Thursday, August 17, 2017

Busan Trip : Lost in Translation

After Perhentian, we had one week trip to Busan, leaving the kids with my mother and my sister. I heard that in some part of Korea, only Korean is being used. It was very true, sometimes we landed in restaurants that only had Korean menus, buildings that only had Korean signboards...What caught my attention was the translation, either in English or in Chinese. Sometimes, it was poorly translated, or when you read one language to another, they just don't match.

We were in Gamcheon Culture Village, and we saw this "No Way" sign. I think it wanted to indicate "No Outlet", but I'm not sure anymore. It could mean "No Entrance"?

Still in Gamcheon, I think this sign asks the visitors to put the umbrella outside. I got the meaning from the drawing, as I think the sentence in English was not complete, and the sentence in Chinese had grammatical mistake.

I don't read Korean so I could only understand this signboard by reading English or Mandarin. 
The translation in Mandarin sounded weird to me. It didn't really match what it meant in English.

I'm still confused about this mailbox. It looked like a mailbox but it seemed that it was not a real one. The Chinese sentence on the right hand side indicated "The only mailbox in the world that doesn't deliver letters". We almost dropped a postcard there, why would they put a mailbox as decoration in a tourist spot?

I had the same confusion in Guangzhou Airports. What does this mean? "The Exit of Flight Cancellations"? I have not noticed this kind of exit in other airports. They made a specific exit in case flights are cancelled? 

I wonder if all these were the results of Google Translate. It could be.

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