Freelang’s blog

The sign on the picture below shows a warning in English, with its translation in Welsh. Whoever contacted the translator probably sent her or him an email, got the reply and had it printed it on the sign:

And here it what it says in Welsh: “I’m out of office at the moment. Please send me the text to be translated.”

Isn’t it priceless? Thanks to Anthos for posting this on our forum.

Translation mistakes can be fun sometimes, here are a few other examples that were sent to us by Manuela, another friendly and active forum member.

More fun at engrish.com…

“Wonderful natural and cultural qualities (the Mekong River and the French colonial architecture), but indifference from the government has left it a backwater, challenged by pollution, traffic, congestion, poverty, and unmanaged development. It could have been a great stop on the way to Angkor, but most visitors now avoid it.” With a score of only 36 points, Phnom Penh’s historic area is ranked 109 out of 110 destinations rated by the National Geographic.

Among the last 10 places of the ranking, 7 are in the USA. And as for the top 10, Canada, Japan and Argentina are the only non European destinations. Austria and France are ranked twice in the top 10, respectively for Wachau/Melk Abbey (#1) and Graz (#5) and Aix-en-Provence [#6) and Dijon and Bourgogne region (#7).

About Wachau and Melk Abbey, the National Geographic says: “Each village and town seems to try to outdo the others in promoting local heritage while maintaining cultural integrity. The abbey at Melk is well managed and never seems crowded. Tourist zones are low-key and commercial establishments do not intrude on the visitor’s experiences.”

And about Aix-en-Provence: “The market is lovely and really feels like a classic upscale Provencale market. The historic buildings are well maintained. The city provides ample underground parking so Aix still can feel like a pedestrian town. You can get lost exploring the back streets, and barely sense that this is a major tourist destination. It has always been a noble town, and still feels like one.”

Renato Figueiredo is taking us to a journey round the world, and a journey in time too. We start in Europe in the 17th century, with an Old Prussian dictionary. Old Prussian ceased to be spoken around the beginning of the 18th century. Then we travel to Central Asia, with Abkhaz and Ubykh, both northwestern Caucasian languages. Ubykh is now extinct, as his last speaker died in 1992. Pashto is an Indoeuropean language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and this is another new dictionary on Freelang. Moving on to north India, with Rajasthani and Oriya, then to Philippines with Cebuano, a Malayo-Polynesian language.

Now let’s go back across the Indian Ocean, and here we are, north of Madagascar and off northeast Mozambique coast, on the French island of Mayotte. French is the official language of the island, but Shimaore is the “lingua franca”. Let’s sail pass the Cape of Good Hope towards America, our last destination. Lunfardo is an argot of the Spanish language, spoken mostly in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay), on either side of the Rio de la Plata estuary. We are now entering the deep forest of Brazil, and we meet the Xavante people, who live in the state of Mato Grosso. Finally, in Nicaragua and Honduras, we come across another indigenous language, Miskito.

We hope you enjoyed travelling with us, thank you Renato for being our guide!