Wednesday, August 18, 2004

I've laughed many times when reading menus translated to English in a Spanish restaurant. Sometimes the translations are literal and grotesque. Like 'Dorada al horno' translated as 'Golden to the oven'. I can almost see what happened here. The restaurant owner had a pocket-size Spanish-English dictionary and no knowledge of English at all. His dictionary was not especialized enough to tell him that 'dorada' as an adjective translates as 'golden' but as a noun is the fish 'guilthead/seabream'. So we ended up getting a menu with 'Golden to the oven'which leaves the English tourists mistified, instead of the correct 'Oven-baked Seabream'. I have found a website which will solve this problem! It gives fish and seafood translations in Spanish, English, French and Catalan : Tomafish . No more confusion at the restaurant!


On the other hand, if you want to have a good laugh, look at this website : Hablando en Plata where you can get some Spanish expressions literally translated to English with hilarious results. As I said, have a good laugh...but don't use the English translations!


Cuantas veces me he reido con gusto al leer menus traducidos al ingles en restaurantes espanioles. Algunas veces la traducion es literal y grotesca. Por ejemplo, 'Dorada al horno' traducido como 'Golden to the oven'. Me imagino al duenio del restaurante, con un diccionario Ingles-Espaniol de bolsillo, sin tener ni idea de ingles, intentando traducir su menu para los turistas, con toda la buena intencion del mundo. Al no ser un diccionario especializado, 'dorada' (adjetivo) se traduce como 'golden', pero no se menciona que 'dorada' (sustantivo) es el pescado conocido en ingles como 'guilthead/seabream'. Asi que el menu acaba diciendo 'Golden to the oven', para total confusion de los turistas, en lugar de 'Oven-baked seabream'. Hoy he encontrado una pagina web que nos soluciona el problema. Nos da la traduccion de pescado y marisco en espaniol, ingles, frances y catalan : Tomafish . Se acabaron los menus indescifrables!


Claro que...si de verdad quieres reir un rato, no puedes dejar de echar una ojeada a esta pagina web : Hablando en Plata donde se dan las traducciones literales al ingles de tipicas frases hechas en espaniol. Es para partirse de risa...pero no para usarlas, eh?


The weather today:
Mostly Cloudy and Windy
20C
UV Index: 4 Moderate
Wind: From the South at 29 mph
Dew Point: 16C
Humidity: 79%
Visibility: 10 miles
Barometer: 996.6 mb

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