Customer Reviews

English As She Is Spoke: The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English, in Two Parts (English and Portuguese Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my very favorite books of all time. Carolino and Fonesca wrote this to cure the phrase book gap in the 1800s. It seems that there was no Portuguese-English phrase book available at the time and they decided to take on the task of writing one despite the fact that neither spoke English. Likewise, they only owned Portuguese-French and French-English dictionaries which results in some surreal 'translations.' ("Do you cut the hairs?"; "Comb me."; "For to craunch the marmoset.") You will also learn a bit of taxonomy. Previously I had not known that a Hedgehog was a type of fish, for instance.

I can't recommend this gem of a book highly enough. I have an edition with a forward by Mark Twain in addition to this expanded edition. Twain and I both find this book perfect and unable to be improved on.

As Carolino says: "It must never to laugh of the unhappies."

.
In the 19th century, there were no english phrase books for the Portuguese market, and the authors sought to fill that gap with this book, now reprinted in full. Ah, what a futile, heartfelt exercise this book turned out to be, for they had no English-Portuguese/Portuguese-English dictionaries to work with, only English-French and French-Portuguese as a substitute, and knew no English themselves and had no English speaking editors. The required gyrations led to hilarious results.

Page after page of mangled sentences and hilarious absurdities follow the original Portuguese:

"Where correspond the bells?"
"She have always anything which is it bad."
"These are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain."

The authors also provided us with vocabulary for common terms (examples in the bed room are "the bed battom" and "the feet's bed") as well as typical dialogs you might have (for instance, when buying furniture, "Pardon me, it comes workman's hands.")

A little of this goes a long way, though; it's not for extended reading, but it's quite suitable for abbreviated sessions (and is better than Dave Barry for the bathroom because it's shorter and continuity doesn't matter a whit) or passing around at a party.

But it's a wonderful monument to misguided effort, and we enjoy it a lot. I've never seen anyone look at it without laughing.

My nephew (who as a hobby learned Esperanto) once pieces read of this book to our family. It was hilarious, and as you might have noticed, as the style my write of to be changed goodly.

In other words, from then on, we have delighted in making terrible nonexistent translations of nonsense for each other, and this book and its influence has made our lives that much more fun. When I heard it was once again available, I felt I had to let people know how enjoyable it is.

If the you to tootle melodious for is, then must needs of this book an buy! :-)

In 1855 two translators portuguese, of the Fonseca de Jose and Peter Carolino, phrasebook had produced one English thus inacreditàvel bad that reprinted for half one of the century as one masterpiece of hilarity, under the English of the heading because it is ray.

This evaluates certainly as one of the funniest book always. That he funny entirely for the accident to far it original. Recommended high.

Just saying that this book is a Portuguese-English phrase book written by someone with absolutely no knowledge of the English language doesn't even come close to describing it. It's a comic masterpiece - I keep this book by my bedside and open it at random whenever my mood needs a bit of a lift.

This book shows what can happen to our English language when put through a multi-lingual mix-master. The result is unintentionally hilarious, and reveals just how complex our "simple" language is.