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Karnes County's newspaper
(published on April 2, 2008)
Lost in translation
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my daughter’s recent interest in remote controlled boating.
It has been a lot of fun for the two of us, so we decided to move to the next step and get a slightly more sophisticated remote controlled boat.
After a little online shopping, we found one that boasted a top speed of 35 MPH, which is about 20 times faster than the first small boat we got.
We were both real excited as we anxiously awaited the arrival of this newer, and much faster boat.
After about a week, the boat arrived, and we unpacked it and started to read more about it.
The instructions turned out to be very interesting.
Like most toys, this boat was made in China, and it soon became very clear that the manufacturer had to hire someone to translate the instructions into English.
I’m not sure he got his money’s worth.
In fact, I think it may be possible that a computer program was used to translate the instructions as they were written in a very unconventional style of English.
Here are a few of my favorite examples:
"Do not take your fingers and parts of your body even the cloth near the spinning propeller after the battery’s installment."
"Children under 14 years old need guide by adult just can play this product."
"Don’t play in the swimming pool, or the water place where people are swimming to avoid human hurt."
"Do observe if there is other object on the water, if too much object, the propeller may be hung and can’t sail, so suggest not play in this kind of water place."
"This model’s R/C distance radius is 50M do not over the R/C distance to avoid the out of control."
As I said, it was a very unusual way of putting sentences together.
It reminded me of that poor beauty pageant contestant who recently became so famous on TV when she had difficulty answering a question.
English, like all the other languages, is an art.
It certainly can take more than a lifetime to understand and appreciate all its nuances, idioms and characteristics.
But language is an essential part of communication.
Although the instructions were a little rough, we were ultimately able to understand the instructions well enough to launch our newest boat and it ran great. It was super fast and amazingly maneuverable.
As astounded as I was that a big corporation could print thousands of these instruction sheets with such a rudimentary form of the written English language, another idea occurred to me.
As we all continue to purchase more and more products from China, I think we will all begin to see more and more instructions such as this.
Although some of the finer points may get "lost in translation," I think that if we want inexpensive products, we’re all going to have to acquire better skills in understanding English in many different forms – traditional and unconventional.
editor@thecountywide.com
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