Last year I got an imitation dual shock controller on e-bay. It came from Hong Kong for $3.95 plus shipping, a small price to pay for being able to play old Super Nintendo games on my laptop every once in a while. I was tidying up when I found the precious piece of thin cardboard with the device’s instructions, and I though I should share some of the major fails for some unpretentious, late-August translation fun.
Let’s just go past the typos and other minor signs of awkwardness like “Taking you into wonderful game word”. After all, I was expecting Chinglish and nothing else. Some of the translations, though, are so convoluted and obscure that I doubt even the least impressive automatic translators could do worse.
First and foremost, how to take care of the controller. Please remember to
Avoid high temperature, aquosity and direct sunlight
and, most importantly,
Don’t use the causticity liquid clear the product surface.
On a different note, customers will be pleased to know that
The reasonable human body construction design felling is more comfortable
Dual-shocked, yet? Wait, there is more. Firstly,
the rubberized and texture operation parts defend the sweat antiskid
plus, you might be happy to find out that this device can
Imitate the mode to convert with normal regulations mode arbitrarity
Finally, what I assume was meant as a warning about any warranty becoming void if you open the controller:
Private to dismantle the product does not belong to protect fix the scope
Now, I am sure there are plenty of qualified Chinese-to-English translators who could have translated the whole lot for about $20. But let’s assume that’s too much money to pay for whichever obscure company manufactures these gadgets – the company name or details are nowhere to be found, talk about dodgy… Still, I bet that the average Chinese high school student can produce something at least more intelligible than this.
Sure, you’ll say, it was only a $3.95 controller. And after seeing those translation horrors on Italia.it, Italy’s official tourism website, this is really nothing. And that’s true, of course, but I always enjoy a good old translation fail.
Smuggled Words 