Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Chinese translations

Today employees at my company received a small pedometer as a gift in a campaign to increase health awareness.

It is very nice and commendable that they do that. They bought a ton of Chinese-made el-cheapo brand pedometers, that more or less serve the purpose and make for nice SWAG nonetheless.

I already own a much more accurate OMRON Pedometer so it was not needed but certainly appreciated.

The issue that brings me to write this is the hilarious "instruction manual" that came with it. We have all seen the funny and somewhat incrompehensible "translations" they do to try to sell in English-speaking markets. This one doesn't dissappoint.

Here I quote verbatim:


Product Characteristic: Counting the step

Operational Manual
1) This stepping meter can only count correctly under the flat plant
2) Under the following condition, the stepping meter can't count correctly:
(i) Moon walking. Wearing sandal.
(ii) When walking in the tricky condition.
(iii) Vibration without walking.



I guess that it will work correctly as long as I don't wear one sandal, don't do the moon walk (I can't even do it anyway), and most importantly I should not walk in the tricky condition.

With the millions these people make by selling us this crap, couldn't they find one guy that speaks decent English?

[Update] Fixed typo that was pointed to me in the comments. Valid point (I guess typos apply then :).

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7:04 AM EST

    Let he who is without sin cast the first stone: "Dissapoint" vs "Disappoint" :-)

    ReplyDelete