Funny how a word in one language.....

vyv_cox

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...can mean something completely different in another:eek:

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Norman_E

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Or even in the same language. An old colleague of mine was fluent in Spanish, learned in Ecuador. He liked to drink Papaya juice. He ordered it in a bar in Miami, where Cuban Spanish is the local version. His order was greeted with silence, then laughter. In the local lingo, "papaya" is slang for part of the female anatomy!
 

Supine Being

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I was in Bucharest a couple of years ago being treated to a meal in a nice fish restaurant by some partners. Very nice it was too, but I couldn't help but giggle at the english language menu I was given. It was pretty well translated except for all instances of one particular fish: carp. You see, Romanian for carp is ****, so for starters you could have **** eggs. Moving on, you could have grilled ****, **** with garlic, **** fillet, **** in cream and mushroom sauce etc.

Only time I ever ate **** and enjoyed it.

** Arrrgh, the system put in the asterisks!!! God I hate that. You must be a right bunch of sensitive souls ;) Ok, just swap around the A and the R in carp and you get the idea ***
 

jhr

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Corsa means - doesn't work

"Nova" (no va) means "doesn't work" in Spanish, which is why Vauxhall fell into line with the other GM European subsudiaries, and changed it to Corsa.

In the same way, I don't think Toyota ever called their small, mid-engined sports car the MR2 in France - it sounds like "emmerdeur", which is French for "pain in the arse". Or perhaps they were just referring to the handling, which could be a bit of a challenge sometimes :)
 

Twister_Ken

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Pal of mine tells a story of how, as a schoolboy, he went on an exchange visit to Germany. As he was about to leave his hosts, he trotted out a phrase he had been rehearsing which he had translated directly from English. "Thank you very much. I have enjoyed myself."

Apparently this was greeted with rather shocked looks from the family. Later, his German contemporary made an unmistakeable hand gesture and dissolved into laugher.
 

AntarcticPilot

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"Nova" (no va) means "doesn't work" in Spanish, which is why Vauxhall fell into line with the other GM European subsudiaries, and changed it to Corsa.

Hey ho. The Nova one is not correct - see http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp. And yes, the Snopes article does refer to another car with the name "Nova", but all the arguments apply to a car called "Nova".
 
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