10/18/2012

lost in translation


I’ve offered to correct the English pages of the Lausanne Marathon website and pointed out the most blatant mistakes, but the organizers just get defensive about it.
Here are a few gems you will find on the website:

Each of our worldly participants understands that to us they are much more than a number.

The lost can be recovered in the info booth at the Expo.
The timing chip having fixed to the back of your number is ownership of Datasport.

And my personal favorite:

Pacemakers will run with an easily visible couloured flag attached to them.

What's lost in translation is probably not meaning (I doubt many English speaking runners think they will be running behind a Medtronics device), but credibility as a professionally organized event.

Gotta run...

3 comments:

Mary Parlange said...

It's hilarious and sad, all at once. Too bad they can't get over themselves. They probably used Google translate or some other machine translation, from the looks of it.

stephruns said...

true on all accounts, Mary!

stephruns said...

here's one more interesting sentence I found: "Lausanne Marathon between the lake and verdant hillsides. As any car does break the spell of the moment, the rider can concentrate entirely on his race."