I just love bad translations. Fans of the genre will no doubt be aware of the splendid Engrish.com, but this gem (I’ve actually stayed there) shows that places closer to England can come up with equally entertaining gobbledy-gook. Tomorrow I’m off to southern France for a couple of nights, to choose some wines that will appear at a Languedoc tasting in London at the end of the month. And I’m staying in The Grand Hôtel in Sète, described thus on the web site…

‘Int the authentic charm oh the “Ile Singluière”, as celebrate in song by Georges Brassens, in poetry by Paul Valéry and immortalised by so many painters. The Grand Hôtel and the Restaurant Quai 17 are ready to welcome you with its wonderful view of the Canal Royal and invite you to discover an area rich in savours, colors and feelings.

‘Discover the reception, the rooms, the seminars, and the Royal Channel.’

I can’t wait – discovering seminars and channels sounds enthralling…

PS If you want to generate your own Engrish, just cut and paste a block of text into Babelfish or another on-line translator, convert it to Japanese, and then convert it back to English. So for example….
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’
…becomes…
‘That is recognized the wife being necessary, generally, the single person who owns that good fortune, there is a truth, it becomes, is.’
And if you do it a second time, it turns into…
‘The wife celibacy person where that necessary and generally, owns the good fortune and is it is verified, truth, that becomes, is it is.’)