“la parole exportée”

My attention is attracted to e-mails that have started coming from YouTube, about what must be ‘Subscription Updates’ in English. But the translated heading is: ‘Mise à jour de l’abonnement’, which has a totally different meaning in French.

So when the first e-mail from YouTube arrived, I opened it with this kind of feeling: ‘What’s going on NOW…’

The people at YouTube (or rather some machine) just wanted to let me know about recent changes in the channels I’ve subscribed to. (Notice that my multiple subscriptions are not reflected in the so-called translation, reinforcing the misunderstanding.) When you subscribe to something, you have to accept terms and conditions, and when your subscription is updated (in the French meaning), it usually means that these terms and conditions have changed (not to your advantage, most of the time…).

It’s not just me. The word UPDATE in this specific sense does not translate easily in French. A client of mine has decided against translating it at all for a particular program they have. Maybe YouTube should follow them.

But of course, given enough doses of it, I’ll get used to this strange use of my native language and won’t notice anymore. Maybe.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is the slogan selected by a French furniture store to adorn the T-shirts worn by their store sales staff this Summer.

• Is tempted to take on that spammer’s offer of $850,000.00…… #
• @jlturn Or I need a second cup of coffee LOL #
• Going offline for a while. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Back from a 2-hour conference on my side of Paris. Don’t like that? Home for lunch… Er… what lunch? #
• Finally found a Ping.fm beta code that worked. Hurray! #
• Afternoon free. Great, but I have to send that VAT check. Hate to have to give that money back! #
• @LindaZimmer Sorry I went out on errands… #
• Heard this morning: ‘You’re 51, you’re not old’. That’s what employers say to their employees to make them feel good, but reality is dif … #
• Currently Browsing: http://tinyurl.com/6pssqy What kind of love will please the Americans? Too much, not enough? #
• Where IS Plurk? Just when I was getting used to it… #
• Twit-what-s-its-name should be happy. I have more followers than I’m following. If that makes sense. #
• Agonizing over what to make for supper… Greek salad is wonderful, but not for 4 meals in a row #

Powered by Twitter Tools.