Dumb Things I Have Done Lately

Monday, January 28, 2008

Meet the Black Giant With Valiant Temperament

I don't normally make fun of Engrish because it's too easy. (Well, there was that one time, but it wasn't Engrish, just a translation open to immature interpretation.)

Plus no matter how egregious the error, their English is still better than my Chinese (or Japanese, etc.).

So, I'll just take a higher road and riff on the All Things Considered story from the Detroit Auto Show a few weeks ago) and say that the product listing for their SUV, the Liebao CFA2030C/D(Black Giant) with the valiant temperament, shows how far Chinese automakers, and Chang Feng Motors in particular, need to go before they can crack the U.S. market. [link via a redlit TotalFark submission]

Besides some standard English conventions that are annoying in their absence (spaces after commas, that sort of thing), it's clear that they need a native or otherwise fluent English copy editor:
"...The automobile appearance is more mighty and more intrepid ! With the powerful engine,the design of environmental protection and energy-conservation.All these present to your perfect driving and experience,seem more majestic-looking even more!"
Among the listed features, we have:
  • ABS anti-explode device
  • Anticollision pole
  • Axes: 2
  • Imposing manner
  • Double safe gasbag
  • Genuine leather sofa
  • Pillow
  • Semiconductor refrigerator
And much more.

Now, this is far from the worst Engrish you'll ever see, since you can pretty much see where the translations took a left turn.

Though I'm not sure about the semiconductor refrigerator.

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3 Comments:

  • Does the Black Giant come with an on-board quantum computer? That would totally blow that Sync system out of the water. I mean, how many Zune tunes can you fit on a qubit?

    And thank goodness for the sofa.

    By Blogger Dan, At 1/28/2008 8:30 PM  

  • Erm, what?

    By Blogger Joelogon, At 1/28/2008 11:31 PM  

  • I'd have thought you'd be all over the quantum computer stuff. I was rattling on about the Bose-Einstein Condensate based gizmo where the tricky thing seems to be storing data on a medium in a state that is a tenth of a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. It's freaky-weird stuff.

    By Blogger Dan, At 1/29/2008 8:31 AM  

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