Mark's Flickr Pics
Asian menu
It's a classic case of rubbish translation. But the story of how it ended up so bad is quite interesting:
The menu is in a Japanese restaurant in Spain, run by Chinese who spoke only Andalucian Spanish. The whole menu is a bizarre hybrid of Chinese translated through dialect Spanish into English. It's a linguist's dream.
But most interesting of all are dishes no. 53 and 54. They're meant to be offering 'costilla' which in English is 'rib'. However...
In Andalucian, the 's' in the middle of a word is often not pronounced. The Chinese, having learnt only the local Andalucian dialect by word of mouth, only heard the word 'cotilla', not 'costilla' . They then looked up 'cotilla' in Google. The problem is that 'cotilla' translates into English as 'gossip'. Not speaking any English, the Andalucian Chinese thought they had the right word and sent it off to the Spanish printers.
The Spanish printers, on seeing the menu written by the Andalucian Chinese, then corrected the Spanish 'cotilla' to 'costilla' (whilst probably sniggering to themselves). But they too didn't speak any English, and went ahead and printed a menu offering English speakers assorted varieties of cooked 'gossip'.
Chinese whispers in action?
Asian menu
It's a classic case of rubbish translation. But the story of how it ended up so bad is quite interesting:
The menu is in a Japanese restaurant in Spain, run by Chinese who spoke only Andalucian Spanish. The whole menu is a bizarre hybrid of Chinese translated through dialect Spanish into English. It's a linguist's dream.
But most interesting of all are dishes no. 53 and 54. They're meant to be offering 'costilla' which in English is 'rib'. However...
In Andalucian, the 's' in the middle of a word is often not pronounced. The Chinese, having learnt only the local Andalucian dialect by word of mouth, only heard the word 'cotilla', not 'costilla' . They then looked up 'cotilla' in Google. The problem is that 'cotilla' translates into English as 'gossip'. Not speaking any English, the Andalucian Chinese thought they had the right word and sent it off to the Spanish printers.
The Spanish printers, on seeing the menu written by the Andalucian Chinese, then corrected the Spanish 'cotilla' to 'costilla' (whilst probably sniggering to themselves). But they too didn't speak any English, and went ahead and printed a menu offering English speakers assorted varieties of cooked 'gossip'.
Chinese whispers in action?