English as She Is Spoke

Common card · No. 318377

O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez, commonly known by the name English as She Is Spoke, is a 19th-century book written by Pedro Carolino, with some editions crediting José da Fonseca as co-author. It was intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide book or phrase book. However, it is today regarded entirely as a classic source of unintentional humour in translation because the provided translations are usually inaccurate or unidiomatic. The humour arises largely from Carolino's indiscriminate use of literal translation, which has led to many idiomatic expressions being translated ineptly. For example, Carolino translates the Portuguese phrase "Quereis mais?" as "Will you more?", when an analogous English phrase is available in the form of "Do you want some more?" It is widely believed that Carolino could not speak English and that an unknown French–English dictionary was used to translate the earlier Portuguese–French phrase book O novo guia da conversação em francês...

Read on Wikipedia · Image José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino, Public domain