[LANGRAGE]Why does Chinglish occur?

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Philondra
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[LANGRAGE]Why does Chinglish occur?

Post by Philondra » 27 Oct 2009, 11:18

I followed a whole bunch of links from unrelated sites and ended back up at my old mainstay, Language Log. (For those who don't know, Language Log is a collaborative blog by many respected Linguists located throughout the English-speaking world. It's both informative and fascinating.)

One of the professors specializes in Chinese, and several years back he explored the reasons for horrifically bad Chinglish. (i.e. a sign that reads "Spread to fuck the fruit.") If you have any interest in how translations go horribly wrong, it's worth a read:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 05195.html

Mitra
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Re: [LANGRAGE]Why does Chinglish occur?

Post by Mitra » 27 Oct 2009, 20:36

this made my day
"Life is no Nintendo game / But you lied again / Now you get to watch her leave / Out the window / Guess that's why they call it window pane" -Eminem 'Love the way you lie' - Award for Excellence in Puns in the medium of Rap 2010

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Johnnyrico
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Re: [LANGRAGE]Why does Chinglish occur?

Post by Johnnyrico » 28 Oct 2009, 02:16

Oh god, how did this go so wrong!
The shrimp fucks the cabbage
LOL.
Mews wrote:No Rico, it's a rhetorical question.
8?

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Philondra
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Re: [LANGRAGE]Why does Chinglish occur?

Post by Philondra » 28 Oct 2009, 02:42

Johnnyrico wrote:Oh god, how did this go so wrong!
The shrimp fucks the cabbage
LOL.
Yeah, it's like some alternate universe version of "Farmer in the Dell".

The shrimp fucks the cabbage
The shrimp fucks the cabbage
High-ho the Dairy-o
The shrimp fucks the cabbage.

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