Yesterday I shared the bizarre news that Furiously Happy is a bestseller in China and then I asked if anyone could translate the billboards and posters advertising Furiously Happy and it was glorious.
PS. It feels only fair that the English part of the Chinese poster has a typo. Now I want this poster. It makes me Furiously Flappy.
Love always, the World’s Brightest Leopard
I always knew you were the world’s brightest leopard.
This is better than the time they had Rory as a stand in for Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Florribly wonderful you big, bright leopard you!
World domination acheieved! Next stop: MARS!
Well, better Furiously Flappy than Furiously Fappy.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s ‘glad dead’.
OMG. Too flunny. I still want an actual Chinese speaker to translate.
That is fantastic. How does one become the World’s Brightest Leopard? Can anyone get this honor? And does being the world’s brightest leopard counteract the fact that “daylight is dead”?
Those are awesome!
Does this mean we’re all bilingual now?
This post is florrible.
You’re flabulous!
Far better to be the World’s Brightest Leopard than slightly dim 😁
I want to be a bright leopard. Just a plain bright one. I don’t have to be the brightest!!
I’m trying to envision what the World’s Brightest Leopard trophy looks like. Is it leopard print with bling on it? Is it an actual leopard? Is it a leopard holding a light bulb? So many questions…
The Unicorn Success Club lead by the World’s Brightest Leopard!
That’s flerrible.
This kinda makes up for having to sit through the shit show that was the 7 and 8th grade A and A/B Honor Roll “ceremony” I just had to endure at my son’s middle school. 😀
Fluriously Flappy to have read books from Barno Nobles bookstore. Even though the dragon is in a deep trough, we still have our leader, the world’s brightest leopard.
On another subject, I saw a Bobcat road vehicle go by and I immediately thought of you. This bobcat was not as interesting as yours.
Most leopards are pretty damn bright, so this has to be quite an honor…
Who knew you were so happy to die?
so… these translations are awful. The death part is a modifier like saying “Im starving to death” when you are really hungry or “dying of laughter” A better translation would be “I’m so happy I could die.” My Chinese isnt good enough to help with the leopard part… but congrats!
Actually, the translation is “to death” as in “I’m excited to death” just as Americans use. Not good to purposely translate it wrong. 🙁
so… these translations are awful. The death part is a modifier like saying “Im starving to death” when you are really hungry or “dying of laughter” A better translation would be “I’m so happy I could die.” My Chinese isnt good enough to help with the leopard part… but congrats!
the Barno bookstore
I am so calling all bad th8ngs florrible things from now on.
There is no better gift than an exquisite gift, and this post definitely falls into that category, my Bright Leopard Friend.
I love florrible things !
Can I be the brightest tiger then. If not I’ll feel totally forribal and pie.
You are truly among the elite if you have been Japanglished, but in Chinese.
Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead – Leslie Sarony
https://youtu.be/NcAieB-2kC0
That’s a pretty florribly funny translation.
I’m seriously laughing out loud.
Fluck yeah!
I get “furiously flappy” too when something excites me and makes me happy — I’m autistic and the flapping is one of my ways of expression. If it’s super good, it’s bouncing and flapping at the same time. 🙂
I can’t speak for the rest, but the first line, “happy to die,” is a direct translation of a Chinese saying that literally means ”so happy I’m dead,” but is used to mean being extremely happy, or Furiously Happy.
Another part of your legacy to world, Jennie. I shall use Florrible regularly from now on. It would be good to have the exact definition, though. I am ready to die happy.
Am I the only one worried about the hive? Because “The hive is dead” sounds like something someone in a horror/sci-fi movie would say right before an alien pops out of his chest.
I’m try to pronounce “Florrible Things” with a Chinese accent … not going well.
Florible is the new horrible! 🙂
I’m actually the World’s Meerkat with the Most Average Intelligence, so knowing the World’s Brightest Leopard is quite an honor!
高兴死了 means “I’m so happy I could die.” (oxymorons are often hard to translate well)
人生低谷 is equivalent to “rock bottom,” so 我正在人生低谷 means “I’m at rock bottom.”
我现在 means “Right now, I…” so with the first one you get “Right now, I’m so happy I could die.”
全世界 means “worldwide”
最快乐的 means “happiest”
豹 means leopard (yeah, that’s fucked up. I would have expected them to have at least mis-identified that as a red panda, but whatevs)
抑郁 means “depression” and 症恚 means “symptoms” or “disorder;” together they would still mean “depression”
者 is a kind of modifier that serves the purpose of “-er” or “-or” like 作者 means “author” (note: 作 does not mean “write” – Chinese can be weird, but it can also be so crazy straightforward). So put together the whole thing means “a person (in this case red panda) with depressive disorder.”
And 出书了 means “came out with a book.”
Florrible things can be really horrible, I think…
This is incredible. I’m looking forward to more florrible translations. xD
Not sure the computer translation is correct. email me if you would like my Chinese translator to translate it accurately for you. Might not be as funny though.
LMAO!! That is the best book synopsis I’ve ever read!
Now, when I look at your picture, I can say that I’ve “spotted” the world’s brightest depressed leopard! slinks away in pun shame
I’m happy to die now!
Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Feel my skills donkey donkey donkey donkey
and
soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans! And pants to match.
(Re: Jimmy James: It was cheaper for him to have it translated into Japanese and back than to republish, and we got this glory of television)
Incredibly powerful win, Jenny!
豹 actually should be 的, which is not nearly as fun as leopard.
No matter how you translate it, it’s clear you’re a superstar (but we knew that already).
This is just the best. You have clearly advanced about 3 levels of awesomeness. And think of all the joy you will bring!
Whenever I really need a laugh and don’t know where else to find one I Google “FUNNY CHINESE SIGNS”. I highly recommend it. Do it. Now. You’re welcome.
i feel like it’s not that you are the world’s brightest leopard, but that you are the worlds’s brightest sufferer of leopard depression.
OHHH this is inspiring. Somehow I have to figure out how to either be happy furiously leopard dead published or something even better.
Just listening to you read Let’s Pretend again and it got me through the grocery store without wanting to scream and made me laugh like a hyena in the car on my commute. I can’t wait to see the bright leopards everyone is inspired to make/draw/bedazzle 🙂
This is just….indescribably fantastic.
This is great.
Sadly the “leopard” bit is an error made by the visual recognition capture of the word “的”, which actually signifies possession by the noun directly before it, “世界, which mean” world” so the “leopard” sentence more or less says “The world’s happiest person with depression has published a book.”
I feel like “Glad Dead” by the World’s Brightest Leopard deserves immortality in a mug… I so want a headband adorned Rory with my morning beverage.
Jenny, you’re taking over the world like Pinky and the Brain!
Well done JENNY! You are the brightest leopard!
These are hilarious!
Shine on, (brightest) leopard.
A number 1 seller at ‘Barno’. You’ve got that going for you. #Brandingfail
I’m reminded of The Chevy Nova, a highly amusing name to Spanish-speakers as “No Va” means “Won’t Go.”
I’m sure someone above as already posted that Coca-Cola was said to translate to “Bite the Wax Tadpole” a name that didn’t dent overseas sales. You’ll have to get Neehti out on the scrounge for translations to the title of your book-in-progress.
PS Looking at your Twitter feed on crisis hotlines- I wanted to chime in that RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network) was wonderful to me after I was assaulted, in quite a bit of pain and feeling my life was over. They are 24/7, reachable at 800-656-4673 and can even text-chat at rainn.org. English and Spanish.
Jenny, as you point out in your Twitter stream, if a person does get a mismatch with a hotline, it is not their fault and is NOT a sign that help isn’t available. Take in a breath and call again.
After police and so many others who should have helped me, did not, the RAINN worker said she’d call me back to follow up on local leads she’d given me. I burst into tears when she was as good as her word.
If you are reading this and fortunate enough to be in a position to support this organization with a donation, please do.
These are, at once, the funniest, uplifting, and depressing taglines I’ve ever read. And I didn’t know I needed that in my life today…but here we are.
I am trying (unsuccessfully) to construct a joke that blends ‘furiously flappy’ and a recent post referring to being suffocated by your front meat. I will leave it to you.
I’m still stuck on the lovely Lady Garden they constructed in one of the book displays. It was flucking flantastic. https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/its-alive/
This is so flunny!
Okay so…Does this indicate how poorly the book itself was translated? Or is the text in English? Hmmm.
Leopard leopard shining bright…
…in the darkness of the night.
What infernal hand or eye
Could frame thy florrible symmetry?
J wins the internet.
(Today’s more alert brain chastises me for misquoting with “shining” instead of “burning”. Let’s pretend I was making a reference to “The Shining.” Yeah. Right. 😉 )
Flowery + Horrible = Florrible
I am so proud to call you a cat sister, Bright Leopard. (In South Africa we have a well known photographer called Dook. Perhaps it was him who sent the pictures.) I totally love your being and thank you for every day you shine among us, Bright Leopard Lawson, even when you feel darkness within and cannot see your own loveliness of heart and mind. Xxxxxxx
I was so excited to see that you used MY Twitter picture in your post. Thank you.
Next, I currently live in China and have seen TONS of crazy mistranslations. They seem so bizarre because of how radically different the Chinese language functions from English. A Chinese sentence has no spaces between words (characters) and many of their words are a combination of two or three of their characters. For example, the word American is ‘meiguoren’ (美国人).
Separately, each of those characters mean something else entirely.
美 – “mei’ = beautiful
国 – ‘guo’ = country
人 – ‘ren’ = person
Together, they mean American. Read separately, they say ‘beautiful country person’. However, a Chinese person would NEVER see this as beautiful country person. They would recognize it as one word.
To a person just learning Chinese (or a computer), it is far too easy to look at each character individually rather than in the proper groups since the Chinese don’t use spaces to tell you were the different words are. Another common mistake is to group the characters incorrectly which would also produce insane sentences.
So, while many of these translations seem insane (they are), hopefully, you are comforted in knowing that a person who ACTUALLY reads Chinese will understand it very well.
Other fun ones:
河马 – ‘Hémǎ’ = hippopotomus
河 – river 马 – horse
太太 – ‘tai tai’ = wife
太 by itself means “too much”, but 太太 means wife
电影 – Diànyǐng = movie
电 – electric 影 – shadow
So, you can see why this could easily be confusing for even a smart computer
These translations are florribly exquisite.
I actually think it’s a perfect translation of your book title 🙂 By way of explanation, Chinese uses “to death” as a common way to add emphasis to an adjective. In English we say “starving” to mean “very hungry” which is basically the same as saying “I’m hungry to death”. Chinese just uses this much more liberally. You can be angry to death, scared to death, cute to death, or, as in this case, happy to death. I think it’s a great way to translate the veryveryvery sense of “furiously” as an adjective.
I just discovered Jenny Lawson and spent two days wondering what “World’s brightest leopard” from the Wikipedia page meant. Found it :))
This is about women’s pockets. Or lack there of.
https://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei/videos/230076730940793/
“The happiest depressed person in the world”. Yeah…. I think that about sums it up😂