English instructional kids' blocks -- unintentional comedy
This set of Chinese blocks to help kids learn English features some decidedly odd (and questionable) choices. Nevertheless, if I had a set, I'd use them to teach my kid, just for the entertainment value. We could hold our own little English as She is Spoke sketch-nights.
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(Thanks, Gnat!)
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It suddenly all makes sense.
Ja, Panzer. Definitely english!
I saw this last week on Neatorama.com. Delightful! I've been referring to the overhead projector as an "epidiascope" ever since, just to drive my students crazy!
"Panzer" - Deutsch fur "panther," and used during WWII to denote either a model of tank or a tank division in general. My guess is that plastic model kits of "Panzer" tanks are among the more popular tank model kits available, so the person who designed the blocks assumed that "panzer" was English for (whatever the Chinese word for "tank" is).
Love the "secondary planet" --- almost poetic, in a cosmic sort of way.
As for "dick" being given as the word for "egg" (not pictured above, but on the site), my guess is that the almost-universal practive of calling testicles "eggs" might have something to do with it. Most bi-lingual dic-tionaries pull a boner when it comes to semEntics (Yeah, I did those puns on purpose. Did you find all four? I'll stop now), and the one consulted not only used the slang for the wrong part of the genitals, but failed to specify that it was a slang!
...When the Chinese finally released a 3-view of Shenzhou, I had one of my engineers who was from China translate the Traditional pictograms - dunno why they didn't use Simplified or Mandarin - and "Solar Panel" is described as "Sun Wing". That actually made sense from an aesthetic viewpoint :-)
Some of these have to be photoshopped. They were believable at first, but by the time they got to "destroy the evidence" for a gas pump I knew it had to be made up.
That's pretty funny, since the Chinese word for "tank" is based on the phonetic pronunciation of the English word. Just like the way the Chinese words for a lot of names and places originating (New York, Tom Cruise, etc) in other languages is based on the phonetic pronunciation of those words in the originating language.