Truly Awful Chinese
Some translated works should never, ever see the light of day. No matter who does them, they are just too awful to mention. I’m an American football fan, and my favorite player is Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Imagine my surprise to see him speaking Chinese in a TV commercial! Thank God, there were subtitles!
I did not recognize a damn thing that either Peyton Manning or Justin Timberlake said in this commercial. I know my Chinese is very rusty (it has been twenty years since I lived in-country), but not that rusty!
Below is the ad:
For the record, my favorite fish-out-water American celebrity speaking Chinese of all time is Sigourney Weaver in the 1986 movie Half Moon Street, based on the Paul Theroux novelette Doctor Slaughter. If I remember correctly, the line she speaks is, “No (emphatic)! I worked at the US embassy.” (The line is only in the movie, not in the book.) It’s quite understandable, if somewhat mangled, and the look on her face is priceless.