English translations by foreign airlines can turn unfortunate, as this photo of a China Eastern business class menu shows. The airline is offering “imported dog food with okra” as a business class appetizer selection.
China Eastern, based in Shanghai, is a member of SkyTeam and part-owned by Delta Air Lines. They’ve even been adopted Delta-style business class seats. Pre-pandemic it was the second-largest airline in Asia, a hair behind China Southern (which is part-owned by American Airlines and Qatar Airways).
There are great stories – some of them apocryphal – about product names and marketing slogans that don’t work when translated into another language. Many are so good I badly want them to be true.
- Pepsi’s “Come Alive! You’re In The Pepsi Generation” was mistranslated in China as Pepsi will bring your dead ancestors back to life.
- Chevy Nova is said not to have worked to sell cars in Spanish because “no va” means doesn’t go. (Sadly false)
- Purdue Chicken’s “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” became it takes a virile man to make a chicken affectionate in Spanish.
Mistranslations can be worse, such as the meatballs on this hotel in Erbil, Iraq.
Best translation fail. The arabic spells out a transliteration of 'meat ball' in English – which sounds like 'mayit baul', or Dead Paul. pic.twitter.com/zReTm93Gg8
— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) August 28, 2017
Still, while China Eastern isn’t known for its cuisine, and even considering the low bar for airline meals, it would be rather striking to be an English-speaking business class customer offered imported dog food on board.
The secret ( or unique ?)purpose of this funny article is to mention that China Eastern is partly owned by …DELTA!
Well considering it is a China airline could actually be dog meat. Seriously
Unfortunately people in that sick country still torture and eat dogs. It might not be an unfortunate translation.
But Gary, it’s imported dog food, not the crappy domestic stuff. This is from the Chien region of France.
My first (disturbing) thought is that the translation is off and that it’s dog meat. Which is appalling and horrible but it’s something those people actually eat.
It is probably better than what is being served on USA airlines even with the translation problem.
In Chinese it was referring to mini hotdog… not sure who made this translation.
Sorry but okra is the culinary hill I will starve upon.
At least they admit to what they are serving. The big 3 serve the same and lie about it…
Let’s cut them some slack. What do you do when you run out of Saliva Chicken?
The French eat horse. Anyone appalled by that?
The best collection of menu mistranslations are found on this clip from the Graham Norton Show. Stanley Tucci barely survives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbKsR-Nq8KU
My mom’s ex ate dog food. He thought it was potted meat.
Well, even in English, “hot dog” is an unfortunate and misleading name for a food item.
Remember when Air France came out with their new business class product some years ago? IIRC it was called “L’Espace”. Of course, in English that comes across as Less Space.
The Honda City is a popular car that was never sold in the US (the Honda Fit is similar). When I lived in Japan, I heard frequent commercials hawking the City. The Japanese do not have the “si” sound in City, so the “shi” sound is substituted. This doesn’t make for an appealing name for a car.
ptahcha says:
November 16, 2023 at 8:41 am
The French eat horse. Anyone appalled by that?
Frankly, much of the world does eat horse meat. I’m sorry but American are a very squeamish lot. Won’t eat horse meat, much won’t eat rabbit, and still more refuse to eat reindeer, which is absolutely the very best!
NG wrote: “Chien region of France.”
LMAO!! Hil-freakin-arious!!
For the English-is-my-only-language readers today: Translations of “chien”
French noun: dog
ex: chien, mâle, fille moche
CAROL LEWIS: Potted meat!
I love you. I spent most of my years from about 6 years old to 19 or so trying to convince the world Potted Meat is the 6th Major Food Group
Since they are partially owned by Delta, they serve only premium dog meat
ptahcha says:
November 16, 2023 at 8:41 am
The French eat horse. Anyone appalled by that?
I was in the restaurant La Coupole on boul Montparnasse in 1982, with my wife and a friend, Deborah. She was having a bit of trouble with the menu and I was helping her. She pointed to one item and said, “Maybe this is good.” I replied, “Um,* Deborah, cheval means horse.” “Eww!”
*”Erm” if you are from the UK
The problem many of us have with eating horse is we view them as beloved pets. Not so much with cows and pigs, but horses relate to us more, and the idea of eating your faithful companion is not one to consider. Plus, horses that become food are often badly mistreated.
Szechuan Cat with Broccoli was the lunch special
@Mets Fan In NC — racist ass
An example of why North Carolina will continue to be a backwater US state with low economic and cultural prospects
I wonder what foreigners think of American eating dogs that are heated. A truly sick country.
@ Jake – one of us needs to change our screen name on this blog.
Jack Seward in his book “Japanese in Action” cites a Tokyo banner displayed when Douglas MacArthur was considering a presidential challenge to Harry Truman “We play for your erection.” Also check out Don Maloney’s 2 volume set Japan: It’s Not All Raw Fish” for great stories about an American family navigating transplanted life in Japan.
Both donkey and horse were on menus in Italy. I passed. But while in Peru, a menu translation said “cheese of pig”. Not quite sure what that actually was but we got a laugh out if it.
The comments here are rather sad. English is the native language of about 5% of the world, where Mandarin is natively spoken by 20% of the world. America proclaims democracy as the “greatest aspect of America”. If we were a true democracy, I think the world’s international language would be Mandarin and not English.
As an American, we should be grateful that we get an international menu translated for us. But listen to the comments about it being teal dog meat.
That’s just plain wrong. But I hear “we’re the richest most powerful country in the world, so they need to cater to us”.
For people who support that, let’s hope they don’t complain that America caters to the richest and wall street’s “1 percenters” are unfair to us all.
I should also add that the derogatory comments remind me of the time I was in CDG returning home when I ran across an American looking for help at the airport complaining to the agent saying “what’s wrong with you people here? Why don’t any of you speak English?”.
I should also add they were late and when we got to passport control they cut in line and went the front bypassing everyone. But they were in the wrong line. They were in the line for EU nationals.
@HS quote: “English is the native language of about 5% of the world, where Mandarin is natively spoken by 20% of the world.” This is wrong. The 5% part is ok but the 20% part is not. Mandarin is taught in schools in China but it is not the native language for many in China as China is a country of many languages and dialects. Mandarin is a second language for many Chinese. There are less than one billion native Mandarin speakers. Also, 20% of the world population at over 8 billion people, is 1.6 billion people, over the population of all of China plus all of the Chinese decent people not living in China. When talking about all languages that people speak, more people world wide speak English than speak Mandarin. Mandarin comes in number two with Hindi being number three and Spanish number four. From traveling I know that English is widespread as a language for travelers and Mandarin and Chinese are not.
Mandarin and Hindi