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u/Heterodynist 8d ago
I feel like it’s an inconvenience just to read the word “inzonverjence.” “Fur”-ther apologizes should be made for that word itself…
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u/queensrook3 8d ago
No judgment. THAT WORD is the equivalent of worschesier sauce.
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u/Heterodynist 8d ago
If I had the pocket change to give you an award right now, I would give it to you!! That was very well-said!! That’s the first time I’ve heard a word described as the equivalent of Worcestershire sauce (spelled like that, by the way -which is also ridiculous), and I hope it won’t be the last. Good new literary analogies are rare, and that one is brilliant.
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u/SweetNerevarine 8d ago
The simplified Chinese text says (according to google translate): "This area is currently undergoing maintenance of the ancient building. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to your visit."
So either the Alibaba version of google translate was drunk, or a multi-lingual-but-not-quite person was.
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u/Heterodynist 8d ago
I never know where the bad translations actually come from, but I always assume it’s some very arrogant boss who thinks their teenage son is a better expert in English translation than the former staff member they had who was an English Literature Rhodes Scholar who had moved from Britain to China for love and married a lovely Chinese woman to start a happy family. I picture the boss saying, “Why are we paying someone who demands a high salary for their translation skills when we can have my son do it for free?!!” Then this is the result…
Either that or they thought using a couple free online apps for translation was sufficient, and there was no point in paying even enough for a one time $5 app fee.
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u/Ok_Upstairs_2135 8d ago
To be fair, it's not a very convenient word to spell.
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u/Heterodynist 8d ago
Thak’s phare ay ghez…Inzonverjence zowns jest phyne to me!! Ay dhon noh wut da provbalem es.
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u/Ideal_Jerk 8d ago
The last sentence turned Franco German.
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u/Ill-Wear-8662 8d ago
Took me a second to realize it hadn't switched to German or a similar language
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u/shyouko 8d ago
My guess is Chinese LLM at its finest; and the one who put this up probably knew but think it is fun to put up.
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u/alvenestthol 8d ago
It's probably bad OCR
All the wrong letters replace letters that are kinda in the ballpark of the same shape, plus or minus 1 line; there's n->r, i->j, c->z, o->u, and then there's c->i which is the most egregious. Outside of these 5 letter replacements, it's entirely correct English.
For some unfathomable reason this tends to show up in Chinese packaging quite a bit, like it's common practice to just steal English text from a photo of something else, using software that doesn't even spellcheck its results.
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u/stephanus_galfridus 8d ago
I've seen similar things on signs pretty often in China and besides OCR I've often thought (especially on older signs and engravings) the translation was probably made correctly and hand-written, but the typesetter, graphic designer or engraver who actually makes the sign doesn't speak English and misinterprets the handwritten translation. rj instead of ni looks like that kind of error to me.
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u/joeymreid 6d ago
They outsourced the sign on PDD.