japanese food, anyone...?

brianholton · Post by **brianholton** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:31 am

Eldarion wrote:
I wonder if whole thing was done as a practical joke because there was no way one would confuse roe with "ovary and digestive glands of a crab" even with a Chinese-English dictionary...

I doubt if it's a joke: I teach Chinese-English translation ot Chinese speakers, and even with relatively sophisticated undergraduates, I see this kind of thing all the time. My guess is that it's naive usage: someone who thinks that dictionary definitions are the same thing as translations.

And I'm afraid our Chinese-English dictionaries are mostly of quite poor quality. The biggest one was compiled without the assistance of a single native English speaker, and it's riddled with errors, typos and blatant nonsense.

Mind you, once China gets the English right, it'll be a lot less fun to visit. The coffee shop of the old Universal Hotel in Guilin used to offer a "Triple Pecker Sandwich" (and I could never quite bring myself to tell them about this...).

www.Engrish.com is a wonderful storehouse of this kind of stuff.
brian

LisaD · Post by **LisaD** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:37 am

Yes, translations can take you quite far afield. Here are a couple of signs that I saw while living in Thailand:

At a small storefront that did clothing alterations:

"Please drop your pants here for great service".

Another store:

"Due to the busy nature of our establishment, customers will be executed in strict rotation".

Tak_the_whistler · Post by **Tak_the_whistler** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:14 am

LisaD wrote: "Due to the busy nature of our establishment, customers will be executed in strict rotation".

whoa...

by the away amar, if you're really after serious Japanese food you gotta go for sushi

Tak_the_whistler · Post by **Tak_the_whistler** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:20 am

or you could try some Japanese takeouts; "Beef Bowl", or "Teriyaki Bowl", is recommended. Uh....do you like rice?

We have Onigiri (rice ball) sold almost everywhere. Cost $1 each, they come in different fillings -- tuna with mayonnaise, yakiniku (grilled beef), ume (Japanese sour plum), salmon and many, many more.

Edited to add;

Ready to cook?

http://japanesefood.about.com/

amar · Post by **amar** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:13 am

Tak_the_whistler wrote:
LisaD wrote: "Due to the busy nature of our establishment, customers will be executed in strict rotation".
whoa...

by the away amar, if you're really after serious Japanese food you gotta go for sushi

are you kidding? i love japanese food, sushi, i love it, ahhhh.
how about wasabi peas? they are addictive....

jbarter · Post by **jbarter** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:10 am

Anybody wanna try translating a description of Black Pudding into Japanese or Chinese?

amar · Post by **amar** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 4:59 am

how about spotted dick in japanese?

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:11 pm

Tak_the_whistler wrote:or you could try some Japanese takeouts; "Beef Bowl", or "Teriyaki Bowl", is recommended. Uh....do you like rice?
We have Onigiri (rice ball) sold almost everywhere. Cost $1 each, they come in different fillings -- tuna with mayonnaise, yakiniku (grilled beef), ume (Japanese sour plum), salmon and many, many more.

Edited to add;

Ready to cook?

http://japanesefood.about.com/

Tak, you just had to bring up onigiri, didn't you? When my wife and I were in Okinawa in November, it didn't take long for us to discover how wonderful they are. Problem is, you can't get them here! We tried making them, but it's just not the same. Part of it is that we don't have the same kind of mayonnaise, and our canned tuna is probably pretty different too. And we were probably using the wrong kind of nori.

Sigh!
Steven