Thursday, May 11, 2006  

[Lost in translation...]

I met Subby and ET for lunch today at Lot 1. Lot 1 was overrun by kids from every single nearby secondary school. Long John Silvers' was full of them. Before we had our lunch at LJS', we were at the food court and Subby pointed out a picture of an "obscene cactus". Well, if you don't get it, good for you, you're still clean and innocent.


Remember those 20¢ kiddie rides we had while we were growing up? Things have changed a tad since then. While we used to get our kicks from being rocked to and fro and from side to side on a silly, cartoon-looking airplane, kids of today demand a more realistic experience.


Yes, that's an LCD screen.


The airplane ride. Actually, I think it's a helicopter. Whatever.

Being bilingual, I realise that there are some ideas which simply cannot be translated from one language to another without losing it's meaning. I found some examples today. Take Desperate Housewives for example. The Chinese translation on the DVD was "疯狂主妇". It's not really easy to translate "desperate" to Chinese, since we don't really use this "concept" in Singapore. At least I don't. But there's no problems translating "疯狂" back into English. It means mad, or crazy. So what we have here is a DVD about mad/crazy housewives. Babelfish translates it as "crazy housewives".


Next up, we have the promo poster for Basic Instinct 2.



The Chinese translation of "Basic Instinct" was "第六感追缉令". I thought that meant "in chase of the sixth sense", or "an order to chase your sixth sense". Babelfish thought it was "the sixth sense seizes the command". Either way, it's lost all meaning.


On a sad note, I lost the oldest fish in my aquarium today. I've had this cory since the beginning, when I was still using a smaller tank. It's survived all the upheavals caused by my inexperience, and lived to tell the tale. It's been with me for exactly 2 years, 5 months and 10 days (I started keeping fishes on Jan 2nd, 2004). 2 and a half years...That's pretty decent for a fish.

^^^ by Locksley @ 5:50 PM. 0 comments.
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