Tuesday, October 7, 2008

We are not translators, not by a long shot!

I have found myself in a position where I am having to attempt to translate some of the photo captions from my picasa site. It is inordinately difficult. My mom and I struggled through a few, agreeing and disagreeing on the Japanese or the English or both. Talk about vexation! We were not even speaking a language by the time we took a break. These words actually passed my mom's lips: "Like I’m always looking for a new word kind of way." Wha? Meaning is completely up for grabs. I'm sure that's not English either, but I'm beyond caring right now.
We arrived at the photo of the girl with her cell phone down the back of her pants. The caption, "From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-crack," seemed straight forward enough, so I was typing the Japanese as my mom quickly and easily dictated her translation because she, too, thought it should be a breeze. Oh, how wrong we were.

Here is her Japanese translation retranslated back into English:
"From this girl, I learned the best place to store your cell phone is your butt-hole."

I almost laughed out my lung.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Finally got a cell phone... won't be storing it in my butt-hole, but you never know.