Archivo por meses: enero 2016

“He left the child in the thread.” Say what?

«Rosca de reyes México 02» de ProtoplasmaKid
«Rosca de reyes México 02» de ProtoplasmaKid

The other day, my friend posted a photo of on Facebook of himself eating a pastry, with the text, “Me salió el niño en la rosca.” My mother saw the photo and asked me, “What’s that post about – the one with the child and the thread?” My mother can’t read Spanish, so she was seeing the machine translation, which reads, “He left the child in the thread.” What it really means is: “I got the baby in the ‘King’s bread’.” This refers to the little plastic baby Jesus that is hidden in the traditional pastry eaten on the feast of the Epiphany in Mexico and in some other countries. Lesson: don’t trust machine translation! They are unable to interpret (or even less, explain) context and often fail to convey the meaning of even simple sentences. If you need a real translation, ask a professional.