Indigestible in Arizona

A recent case of misapplied MT is visible at Cheesecake World's [cheesecake.northwest.com] a down-home site promising gourmets twelve luscious cheesecake recipes by return email from Phoenix, Arizona for a bargain-basement $3.00.

When company president Jeff Johnson stumbled on search engine AltaVista’s free online translation service Babelfish, he jumped at the chance for worldwide exposure. A few clicks later the site was available in five languages: Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese.

"It was free; I thought ‘why not’?’" Johnson told the Onionskin.

The results are delectable in their own way. "Super easy to make! Low in fat, High in taste!" becomes Supereinfaches zu bilden! Tief im Fett, stark im Geschmack! for German gourmets (roughly "Supereasy things to form! Deep in the fat, strong in taste!"). French speakers are offered gateaux au fromage effrayants, literally frightening or spine-chilling cheesecakes (original English: chilled).  A sample recipe posted on the site seems unlikely to generate much business from abroad. Quantities are skewed to the point of incomprehensibility, while instructions leave even professionals bemused. 

Pastry chef Claude Petit, who works at the trendy Man-Ray restaurant on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, was puzzled by the French version, which calls for cakes to be baked "until business corporation in the middle" (jusqu’à société au milieu/bis Unternehmen in der mitte). He eventually worked it out ("firm"), yet drew the line at stirring in chocolate puces (fleas or computer chips) and applying the chandelier/polish (administrer le lustre). In the end, Petit admitted defeat. "This is ridiculous; the quantities are all wrong and the ingredients make no sense," he complained, noting "We do not make cakes like this in France."

But since the recipes sold are in English only, what was the point?

Mr. Johnson, who marvels at the Internet's global range, confirmed that his sole aim was to reach out to the world. In this respect, the multilingual initiative has been a success — of sorts. The site gets about 8,000 hits a month, and since December, when the foreign-language versions went up, he has received an email or two every week criticizing them. "Today it was a woman in Brazil, " he told the Onionskin matter-of-factly. "She said the Portuguese was dreadful; there wasn’t a single correct sentence in it." In contrast, overseas orders have been few and far between: "We had one once from Puerto Rico."

Until the Onionskin phoned, it had not crossed Mr. Johnson's mind that the texts might be considered insulting by non-English speakers, and to his credit he seemed genuinely contrite at the thought.

For businesses like Cheesecake World — a one-person company with limited sales and a tiny advertising budget, yet interested in tapping foreign markets — the best solution might be to scale down the length of translated text. A short summary paragraph by a professional translator in each language wouldn't break the bank, and would serve up an infinitely more digestible product.