Behold! The best description of an iPhone game… ever
Engrish… It’s not just for Eastern Asia anymore
OK, let me just say up front that I fully admit that if I tried to describe a game in Italian, it would be a disaster, but honestly, read the following description of the iPhone game Oxxo, and tell me if you are any clearer on the finer points of gameplay after you have read it.
Above: You sure about that?
Wow. Every line is gold.
I’m not really sure why there are so many exclamation points there… but I certainly get the feeling this game is very important, and I admit I feel a sense of urgency about this game. Or perhaps it’s sort of like when we Americans think talking loudly and slowly will help the non-English speaking people of a foreign country suddenly understand us when traveling.
If this isn’t a killer app, then I don’t know what is!
Hahaha. Apple quality control or lack thereof strikes again.
My favorite line: “But Careful: if your win move will make to gain also the adversary, will have lost!”
I gotta believe that google translator or something like it was used.
I sent them an email in Italian offering to fix the translation. Let’s see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.
Hey, I’m half italian but I honestly can’t understand it. He definitely used an italian-english automatic translator… maybe putting that description text in an english-italian translator would yield the original italian text. Err… nope, I just tried that: it’s even worse. Anyway I think this is just a marketing strategy to make you curious about the game so that you’ll buy it!
Yeah, he used babel fish. Just copied some of the text from the Italian App Store then used babel fish to convert it and it matches perfectly, except one word (Because of weird accents).
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n27/Top_Slacker/Picture1.png
It seems pretty obvious to me. You can lay down a pawn or flip one over (from X to O or vice versa). Each symbol also has a color: blue or yellow. The object of the game seems to be to get a line of X’s or O’s of the same color. The players must be X’s and O’s or blue and yellow. And, it’s possible to make a final move that will cause both of the players to win, in which case no one wins. It’s not THAT tough to understand.
Paul = Spock.
It leaves one breathless.
I wonder if the man ever heard of José da Fonseca or Pedro Carolino, the authors of “English as she is spoke” [ http://books.google.com/books?id=TZFZ95l2QtEC&dq=%22English+as+she+is+spoke%22&pg=PP1&ots=lgsLCUdOH5&sig=swM926bRV-HO1XxHLZ5SPGCRABc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA1,M1 ].
at least italians have (in this case vague) knowledge of english, while most americans don’t speak any 2nd language.
@pps: Except the part where most americans are required to learn a 2nd language to graduate highschool, and are quite often from mixed/immigrated families, and speak a 2nd language in the home.
@puppy: except the part where this is totally false. there is no requirement whatsoever to learn a second language to graduate highschool, a while many poeple are from mixed/immigrated homes it is still the minority. The majority of americans speak bad english. A small percentage speak two languages.
I am american and support america but am not about boasting false claims to american ligual skills
Believe me, many apps originally written in English equally claim to be available in other languages, but have the same Babelfish nonsense.
@puppy: being required to learn a 2nd language is so very, very far away from actually being able to speak one. US Americans, like the British, are incredibly monolingual.
I only know a dozen or so Americans, but of those only one or two speak a language other than English well. I should add that I live in Germany, so you would hope that the majority would speak fluent German. Unfortunately, they seem to think that everyone else should speak English…
All your base are belong to us
The game seems to be essentially a board game called Othello.
Italians might have a greater percent of bilingual speakers, but that’s kind of out of necessity; you live on a diverse continent with for the most part, open borders. As for us americans, canadians speak mostly english as well, and we care so much about learning spanish that we built a wall on the Mexican border.
Most people I know speak a second language regardless, but then I hang with a lot of asians.
Finding a bilingual american is as hard as finding a honest politician
@pps
Most American’s have a vague understanding of spanish, french, german, or japanese.
In Texas, we actually are required to learn a second language to graduate.
Just my tuppence.
It is my distinguished objective and make gain loss of enjoyment for you to enjoy the make love.
Jeez, yet another useless peice of garbage. I love how Apple trumpets the number of apps there are and how many have been downloaded, but says nothing about how many have been downloaded and then immediately erased. In my case it would be probably about 95% of the apps I’ve tried.
Many americans in the southwest wind up learning spainish (not real spainish, but mexican spainish, there’s a big diff).
I myself have learned a decent amount of german, enough to hold my own in basic conversation (don’t expect anything scientific lol). I know some japanese. A few phrases in mandarin (pickup lines). A few phrases in mexican spainish (insults/ simple questions). Greetings in many languages.
and i’m white, from an english speaking family, my mother’s side is immigrant, but they spoke english before coming here…. screw all the lazy bastards who go to other countries and expect english (even though it IS taught to a large number of students in many countries if they expect to continue their higher education).
Imagine if we actually did talk like that.
The point isn’t this guy has a bad english, that’s his own business; the point is that, once you publish something, you should guarantee a certain quality, also in the documentation. As a professional translator, I can assure you that getting that description translated from an agency would cost less than 5€, the guy should have done that.
@Ernesto:
I’m multi-lingual and also American. Nearly everyone I interact with on a daily basis is fluent in Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog, Mandarin, or German in addition to English.
Don’t let the minority of ignoramuses give the rest of us normal folks a bad name.
“Major improvements to IA”.. urm.. don’t they mean, AI? haha.
@Ian
Now if only they could learn to use the apostrophe.
I regret of being Italian when I read things like this… actually I am also a bit offended by this guy, whose well below-average knowledge level of English contributes to the degradation of our not already good “image” around the world.
BTW, I can understand *a bit* of what he says: these are common italian sentences translated word by word, without any clue of English grammar, tenses and word ordering.
I wish I were american.
I’m 100% Italian. Let’s say that at least 70% of people i know speak english. Other speak french or german. Only few don’t speak any foreign language. About the game’s author i think it’s a shame and those exclamation points are typical of ignorants people all over the world who don’t know how to promote a product.
@Sebastian
LOL!
Of all the states in the US, you’re going to tell me Texas has high linguistic standards, are you?
Have you listened to our president speak?!?!?!
Half the state is illiterate!!!!!!!!!
And you move color to advesary lose who in turn shapes the face of you win.
@Rod
Except that Bush is not from Texas…
Just go here and you can read this stuff all day long – LOL funny!! http://www.engrish.com
I understand that it would be hard for a native-speaking Japanese engineer person to translate into the correct English. But isn’t this the reason people learn multiple languages and become translators? What is so hard about them getting someone who can correctly translate??
In one of the iTunes developer videos there is a specific warning not to use online translation for App Store descriptions. This listing illustrates why. These warnings are only guidelines and not rules, so developers can make fools of themselves if they wish.
good game provider farmer100