20 October 2009

Da, Mi Gavarim Paruski (Yes, We Spik Russian)

Ok, I gave up after some mails with boisterous comments to my Yes, We Spik English post. Of course the abuse of English is not only happening in Russia or Ukraine but I came to see that a lot of people have serious understanding problems (or maybe this is the majority of my readers' profile)

So, with this in my mind, I was wastingmy precious Sunday time in a newly opened shopping mall in Istanbul in my neighborhood (Yes, we have a shopping mall in every neighborhood in Turkey and we are still lagging somewhere in the middle between Bulgaria and Syria, both geographically and in a sense of economic provess) and I have seen this in a French supermarket...I am speechless


Welcome to carrefour, where prices are as right as we welcome you


First of all, I would expect a French store to at least write it correctly in "French". It must be Bienvenue not Bien Venu(and think, I don't speak French) and the funnier side is about the last one. It is in Russian. But why Russian? It is a well known fact that my suburban neighborhood houses an oblivious female slavic community who enjoy their trade away from the suspicious eyes of the traditionally close packed neighborhoods of Istanbul. So the French or their Turkish henchmen store manager must have thought to add a slavic welcome to their store...but they did it so French. They looked up in the dictionary for "welcome" and have written not "Welcome" but "to welcome". "приветствовать"is the verb...

I now understand that why the Parisian Spring of 68 started as a democratic revolution but ended up in a couple of months with half of Paris devastated and the workers who watched the students got beaten in the streets from their TVs got a 40% raise...the students? they got their mixed dorms after all...so French :)


2 comments:

Michelle said...

And the good thing about this photo? I saw the mistake in verb tense immediately! :) LOL If I can figure out Russian verb tenses, there is hope for the rest of the world!

Bea said...

It is interesting how so many businesses make these faux pas' when they could easily afford to pay a fully literate person in the particular language to do the translation. I must think they just don't care or are too illiterate themselves to notice. We must admit, though, the mistakes are sometimes great fodder for a language class.