Foreign Language Fun
Parsley, 09/26/04
Most decent human beings are content to speak English pretty much all the time. It is, after all, the language that all of mankind’s greatest intellectual achievements — Homer, Confucius, The Bible — were eventually translated into.
But some wacky goofballs can’t or won’t speak English, insisting rather on decorating their material goods with the nonsensical gibberings of whatever crazy cuckoo land they come from. When they do, and when these items find their way into the hands of our American Master Race, the results are often entertaining.
A relative of mine works at a largish university. A short time ago she brought me home a “present” — one she probably ought not to have removed from the office — and I think it is about the coolest thing ever so I figured I should share it. Identifying information has been concealed (identifying information in English anyway).
This is an envelope that contained someone’s letter of recommendation. Pretty wild, huh? If anyone is smart enough to read Japanese, or watches a lot of anime and can fake it, I’d love to get a translation. Here are some closeups:
The return address. It’s so nice to hear something other than “Stupid American” these days.
The school mascot (I guess). Smart American English School — home of the Fighting Space Monkeys. Go Space Monkeys! Also don’t forget the Li’l Space Monkeys and Lady Space Monkeys.
Oh, come on. What was your school’s lame old mascot?
But there’s more!
The bottle opener below was found in the bottom of a bag that, according to legend, was used by my grandfather to smuggle liquor into hotel rooms in his travelling days.
I took German in high school but I don’t remember any of it. Luckily in this day and age computers speak foreign languages and they do a damn good job of it. Here is the all-powerful Google’s translation of the apparently pretty strange text on my bottle opener:
Front: “A Königin (I am pretty sure that means “king”) under the beers.”
Hmm, well, that doesn’t really make much sense…
Back: In case you can’t make out all the text, in German the back says “Das Warsteiner Freundschaftspiel — Mit diesem öffner können Sie die RUNDE DER WAHRHEIT “ausdrehen” - Der Pfeil zeigt auf den freundlichen Spender”
Or in English: “With this opener you can “turn” the round off of the truth - the arrow points to the friendly donor.” Google won’t translate “Das Warsteiner Freundschaftspiel” (try it yourself!) but I am fairly confident it means “The Warsteiner Friendship Speech.”
So I think we are saying that removing the lid from a beer bottle provides access to the truth, i.e. beer? If your German is better than mine and Google’s feel free to let me know what’s up because, I mean, wow. Those are some pretty serious claims.
Also, if you’ve ever had Warsteiner beer, or better yet want to give me some, you really ought to share your findings.