First up is a three-page article about our Italian edition — Io Odio La Gente Published in the weekend edition of Italy’s second biggest newspaper, Il Venerdi Di Repubblica, it’s quite a treat to see not just our faces but the icons from our Ten Least Wanted and their interesting translations. The Stop Sign becomes Stopper, easily understood, while the Spreadsheet is, instead, Tutto-sotto-controllo. Which may be something like “The guy who controls everything.”
If you think Italians have style, know how to really live, and more importantly hate, or you actually happen to read the language, click on the thumbnail to see a readable-sized version of the article.
Next was a random discovery of our names on a Vietnamese language site, CaliToday.com, with no context. It looks like this…
Thật ra Tám Tàng đâu
có tài giỏi gì. Chẳng qua Bác Tám Gái thấy hai cha nội Jonathan Littman và Marc
Hershon viết bài trên Yahoo xem qua coi bộ có thể giúp cho bà con chút đỉnh,
bèn kêu chồng “đâu ông thử dịch…
Considering the web page has ads featuring attractive pictures of women, we feared we might be doing time beside some kind of shady singles sites.
Fighting web with web, I sliced the paragraph with our names out and plopped it into a handy Vietnamese-English online translator. Here’s how it came out…
Actually have an excellent August by raising what. Not
through stairs Lady in the internal father Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon
write the review as Yahoo that can help her little son peak, calling her
husband went "where he tried forward progress ...
With Jon being referred to “internal father”, that didn’t seem quite right, so I tried a second translator…
In fact Eight is Threadbare that there won't be what
proficiency. At most Refuse Eight Girls see two Jonathan Littman old chap and Cặn bã Hershon
writes article on past Yahoo looked up look to can give help to a little bit
kinsfolk donation...
Hmm. Here Jon is referred to as “old chap”, which I rather
liked but my name came out as Cặn
bã. Clearly, something is going astray in
translation. Resorting to desperate tactics, I accompanied my fiancee, Debra,
to her next nail appointment. Anna, the owner of the salon, is Vietnamese and
she was happy to figure it out. But even she couldn’t give me a blow-by-blow of
what is being said. The best she could manage was that the website was a kind
of gossip site and that they were talking about our take on different kinds of
people in the office based on our Yahoo articles.
On other global fronts, our Ten Ways to Be Liked In Your
Job Yahoo piece which has also run
at the TechRepublic site, has been translated into Japanese and appears on the
Japanese Zdnet site. And within the next half-year or so we should be
seeing the Portuguese edition of I Hate People! in Brazil.
Jon has volunteered to wear our sandwich boards on
Copacabana beach.
All of this international play is great but a little daunting. Especially since I can’t always be sure what is being said. So here’s hoping we don’t piss too many people off on our way to spreading the Hate. And even if we do, they say that any press is good press as long as they spell your name right. So just call me ol’ Cặn bã.
— Marc Hershon
The scan from La Repubblica is missing the first page. Pity b/c the translations are delightful.
Posted by: Sheep Man | September 02, 2009 at 06:09 PM
Thanks for the word, Sheep Man! I accidentally copied over two page 2s. Now it's fixed!
Cheers,
Marc
Posted by: hershco | September 04, 2009 at 10:49 AM