Saturday, January 22, 2011

Adventures in [Not Strictly] Chinglish

Today's entries aren't exactly Chinglish, more just amusing.

I thought "Numbed and Hot Flavor" was Chinglish, but then when I translated the Chinese characters, I got back "numbing spicy." Which means either it's a literal translation of the degree of spicy which we usually describe using some variation on "fire," or, there isn't really a solid English translation for the concept, no matter what the dictionary says.

 This is just an honest typo by someone whose first language is not English. For the reverse and a good laugh, see this site that Anne once showed me: Hanzi Smatter

You kind of have to read the whole thing for context, but it's the last sentence that kills me :) . This is from a school text book, but I'm pretty sure it's written by someone whose first language is not English because while the statement is technically correct, it's just not really colloquially correct...

No comments: