Look at the title of our blog today. When you as a translator occupy that multi- lingual land, life has to be serious, would be the general perception. Not at all. It is actually just the reverse as you are always on the flip side, given the process, either language wise. Jokes, hence, are aplenty in that 'know language' land.
Rather notorious is the Russian translation of the Biblical enunciation,"the spirit is willing,but the body weak" which reads as "there is lot of vodka, but very little meat".
" Falsche Freunde" abound in the translation region. The term refers to words similar sound/spelling wise, but vastly different meaning wise. An English boss tells his German secretary to send his wife "Gift", for instance, and the babe promptly sends the wifey poison, as in German 'Gift' refers to the deadly potion.
This last one is not the least one at all coz it proves that the Chinese good can actually last forever and need not always be a dis-ease. A Chinese professor of translation asks his student, " where would you be if you were told that you have just an hour to live?". "In our translation classroom," answers the student. "What a philosophical answer indeed! Explain why". " Well, Sir, every minute in this classroom is like a year," is the 'dead'pan explanation.
Pratima@translation is art, science , and, of course, Commerce!
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