Strange translations are not confined to English/Chinese & vice versa, even related languages like French/ English & German/English have brought forth their share of "howlers".
The English translations of original French manuals I used to work with had some seriously inventive efforts which made them really hard to decipher, but the best was one my brother related to me:
"This equipment is designed to operate in the 3GHz 'group of musicians playing together' "!
Yes, you do have to be careful with retaining the correct context when translating, no matter the language. I once saw a French translation of some English source text that talked about delivery to customers, etc. and it was using the word "maritime". Now, my French may be very rusty, but even I knew that was the wrong kind of 'shipping'!
I suggested they change it to "livraison".
The worst “translation” (it being so bad as to barely warrant the word) was in the German subtitles of the Swiss release prints* of the American 1994 movie “Kids”. One of the awful kids in the movie was telling another awful kid friend that while at the amusement park, he’d bought his girlfriend a snack.
Awful kid: “I got her a corn dog.”
The translator had apparently never heard of a corn dog, and rather than asking a fellow translator or American friend, grabbed their bilingual dictionary (where it’s important to note that British usage is generally given priority) and looked up “corn” and “dog”, and came up with:
“Ich habe sie zu einem Getreidehund eingeladen.” — “
I invited her for a grain canine.” (Because “corn” in British English means grains/cereals, and not maize specifically as it does in USA.)
![Face Palm :palm:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xfacepalm.gif.pagespeed.ic.EBDwh1hCfo.png)
The type of snack was irrelevant, as it did not recur in the story at all. It could have been replaced with anything else — a hot dog, a burger, some pizza, or just “a snack” — but no such sensible substitution took place.
*Swiss film prints had both German and French subtitles at the same time, German in plain text and French in italics. They didn’t use the same prints as Germany and France.