a transformation toward technology-driven, high-quality growth. It's a language reflecting China's stride into an era of digital innovation.

[quoting "World's top words define essence of 2023", by Yang Jian, Shine (12/6/23), which is also the source of the other quotations in this post]

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Come The Felicity The Door

From Charles Belov:

Sending along a photo from a videodisc cover I encountered in a little free library.

The Chinese title 幸福来敲门 is translated into English as "Come The Felicity The Door".

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