Submitted by: Elephant Pass Pancake Barn, Tasmania via Oddly Specific
No Parking
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Oddly Specific - Funny Signs 
Well, I’m not buying a crepe there!
I get the feeling they need a new translator.
the sign is funny on its own already.
but that last line is epic.
Dont think, they need a new translator. At least the german translation is exactly the same (in german).
The last line’s taking the piss, surely?
The pidgin at the bottom is the epic win. I’m going to start adding a pidgin translation to any sign I make now.
at least the german lines are absolutely fine… neither a typo nor any other fail in it! (proved by a native german speaking person) 😛
Was that last line lolcat translation? lmao
the french is epic. i especially love how it’s all in caps. some translator somewhere is undoubtedly having a little lol right now thinking about it.
(what sort of place has elephants AND pancakes/crepes? seems an odd combination to me.)
apparently it’s an elephant pass pancake barn.
if i went somewhere like that, i wouldn’t think there were REAL elephants.
maybe elephants like pancakes and fly to the syrup like fatsos to mcdonalds.
No, no, the name of the place is Elephant Pass. It’s on the east coast of Tasmania between St Marys and the coast. (Google map Elephant Pass Tasmania, Australia). I’ve been there, the pancakes are good and the sign is typical of the owners’ humour.
I love how each one has a varying degree of urgency. Apparently the French need to be yelled at.
I think the last line is only for Gungans.
That is awesome pidgin at the bottom, totally aside from the issue of very intense harm conveyed in the sign, yet oddly polite note of thanks for the cooperation. I’m with Phelps – add pidgin to all signs! And Trivea – good call – Germans don’t merit an exclamation point? Tanks – funnee sine – no pah kee, no stompee. ;P
Meesa agree with CaptainObvious.
I know the bloke who runs the place! He’s a legend!
The pancakes are great too! 😛
Well, at least it was nice of the lolphant to add a nice note at the bottom. Tenksa lot!
@notanengineer *cough* yes typo. The spelling of Elephant was dropped for Elefant way before even that ridiculous spelling reform (which ofcourse was merely a conspiracy to confuse all those spelling bees and prevent anyone from ever knowing for sure how to spell things)
The french text says: If you think about blocking the barrier… forget it !!! Our elephants will come and crush your miserable rent car like the crepes we serve !! Thanks !!
Wow…
The french text says:
If you think about blocking the barrier… forget it !! Our elephants will come and crush (flatten) your miserable rent car like the crepes we serve !! Thanks !!
It’s a fair warning.
What’s “u hi ka”?
“Your hire car”
What I find funny is that there is a reference to the pancakes/crêpes in the French warning, but not in the English one (don’t read German, so I can’t comment).
huh-huh. he said “einfahrt”.
This joint has on their menus a surcharge for having a noisy child.
Woh ! So many typos in the French translation !
The sentence can be translated in : “Our elephants will come (with a mistake) to stomp your wretched hire like the crepes we serve ! Thank You !”
To Mogik,
[I submitted this pic]. In response to your comment, The Pancake Barn is perched in an area of Northern Tasmania called ‘Elephants Pass’ – so called because the mountain range looks exactly like the contour of an elephant’s head and back. So there are no elephants. Damn good pancakes though!
I’m loving the French, it reads “IF YOU’RE HAVING ANY IDEAS ABOUT BLOCKING THE BARRIER….LET THEM GO!!! OUR ELEPHANTS WILL FLATTEN YOUR MISERABLE CAR LIKE THE CREPES WE SERVE YOU! THANKS!” Lol. And I’m totally digging the all-caps – are Francophones supposed to be deaf?
Lol. tenks a lot.
Aussie humour – priceless.
The french version is funnier then the english version.
King Crunch and The One Guy, they don’t need a new translator, the one they used got it spot on. Translation in this case is not about reproducing some kind of word-for-word equivalent (is it ever about that?) but about producing the same effect. Thus, the humour in comparing the flattened car to a pile of crepes is equivalent to the humour of it being flattened to its hubcaps.
Please, learn something about translation before you comment on it. As a professional translator myself, it almost depresses me how many people think translation is just about looking words up in a bilingual dictionary and writing them down. Argh!
Hint: For some education, read the “translation myths” on the blog below and learn them before you think about commenting again.
http://no-more-barriers.blogspot.com/2009/12/translation-myths-pt11.html
Maybe the last line is some kind of Tasmanian Aborigine – English creole? Or just taking the mick out of their own accent?
(No parking here your hire car, thanks a lot)
Probably doesn’t matter so much that the french is inaccurate so long as they can get the gist. There’s enough bad english written, time to get revenge 🙂 Not sure about the German but the bits I can understand do seem tinged with a bit of Deutschlish also.
It’s Pidgin!
The French is fine if you allow for the dropping of accents due to the use of all caps. Again, it is not “inaccurate;” it is creative and cool. Oh and “aplatir” is a real French verb.
Translation =/= word-for-word equivalence
Please, please, please stop thinking that it is.
I really want to make a sign like this 😉 I agree with the above commenters that a correct translation should be demonstrated however I don’t think that is the point the author of this post was trying to get across, haha. Let’s enjoy ok?
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Acrylic, did you ignore my post and the blog post attached to it? The translations are absolutely fine, great even. Trust me, I do this stuff for a living.
lol at the bottom it sounds like ” No parking here you hiker. Thanks alot!
“U hi ka” means “your hire car,” like it says in the English. The last line kind of looks like Krio, but I’m not sure.
I always thought it was ‘you hiker’ too… I’ve been to this place and I have to agree, damn good pancakes.
well, They got the Lolspeak translation Perfect!!!! xD
ChaChaChelsea> For your information: “Laissez tomber!” is more appropriately translated, in this context, as “Forget it!”. More literally translated would be “Let it go (fall)!”.
Sorry mr_interpreter, but they did misspell “LA BARRIERE” 😉
Otherwise, I fully agree with your premise.
Les Français, comme ils sont enthousiastes à la traduction, non?
Many signs tell you not to do something. I love a sign that tell you WHY you shouldn’t do something.
mr_interpreter, I really hope that you don’t translate to or from French. There are two errors (not typos) in the French version: “barrier” instead of “barrière” (or “BARRIERE”) and “viendrons” instead of “viendront” (3rd person plural futur simple)
As a translator who speaks 3 of the languages on this sign, I’m wondering what the translator was smoking…
I thought the last line says “No parking here, you hike-a.”
There’s a 2nd typo “viendrons” instead of “viendront” in the french lines.
“Si vous avez des idées de” sounds cheesy, it’s misused at least.
“Laissez tomber” is fine, it’s what we commonly say for “forget it”.
Clearly the last line is translated to “Queens/Bronx area New Yorker”
What has me stumped — what would they need a GERMAN translation in the middle of TASMANIA for??????? Just in case those world domination plans finally come to fruition?
Because it’s a very famous pancake house and Tassie (as Tasmania is affectionately known) is visited by people from all around the world!
The french translation is the best! XD
Is that last one in bad English?
I’m just reading the English, and it’s got me shitting my pants!
In Tasmania, they have telepathic elephants that will punish you for just THINKING about breaking the rules!
hahahaha the freeeench!
if you think of blocking the barrier you will fall.
and crepes? alright?
NO PAH KING HEE U HI KA. TENKSA LOT.
Is that last line a jab at Asians? Because I read it in the voice of the City Wok guy from South Park.