Tales From a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Hopelessly Lost in Translation aka Oh Google Translate, You Slay Me

Google translate can be a very useful tool. I use it frequently when I chat online with my Colombian friends. However, if you don't have a fair grasp on the language you are translating, you could end up with something that makes absolutely no sense.

With that said, I came to school for my first day back in a week because the volunteers had a HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention workshop all the week prior. In one class, the students had been assigned the previous week to make a cookbook in English. One of the few good ideas my co-teachers have had. But once I started reviewing these books, I noticed many egregious, but hilarious lost in translation errors.

  • "Power of wheat." What the student was trying to say was powder of wheat, but really meant wheat flour. The power is yours.
  • Many students translated potato wrong. Potato is papa in Spanish, but el papa means the Pope. So some recipes called for "fried popes," "peel and cut the popes into slices," and "boil the pope." Ironically, these seem like punishments popes would have subjected unto heathens in the Middle Ages.
  • There was a recipe called "Chicken Burger of the Sea." My co-teacher and I were both confused as to what the student meant, but then it dawned on me. I asked the student "Is this a burger made of tuna?" She said yes. It's a burger made with Chicken of the Sea brand tuna. Gross.
  • In this burger recipe, there was one step that said "Make patties with small hands." Apparently this means to just make small patties with your hands. Which is good, because midgets aren't always available to help you with your cooking needs.
  • Pasaboca means snack in English, but when you translate the two individual words that make up this word, pasa and boca, you get "Raisinmouth." Close.
  • "Pour the chin for 25 minutes." Neither I nor the student had any idea what this was supposed to be.
  • "Bile-sized pieces." The student meant bite-sized pieces. Mmm, tangy.
  • "Yeast or an envelope." I think the student meant an envelope of yeast. You can use yeast to leaven the bread or, in a pinch, an envelope.
  • "Smooth as fried cake." I didn't even want to ask.
  • "Put in separate bowl little girl chopping vegetables." Once again, both the student and I didn't have an answer for this one.

In addition to these understandable student errors, I found out how little my teacher knew about food and cooking. She saw "thyme" and tried to correct it to "time." I had to tell her that thyme was a spice. Not that she'd know. Not many people here on the Coast use any spices in their cooking. She also didn't know what leeks, macadamia nuts, cardamom, and cannelloni were. I'm not at all surprised that she didnt know these things. In the whole scope of things, those are small popes.  

Thursday, May 10, 2012

It's Gonna Get Graphic

Here's a graphic I made about Peace Corps experience here in Colombia for the volunteer newsletter.