Buy StarOffice and give birth to a horse

Internationalization is wonderful. According to El Reg there's an ad running on TV in Japan at the moment that promotes StarSuite (the Asian version of StarOffice) which completely baffles me. But that's okay, the ad wasn't aimed at me : I'm Irish, not Japanese so I guess it's a cultural thing I don't understand. Still, check out the Register article for more details.

It's been shown in the past of course, that lots of things don't translate well across cultures. I can't comprehend American wrestling, for example; Japanese quiz shows confuse me - indeed, Lost In Translation (excellent film) explores this general theme quite nicely. I'm reading The Complete Yes Minister at the moment - perhaps the sharpest comedy writing I've ever read, but I wonder how well it would translate into other languages - does anyone know ?

Of course, it's not just about cultural issues - sometimes translation can be funny as well. One of my favourite web articles is The Zompist Phrasebook which is funny because of the translations. Language issues affect all of us though - probably more often than we realize. There's still the occasional phrase the missus comes out with that I don't understand... (eg. does anyone know what "gutties" are ?)

Posted on: Jul 07, 2004

Posted by: timf

Category: Translation, language and tools

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Comments:

Gutties are the wee black plymsoley type things ur gym teacher used to make you wear. either that or another slang for trainers/runners. Take it your 'missus' is from NI? ;)

Posted by linz on July 07, 2004 at 10:11 AM IST #

Good blog! Language and culture issues can be very interesting. Maybe the ad was a play on the expression about knowing the difference between evil and a blessing: http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa011302b.htm It makes as much sense as those old "glowing dot enters boardroom" ads. I've never met anyone from _any_ culture who understood those ;-) I still have much to learn about the Japanese and Irish cultures, but the learning is fun! "Dave Barry does Japan" is another look at clashes between a brash American and the subtley complex Japanese culture, but his humor isn't universally appreciated.

Posted by bnitz on July 07, 2004 at 10:33 AM IST #

Yup - thanks linz for the pointer on gutties : Google also provided the explanation, as always. It also has translations for "Pastie Bap" (pink fast food made from yesterday's chips - always good), "Dreech" and "Veda". Bob's from Norn Iron alright and having spent time in Scotland, she can still loose me in translation.

Posted by Tim Foster on July 07, 2004 at 01:31 PM IST #

mmmmmmmmmmmmm, pastie supper. yumyum. Dreech is usually spelt dreich ;) veda is gorgeous, me gran used to feed us with that on boxing day ;) Na, 120 miles makes all the difference, the difference being we have the better words :D :D :D

Posted by linz on July 08, 2004 at 11:12 AM IST #

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