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Brussels, that modern Tower of Babel, appears to be coping badly with the language of Shakespeare. James Drew reveals bad grammar on a website can lose a company a lot of money.With Hollywood producers realizing that bad translations on foreign export film copies are in fact far more expensive than good ones, a look at the quality of English-language translations closer to home, particularly in the Capital of Europe, reveals errors both printed and in particular online that make the toes curl, the sides ache with laughter and the hair stand on end.
To cite some examples of recent film dialogue that's somewhat 'lost in translation':
Film: My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Dialogue: 'We have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harrassment'
Translated as: 'We hold the highest standards for sexual harassment'
Film: Seabiscuit (2006)
Dialogue: 'It was a ball to shoot'
Translated as: It was like filming a dance scene
Seemingly, work on high-grossing Hollywood movies is being allotted to inexperienced translators in a bid to lower costs, but this is ending up costing movie bosses dear in terms of lost revenue, with audience complaints soaring.
Meanwhile, in Brussels and wider Europe, a lack of understanding of English nuance afflicts even blue-chip websites, with the language use often particularly poor in Belgium - a surprise, when one considers the obvious English fluency that most Belgians possess - as is the case with many other European nations, linguistic skills that put the majority of UK residents (and even a considerable number of Brussels-based expats) to shame.
Here's a taster from the Belgian site of a renowned entertainment venue:
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