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This is my farewell post as this is my last week at Ccaps. We never publish literary stuff here in the Ccaps Blog, but since this is a special occasion, I managed to make an exception…

At the Literature Workshop class, we were assigned a task: to write a narrative in English after listening to the folktale O menino que foi ao vento norte, by Brazilian storyteller Bia Bedran. Check out what I came up. This is a free adaptation of “Bia canta e conta.”

Boy, who had been shopping for his mother, was coming back home full of bags in his arms when North Wind took them all away. “Now what? How can I explain it to Mother?,” he thought.

Angry Boy then went to North Wind to complain about what had happened. “My surname is Wind and I am supposed to blow,” said North Wind. “I will give you a magic tablecloth. Whenever you are hungry, say ‘lay the table’ and there will be plenty of delicious things to eat.”

Boy was on top of the world with his present and anxious to show it to his Mother. Since Sun had gone to bed though, he decided to stay overnight at the hotel. In his room, he laid the magic tablecloth beside him and said “lay the table.” Cake, samosa, chocolate, ice cream, and marshmallow were avidly and gladly eaten. Boy then went to sleep. Meanwhile, Hotel Owner could not resist only staring at the magic tablecloth; he had to steal it and replace it with an ordinary tablecloth. And so he did.

The following day, Naive Boy was anxious to show his Mother the magic tablecloth. “Mother, Mother! We have plenty of food for a lifetime!,” he exclaimed. When Enchanter Boy did his performance for Mother though, there was no magic at all.

Angry Boy then went to North Wind to complain about what had happened. “I gave you the magic tablecloth, am I mistaken?,” inquired North Wind. “I will give you a magic monkey. Whenever you need money, say ‘money, monkey;’ and there will be plenty of gold to spend.”

Boy was on top of the world with his present and anxious to show it to his Mother. Since Sun had gone to bed though, he decided to stay overnight at the hotel. In his room, he placed the little monkey beside him and said “money, monkey.” One thousand golden coins now glittered before his eyes. Boy then went to sleep. Meanwhile, Hotel Owner could not resist only staring at the magic monkey; he had to steal it and replace it with an ordinary monkey. And so he did.

The following day, Naive Boy was anxious to show his Mother the magic monkey. “Mother, Mother! We have plenty of gold for a lifetime!” he exclaimed. When Enchanter Boy did his performance for Mother though, there was no magic at all.

Angry Boy then went to North Wind to complain about what had happened. “They are making a fool of you,” warned North Wind. “I will give you a magic walking stick. Whenever you are in danger, cry out ‘help, I need somebody!’ and don’t you dare bother me again!”

Clever Boy, who was not a fool at all, was on top of the world with his present and anxious to show it to the not-so-clever thief. When Sun had gone to bed, he checked in at the hotel to spend the night. In his room, he placed the magic walking stick beside him, waiting for the right time to say the magic words. Clever Boy then pretended to be asleep. Meanwhile, Hotel Owner could not resist just staring at the magic walking stick; he had to steal it and replace it with an ordinary walking stick. And so he would…

“Help, I need somebody!,” Endangered Boy cried out. Magic Stick got revolted and POW, POW, POW! on Hotel Owner’s head. Magic Boy then, empowered by his magic walking stick, recovered all his magic stuff: the magic tablecloth and the magic monkey. Only then Proud Boy could go back home yelling with joy “Mother, Mother!”

Poor thief…
Hope to see you soon! Take care you all!

Hello there! For those of you who do not know me, my name is Natália Araújo and I work as a localization engineer at Ccaps. I have wanted to write a post for the Ccaps Blog but, until now, I could not find anything interesting to write about. Let me try…

Every month, I go to the news stand in search of magazines about general subjects, which in one way or another, will enrich my cultural baggage. Interestingly enough, I came across a magazine specializing in subjects about the Portuguese language, called “Conhecimento Prático da Língua Portuguesa” (Practical Knowledge of the Portuguese Language). The cover of issue 18 called my attention as it had the following headline: “Latin, a language that never goes out of style”.

I wondered how come a dead language could not go out of style… Like any voracious reader, I leafed through the pages to read the story and realized that, even superficially, Latin should be taught to everyone. And exactly at that moment I thought: “It would be great to write a post about the proper use of language in the Ccaps Blog.”

Let’s see. Does any of you know where the word “university” comes from? There I discovered that it comes from the Latin “universitas”, which means “universe”. Another example is the verb “to delete”, which comes from the Latin “delere”, meaning “to destroy”. And much to my surprise, the second person plural of the imperative of the verb “delere” is “delete”, just like that button on your keyboard!

I spoke with some friends who study Languages and confirmed that they all fear case declinations, conjunctions and other things they need to memorize in Latin. On the other hand, they all believe that studying Latin would help (a lot!) the common Brazilian to better understand what they are saying.

We often make mistakes because we do not know the origins of what we are saying. For instance, what is the plural of the Portuguese words “nação,” “pão” and “cristão”? To answer that, we should pay attention to the suffix of these three words. They all end in “-ão”, which is an irregularity in the Portuguese language that presents us with three possibilities in the plural: “-ães”, “-ões” and “-ãos”. But which one is correct?

Had we learned Latin, we would not such doubts, as “nação” comes from the Latin “natione”, so the correct plural form is “nações;” “pão” comes from “pane,” so the correct plural form is “pães;” and “cristão” comes from the Latin word “christianu,” and the correct plural form is “cristãos.”

But the most intriguing part of the story was to find out that even the biggest scholars in the Portuguese Language also butcher the language without even realizing it. Can somebody tell me the correct word for somebody who loves chocolate in Portuguese? I believe most would say “chocólatra” (chocoholic), right? Yet “chocólatra” actually means “to adore a type of octopus called choco;” Chocolate lovers should be called “chocolatólatra”! Living and learning…

Then I had to revisit my concept that Latin, though no longer taught in high school, never stopped to be part of our daily lives.

Stay tuned for the next post on Portuguese trivia!

One Google search on the web of “Bad Translations” and you will be overwhelmed by the results of bad (and hilarious) translations that you will find. I wanted to share some that I thought were very funny and some just plain embarrassing, as we can all use a good laugh now and then.

This sign, in Welsh, is supposed to tell cyclists to dismount. As you can see, it correctly says ‘CYCLISTS DISMOUNT’ in English, but the Welsh text means “BLADDER DISEASE HAS RETURNED.” Toilets must be busy there!

Check out Ethics Crisis for more of these…

In this case, officials sent the English version to be translated by a local translation company. They received a reply in Welsh stating that the person was out of the office. They appreciated the quick response and immediately sent the translated response for print. They obviously did not speak any Welsh as it was not until after the sign was in place that locals pointed out the mistake.

“I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”

The following list of translation blunders is a good example of why localization and local knowledge is important and why you should always look for a professional vendor (from Marketing Hackz)

1. When Mitsubishi launched its Pajero 4WD in Spain they had the shock of a lifetime. As they were promoting Pajero they forgot to take into account the fact that the word “pajero” means “jerk off” in some Spanish-speaking countries.

2. The famous fried Chicken hub KFC’s slogan “finger-lickin good” when marketed was translated into China as “eat your fingers off.” Ouch!

3. GEC and Plessey had a joint company in France that was called GPT. When GPT is pronounced in French, it sounds as “Jay-Pay-Tay,” which is similar to “J’ai pete,” meaning “I have farted.”

4. When Puffs tissue started marketing their products in Germany, it didn’t do so well. The reason – “puff” means “brothel” there.

5. When an Italian mineral water company promoted their product Traficante, it was a big failure because the word “traficante” means “drug dealer” in Spanish.

6. When Bacardi launched a fruit drink named Pavian they meant “French chick,” but when they promoted it in Germany, the same word meant “baboon.”

7. Electrolux had to take their slogan down which read “Nothing sucks like Electrolux.”

8. When Ford tried selling its car Pinto in Brazil, it was a huge failure. The reason – the word “pinto” is slang for small penis in the country.

9. Parker pens slogan “Avoid Embarrassment – use Quink,” when translated into Spanish came out as “Avoid Pregnancy – use Quink.”

10. When Hunt-Wesson introduced their Big John products in French Canada as “Gros Jos,” they forgot one thing: gros jos is the slang for “big breasts.”

Do you know of any similar translation blunder? Send it over so that we can also have some fun.

This week we started the festivities to celebrate Ccaps 10th anniversary!

And I could not have received better news than the one shared by Cecilia on the 50% growth we achieved in the first semester of 2009, when compared to that of last year. In 2008, we had managed to increase our revenue in 70%, yet with the so talked about and much feared crisis, I decided to keep it low key. To tell you the truth, I had meagre hopes of reaching 30% growth in 2009.

Crisis, what crisis, dude? Half year is gone and we are way ahead our expectations. And the best of all is that the optimism seems to be everywhere. Yesterday’s headline of Brazilian newspaper Valor points to reviewed growth figures for Brazilian GDP and in another story Brazil is the next place to look out.

It was worth fastening the seat belts tight, facing the adversities and risking. This video clip is for you, client, collaborator, friend or family member who believed in Ccaps and helped us create this success story:

But the celebrations have just started. Soon we will have more news for you. Stay tuned!