Say What?

[mbarker]

Okay, this is odd. One of my students has a notebook, and asked me what the English said. After careful consideration, I don't have the slightest idea.

On the cover, under the title La Dolce Vita (Natural Living) it has a picture of a pig looking into a refrigerator full of food. Pink, hairy butt sitting there, ears perked up, snout almost inside.

The lines under that picture read:

Quality time nurtures grace and beauty. I depart with my full bag of time. Experiencing deliciousness made me a slave to taste. We provide a first-class taste brought directly from the earth.

What? I'm not sure if I have a full bag of time left . . .

(edited to make clear what I had added.)

Comments

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Wow! How interesting. Of course, I also think it's interesting that they translated "La Dolce Vita" as Natural Living. Shouldn't it be "The Sweet Life"? The caption sounds like too many 'shrooms or maybe an ad for something?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're right. I think I was so stunned by that caption that I missed completely the change from sweet to natural.

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Well, the photo's pretty surreal as well from the sounds of it. But the caption is the stunning thing. Do you think it's a bad translation from something other than English? Frightening to think that other cultures would associate that sort of thing with ours. Both the pig and the dubious poetry.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm in Japan, and my students are Japanese. And there is this tendency to have snippets of English scattered here and there, often with rather strange wording. I'd sort of guess this might be a Japanese original (someone writing English who isn't a native speaker, that is), although a translation of something is possible.

I should see if I can put up a picture of the cover somewhere. That pig in the fridge deserves viewing.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Does it make more sense when translated into Japanese?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Not especially. Each sentence, by itself, is sort of reasonable. It is the collection that seems to be askew. Not worth worrying about, just interesting.

Here's the cover picture

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Right over here
http://www.aist-nara.ac.jp/~mbarker/photos/DSC00159.JPG

Urk - that picture is 2.25 Megs? Amazing. I used to think a megabyte was enormous.

I hadn't realized - that's a short refrigerator - under the counter?