We're currently doing some long-overdue site maintenance that will likely involve some outages, including a temporary shut-down of our commenting functions. We'll hopefully be done within a few days. In the meantime, thanks for your patience and concern!
Filed Under: ,

Lost in Translation (I): Something Doesn’t Smell Right With This

pulled-pork-wind.jpg

At least three reasons you have to love the above mistranslation of rántott sertésszelet. One, it seems to have involved several different foul-ups: rántott (fried) being mistaken for the verb “to pull,” and szelet (“slice”) getting messed up with szél (wind). Second, even if you are doing it right, the result in English (“fried pork slice”) doesn’t sound much more appetizing. And finally, there is probably some truth to it, at least depending on what you have for a side dish.

  1. Katie says:

    My favourite all-time foul-up was

    CRAP IN ITS OWN JUICE

    (carp in a carpy sauce)

  2. Vándorló says:

    Well, as I’ve noted here before, in Romania ‘carp’ is literally ‘crap’ http://waltermilner.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/transylvanian-tales-1-eating-crap/

  3. Wendy says:

    my all time favorite mess ups were
    “knuckles in 2 persons” (a plate for 2) and “pizza with clotted cream” (sour cream). (both in menus around the Balaton)
    yummy!

  4. Evetria says:

    “a sertés húzott egy szelet”
    Try Morphologic’s http://www.webforditas.hu translation servicepage. They do quite a good job when you need the english version of a Hungarian menu card.

 
More content from Hungary's leading foreign-language media network
About Chew.hu | Become an All Hungary Member | Newsletters | Contact Us | Advertise With Us
All content © 2004-2012 The All Hungary Media Group. Articles, comments and other information on the All Hungary Media Group's network of sites are provided "as is" without guarantees, warranties, or representations of any kind, and the opinions and views expressed in such articles and columns are not necessarily those of the All Hungary Media Group.