Molotov

There is one kind of translation job that irks me above all others, and it is independent of field, writing style, or author.

It's the excel sheets full of single words, terms, phrases, or sentences without any kind of context. This is especially bad going from Japanese to English, as without context you have no idea if something is singular or plural; if it needs to be prefeced by "a", "the", or no article at all; sometimes even whether something is a proper name or not; whether something should be abbreviated ("Continue? Y/N") or fully written out ("thirty-three"); whether an individual is male or female; and much more.

Sometimes it's impossible to even tell what the subject of a sentence is supposed to be. These translations ALWAYS end up looking horrible, because even native English speakers cannot tell which interpretation is correct without proper context.

In short: fuck you, Panasonic, and fuck the mechanical horse riding machine you rode in on.

Dear Okinawa Power & Electric Company:

Who on Earth decided that it would be a good idea to make the English name of your POWER company abbreviate to OPEC? Please shoot them.

Dear XXXXXX Chemical Company.

I don't care how much the whole "company as world tree" motif works in the Japanese language due to the wonderful puns you have clerverly interspersed throughout your company pamphlet. The phrase

XXXXXX Chemical believes that sales is not just selling, but is also spreading our seed to match customer needs.

DOES NOT WORK IN ENGLISH. At least, not the way you think it does. Unless the chemical you are marketing is ecstacy.

lol

brb, spreading my seed to match customer needs.