Translation

[Francesco Spreafico]

Leo Schulte wrote:

> As someone who has translated things into various languages from and
> into English, I can assure you it is a real trick, and that
> "rewriting" is sometimes the only way to handle the problem.

Of course! I once had to translate in Italian "That woman is real 
poison, antidote mean maybe!". I didn't even understand what it meant at 
first (antidote might sound like "and I don't") and then I had to 
rewrite it, because it wasn't translatable as it was. But this was a 
tricky one, I've only been talking about non-tricky stuff :-)

> In Germany I once watched an episode of "The Simpsons" where Marge
> becomes famous through a pie recipe.  In German the pie was
> "Pfefferminzfleischtorte" which struck me extremely odd - even for
> The Simpsons" - because it translates as "peppermint meat pie" which
> sounds fairly disgusting.

This reminds me of the "macchina-che-era" ("car that was") in the 
Italian version of another Simpson episode. The translator didn't 
realize that the "were-" in "werecar" was like the "were-" in 
"werewolf", not the verb :-)

Francesco