2020-03-17

Lost in Translation

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

I have been attempting to locate a copy of a French language book at a reasonable cost and after some machine or app communication I attempted a “direct” approach, contacting one book seller in France directly (I am in Australia). I ran my subject header through Google Translate first:

Request for ‘title of the book’

and it came out

Demande de ‘titre de livre’ . . .

I baulked at the idea of “demanding” a title from a bookseller but finally decided that the French “demande” did not sound quite as “demanding” as it did in English, so I sent it anyway.

I then received a courteous reply:

Nous sommes désolés mais nous n’avons pas ces ouvrages . . . .

Now that made me feel really bad. They are “desolated” at not being able to provide me with the title I want.

“Sorry” would have been fine. Even a simple “regret”. But “désolés“? Oh my god, the trauma I have sprung on the other side of this planet!

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3 thoughts on “Lost in Translation”

koseighty says:

2020-03-18 01:20:24 GMT+0000 at 01:20

😅😂🤣😂🤣

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koseighty says:

2020-03-18 01:20:40 GMT+0000 at 01:20

😅 😂 🤣 😂 🤣

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Charles Chevallier says:

2020-04-06 22:04:21 GMT+0000 at 22:04

Sorry. We french people are the abomination of desolation for the English language. You can ask me if you need help.

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