Fun with translations

Posted by Glenn on Wednesday, 18 May 2011 9:30pm

This is a somewhat impulsive news post, but I had to share.

I've been trying to translate the English into Spanish but the use of colloquilism certainly messes with Google Translate. The most recent example is the expression, "on a hiding to nothing", which according to Idiom Dictionary means "with no chance of success". What made Idiom Dictionary's definition interesting was the example used.

They may be quite a good rugby team but they’re on a hiding to nothing against the All Blacks.

Living in the land of the All Blacks (New Zealand), it's amusing how out of all the examples they could have possibly come up with, this was what they used. Perhaps this expression is a British/NZ one (as opposed to US)?

According to answers.com, the equivalent expression in Spanish is: "tener todas las de perder" but it just doesn't look right. There's probably a more appropriate Spanish expressin out there.

On a side note, we now have two native French speakers from the pspgen forums helping out with the French translation. Thanks guys.