Final Word from Wednesday, July 2, 2003
SARS arrival cards, with their bad translation, won't help Czechs wanting to practice their English, but for this they have Dilbert. Every day Hospodářské noviny publishes the successful business cartoon in English with a Czech translation. Dilbert's English isn't the easiest to understand, and HN's brilliant translations often explain a word or phrase that stump even some native speakers. HN, for example, renders "Who's your daddy?" as Kdo umí, ten umí! ("I know my stuff.") Readers also learn how to say such things as "retention bonus" (věrnostní prémie), "bone-headed mistake" (hloupá chyba), and "do a sanity check" (zkontrolovat smysluplnost). Only once have we caught an error in HN's translations (yesterday, as luck would have it). MFD also prints Dilbert each day , but only in Czech translation. For a quick daily English (or Czech) lesson, HN's version is hard to beat.