Last Updated on: 23rd October 2013, 11:47 am
“English as She is Spoke” is quite possibly the worst English language phrasebook ever produced. It was published in 1883 by a Portuguese man named Pedro Carolino who didn’t even know how to speak English. In order to compile it, Carolino used a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary, which leads to a complete mess once the final translations are complete.
The most interesting and frightening thing about it is that at one time, it was actually used as a school textbook, which makes finding the odd factual error or typo in the books being produced now seem like not such a big deal by comparison.
You can find more information and read excerpts from the book by clicking
here.
Believe me, this thing puts every one of those foreign translations gone wrong emails to shame.
