Business humor: Checking meaning in different languages

Language hassles in International Marketing

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations.
It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences.
For example, observe the following examples below.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la.
Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect.
Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

When Parker Pen marketed a ball point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar"
meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

Need a translation - Use Google Translate

Suppose you are looking for some information desperately, and you do find the required information, but it is still useless for you, since it is in a different language, one that you do not know. It is not always easy to find somebody to convert text for you from another language, since it may cost money, and you may not want to spend this amount of money, or it is a very short phrase that does not justify so much trouble. Or you read something somewhere, and want to find the meaning of that phrase. So what do you do ? Well, there is a solution that works for short phrases, but you should be warned that as the length of the passage to be translated increases, the harder it is to get a translation that makes sense.
The tool is called Google translate, and is available at this page (link)

SUBTITLE for films

These are actual English subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong

- I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.

- Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep

- Gun wounds again ! Fall down stupid white person.

- Same old rules: no eyes, no groin, no kissing.

- A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries

- Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken wings!

- Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants

- Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?

- Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.

- You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken

- I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!

- You daring lousy guy with bad breath.

- Beat him out of recognizable shape!

- I have been scared shitless too much lately.

- I got knife scars more than the number of your leg hair!

- Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected

- The bullets inside are very hot. Why do you feel so cold?

- How can you use my intestines as a gift?

- This will be of fine service for you, you bag of scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your man parts and leave them out on the dessert for your aunts to eat.

- Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination.

- Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.

- Our tong is bigger than your tong!

- No karate kicks be allowed on Shabbos.

Gems of ENGLISH

If you ever feel stupid, then just read on. If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers.

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

22) There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

23) English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France (Surprise!).

24) Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

25) Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

26) And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers
don't ham?

27) If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth be eth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

28) Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

29) If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?

30) If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

31) If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

32) In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

33) How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

34) You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

35) English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

36) P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

http://www.dictionarist.com/ - Online talking dictionary

Welcome to Online Talking Dictionary. Dictionarist provides translations in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Korean dictionaries.

Why Dictionarist appears in foreign language?
Dictionarist performs firstly your preferred interface language via Languages Options. If you have not selected an interface language before, then Dictionarist performs your browser accept language.

Read more at this site.

The proud father stand up

A new missionary recruit went to Venezuela for the first time. He was struggling with the language and didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on. Intending to visit one of the local churches, he got lost, but eventually got back on track and found the place. Having arrived late, the church was already packed. The only pew left was the one on the front row.

So as not to make a fool of himself, he decided to pick someone out of the crowd to imitate. He chose to follow the man sitting next to him on the front pew. As they sang, the man clapped his hands, so the missionary recruit clapped too. When the man stood up to pray, the missionary recruit stood up too. When the man sat down, he sat down.

During the preaching, the recruit didn't understand a thing. He just sat there and tried to look just like that man in the front pew. Then he perceived that the preacher was giving announcements. People clapped, so he looked to see if the man was clapping. He was, and so the recruit clapped too.

Then the preacher said some words that he still didn't understand and he saw the man next to him stand up. So he stood up too. Suddenly a hush fell over the entire congregation. A few people gasped. He looked around and saw that nobody else was standing. So he sat down.

After the service ended, the preacher stood at the door shaking the hands of those who were leaving. When the missionary recruit stretched out his hand to greet the preacher, the preacher said, in English: "I take it you don't speak Spanish."

The missionary recruit replied: "No I don't. It's that obvious, huh?"

"Well yes," said the preacher, "I announced that the Acosta family had a newborn baby boy and would the proud father please stand up."