We’ve seen some pretty bad translations of Spanish into English on Chilean web sites, pamphlets, manuals, etc. This one is the worst we have ever seen.

We recently burned out one of our bathroom fans, and I went to a hardware store and bought a new one. On the manual, there was the usual long list of ridiculous safety precautions, with a list in English. Here is an exact copy of one of the safety recommendations:

“The appliance can not be used by children, the deformed man, the disease patient the people who is short of experience and culture or the sense organ or the spirit alone”

Amazingly there are no misspellings. But trying to bring it across in professional manner? Um….

—-Okay folks! We have the great advantage of being able to get advice DIRECTLY FROM THE MANUFACTURER! Amazing! They graciously went to the length of having it printed in English just for the occasional Gringo who would buy their fan! So, let’s see what we can take away from this invaluable information.

It looks like Doodle, Rosebud, Sudoku and I can’t turn the fan on, because obviously everyone under 18 is a “child” too. So, only Milkmaid and Marathon can turn the fan on and off. Marathon is clearly the “deformed man” they are talking about, because one of his legs is 1/32″ longer than the other one. So this leaves Milkmaid as the only one who can turn the fan on and off.  People who is short of experience and culture can’t use it either. Obviously we are short of that, but we’re never going to admit it. The sense organ isn’t allowed to use it, but I’m not even sure what that is. I don’t think that there are any spirits capable of flipping a switch just by themselves, so I think that was unnecessary to mention.—-

Usually you can at least get the gist of what they are saying, but this is way off the chart.

Here is a picture to prove it. You can see other mistakes too.