this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 16 points 2 hours ago

Auto-translators in a nutshell. Lol

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 17 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That doesn't make sense, no words are censored

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 4 points 2 hours ago

Freedom fried

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 hours ago

Now I imagine the dub would be in a thick Boston accent.

AhPAHtmin.

[–] Winter_Oven@piefed.social 190 points 6 hours ago (2 children)
[–] frog@feddit.uk 21 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Thank you for this. I am such redneck I need subtitles for british shows. I can't fucking understand them a lot of times.

This probably helps with users where English isn't their first language.

[–] wieson@feddit.org 2 points 2 hours ago

Now this is just a feeling, not a fact.

When I watch British talk shows, I have way less of a problem understanding i. e. Scottish accents than the American guests.
I think, foreign language learners of English might be better at understanding different accents, because they're not locked into one. Or maybe I'm a special little boy idk

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

My wife and I will find shows but not really read anything about them, and we put them on and sometimes we're like, shit, they're from England or Scotland, and we have to use subtitles. We just know that, in the past, we've tried to chug along and just lost details.

The complete opposite was true of the show dark, obviously in German (if my poor memory serves), but we couldn't keep track of the story and for probably the only time ever had to switch to dubs, which I am loathe to do, but we were completely lost in the sauce.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 54 points 6 hours ago (4 children)

Long ago, I watched a youtube video of a girl singing a song from an anime that I'm assuming she'd translated herself in French. A bit bold because she didn't speak French. It was a nice try, but overall quite funny.

The part that really got me was a line about "a beautiful blooming spring" that she translated as a "un beau ressort qui fleurit".

"Ressort" is the mecanical part that goes "boing". The season is "printemps".

[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 15 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

There was a story going around some time ago of someone who got a tattoo in Hebrew writing and asked for the word "butterfly" (🦋) but it instead read "butter fly" (🧈 🪰).

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 3 points 34 minutes ago (1 children)
[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 2 points 17 minutes ago

Haha, thanks for posting that! Great to see it again, and the others are also entertaining.

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 3 points 2 hours ago

The latter is pretty funny. I know people that would ask for that intentionally.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 32 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

This reminds me of a translation I saw for a spring themed song. Not the mechanical spring, the flowering one.

Japanese has three writing systems 漢字 which are essentially Chinese characters, the traditional kind rather than the simplified ones, ひらがな and カタカナ. They each complement one another and offer context, but sometimes you can also use different sets as a stylistic choice, which can deviate from general practise.

So there is this one line in the song

人ゴミを掻き分けては

Typically you’d write that first word with hiragana, 人ごみ, meaning crowd. ゴミ is a different word meaning rubbish, garbage, trash, litter, etc.

Whoever translated the song must’ve been decently new to the language, and did a valiant attempt, but they separated words out too much, and read 人ゴミ as two words, and 掻き分け again as two words.

  • 人 person/people
  • ゴミ garbage
  • 掻き arm stroke (like in swimming)
  • 分 part/portion

And thus translated it to something like “the people rummaged through the trash.”

  • 人ごみ crowd
  • 掻き分ける push aside/push through

So the actual meaning was roughly “I made my way through the crowd”

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 9 points 4 hours ago

depending on the composition of the crowd the translation might hold up, e.g. trying to get through a crowd of tech CEO millionaires lol

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Wait was she doing the flcl theme?

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Not sure, but I don't think so... I think it might have been the opening from Ouran Host Club. IIRC that's what my sister was watching back then, and she showed me that video.

There's a line about beautiful spring in there, maybe it's not a perfect fit but obviously the person doing that started from an English translation, and there might have been some creative liberty here and there.

[–] VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

What do you think of this... https://www.atlanticsuperstore.ca/fr/puces-beurre-de-miel/p/21365446_EA

Honey butter chips, translated to... Puces à beurre de miel.

lol chips being translated tu puces is ok if you are talking about micro chips being micro puces, but fried chips are croustilles.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I can't check the link directly, that store's site might be geolocked for some reason... But yeah, good one.

[–] VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago

I found them in a MAXI store close to me. I had to buy one to try, it was not too bad but I don't trust a company that can't even translate properly for my food.

[–] dwt@feddit.org 17 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Took me some time to figure this out as a non native speaker:

  • lift, easy
  • flat, that took a while
  • Chipped, didn’t even know that idiom…
[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Long potato sticks are called chips in the UK and fre~~edom~~nch fries in the US :)

US chips are UK crisps, btw.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 1 points 58 seconds ago* (last edited 36 seconds ago)

That's another chip up the nose, I'm afraid. -A fish called Wanda

[–] Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, the first two are obvious, but I didn't get the last one.

Mainly because "to french fry" isn't an actual verb, afaik.

Alternative could have been "has an RFID transponder implanted".

[–] EvilHankVenture@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"French fried potatoes" is an archaic term but not unheard of. I know of it mostly from the song "Cheeseburger in Paradise". It can be used to give a country or homemade feel to French fries.

[–] Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I had to look up the existence of the song and its lyrics to make sure your post wasn't the Al hallucination that it at first sounded like to me. 😆

Interesting trivia!

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 hours ago

Good translation Governor!

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

I don't get the last one, the paint can be chips?

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

He said it was french fried, not french fries.

[–] J92@lemmy.world 20 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Ediacarium@feddit.org 7 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 6 points 5 hours ago

Johnny Silverhand approves