user:goolgenerade is a wiki contributor who wants to help translate things from japanese into english. unfortunately for him, his grasp of the english language, wiki policy, and basic etiquette are all abysmal. unfortunately for everyone else, he's been an active editor for two years and has left his nonsense all over the wiki. here i will share my favorite examples of his "translations", starting with the classics:
doors o' plenty
original text: "たのしい わがやへ ようこそ！ なきわめいても だれも たすけにこないよ！"
goolgenerade's translation: "Welcome to my home sweet home! No one'll help u if sad!"
my translation: "Welcome to my fun home! Even if you throw a tantrum, nobody will come to help you!"
one day, i was innocently browsing the super mario wiki and stumbled across the sentence "no one'll help u if sad". it made me laugh so hard i was in physical pain. i immediately had to look through the editor's contribution history to see if he had contributed anything else this beautiful, which he had
bombarded by bob-ombs
original: "おまえたち 今日（きょう）のえものは マリオはんやで 派手（はで）におむかえするんや！"
gool: "Guys, ur today's target is "Da Mario". Welcome with bibbangs."
me: "Today, your prey is Mr. Mario. Receive him flashily."
now to be fair, this is pretty hard to translate. i'm not totally satisfied with the way i translated it either. i thought about making the second sentence something like "let's give 'em a show", but i thought that might be taking too many liberties. all that aside, what? the fuck?? is a bibbang???
actually, we can look through the page history to find out what a bibbang is: goolgenerade originally wrote "big bangs", but then changed it to that nonsense word to "express Kansai Dialect". apparently, in kansai, people regularly sprinkle meaningless words that they invented on the spot into the things they say. who knew?
kakushi koopa jō
original: "オレサマの かくし部屋（べや）のお宝（たから）！ おまえにはぜったい わたさん！！"
gool: "Treasure in a hidden chamber! Want it? OH, HELL NO!!"
me: "The treasure of my hidden room! I absolutely won't hand it over to you!!"
there are so many beautiful things about this that it's hard to pick a favorite. the ridiculous image of bowser saying "HELL NO". the fact that what gool wrote has virtually no relationship to the original text. the edit where he decided bowser should be british
but i think the best thing is that when some innocent person came through and changed the translation to something that was halfway accurate to the japanese text, goolgenerade reverted their edit with the comment "Well this is more accurate."
professor elvin gadd
original: "オヤ・マー博士"
gool: "Dr. O.M.G."
the thing about this one is that "professor e. gadd" is a really good translation of his japanese name, "oya maa hakase". "egads!" is an expression of shock in english, just like "oyamaa!" is an expression of shock in japanese
"dr. o.m.g." is also a translation of his japanese name, but it's completely superfluous because the wiki already had an explanation of why his japanese name is what it is. then again, we can at least be grateful that he left that explanation in place. usually when the wiki has a prexisting translation of something, he outright deletes it so that his nonsense is all that readers see
storm chasers
original: "あめふりパックン"
gool: "Pirainha"
me: "Rainfall Piranha Plant"
"あめふり" means rainfall. "パックン" means piranha plant. two very simple words in a row, nothing particularly groundbreaking going on here. and yet somehow, he manages to translate them into the ridiculous portmanteau word "pirainha". what??
i think one of gool's major problems is that he wants to be a localiser, not a translator. i mean, don't get me wrong. he wouldn't make a good localiser either. but whereas "pirainha" is absolutely horrible if you consider it a translation, it's merely mediocre if you think of it as a localisation. i would give it a "C-", for "that was pathetic, but at least you tried"
another funny thing about this one is that he got into an edit war about it. originally someone added the almost correct translation "rainy piranha" to the article. then gool swung by and changed it to the incorrect "rain and piranha". a few months later some person called kahran042 came and changed it to the correct "rainfall piranha". this apparently pissed gool off, because he immediately changed it back with the comment "Fixed WEIRD Japanese translation.". even funnier is the fact that this reversion was part of some kind of campaign he engaged in to revert a whole bunch of kahran042's (correct) translations back to his own (wildly incorrect) versions. my favorite part is when he decided to insult kahran042 in the comments of an article kahran042 had never even edited
so ok that turned into a much longer post than i expected, and i've only talked about like five "translations". maybe if people think these are enjoyable i'll do some more later. you could also just look through his edit history yourself, though. a lot of the things he writes are so blatantly wrong that you don't really even need to be able to speak japanese to find them. do share if you find anything good
doors o' plenty
original text: "たのしい わがやへ ようこそ！ なきわめいても だれも たすけにこないよ！"
goolgenerade's translation: "Welcome to my home sweet home! No one'll help u if sad!"
my translation: "Welcome to my fun home! Even if you throw a tantrum, nobody will come to help you!"
one day, i was innocently browsing the super mario wiki and stumbled across the sentence "no one'll help u if sad". it made me laugh so hard i was in physical pain. i immediately had to look through the editor's contribution history to see if he had contributed anything else this beautiful, which he had
bombarded by bob-ombs
original: "おまえたち 今日（きょう）のえものは マリオはんやで 派手（はで）におむかえするんや！"
gool: "Guys, ur today's target is "Da Mario". Welcome with bibbangs."
me: "Today, your prey is Mr. Mario. Receive him flashily."
now to be fair, this is pretty hard to translate. i'm not totally satisfied with the way i translated it either. i thought about making the second sentence something like "let's give 'em a show", but i thought that might be taking too many liberties. all that aside, what? the fuck?? is a bibbang???
actually, we can look through the page history to find out what a bibbang is: goolgenerade originally wrote "big bangs", but then changed it to that nonsense word to "express Kansai Dialect". apparently, in kansai, people regularly sprinkle meaningless words that they invented on the spot into the things they say. who knew?
kakushi koopa jō
original: "オレサマの かくし部屋（べや）のお宝（たから）！ おまえにはぜったい わたさん！！"
gool: "Treasure in a hidden chamber! Want it? OH, HELL NO!!"
me: "The treasure of my hidden room! I absolutely won't hand it over to you!!"
there are so many beautiful things about this that it's hard to pick a favorite. the ridiculous image of bowser saying "HELL NO". the fact that what gool wrote has virtually no relationship to the original text. the edit where he decided bowser should be british
but i think the best thing is that when some innocent person came through and changed the translation to something that was halfway accurate to the japanese text, goolgenerade reverted their edit with the comment "Well this is more accurate."
professor elvin gadd
original: "オヤ・マー博士"
gool: "Dr. O.M.G."
the thing about this one is that "professor e. gadd" is a really good translation of his japanese name, "oya maa hakase". "egads!" is an expression of shock in english, just like "oyamaa!" is an expression of shock in japanese
"dr. o.m.g." is also a translation of his japanese name, but it's completely superfluous because the wiki already had an explanation of why his japanese name is what it is. then again, we can at least be grateful that he left that explanation in place. usually when the wiki has a prexisting translation of something, he outright deletes it so that his nonsense is all that readers see
storm chasers
original: "あめふりパックン"
gool: "Pirainha"
me: "Rainfall Piranha Plant"
"あめふり" means rainfall. "パックン" means piranha plant. two very simple words in a row, nothing particularly groundbreaking going on here. and yet somehow, he manages to translate them into the ridiculous portmanteau word "pirainha". what??
i think one of gool's major problems is that he wants to be a localiser, not a translator. i mean, don't get me wrong. he wouldn't make a good localiser either. but whereas "pirainha" is absolutely horrible if you consider it a translation, it's merely mediocre if you think of it as a localisation. i would give it a "C-", for "that was pathetic, but at least you tried"
another funny thing about this one is that he got into an edit war about it. originally someone added the almost correct translation "rainy piranha" to the article. then gool swung by and changed it to the incorrect "rain and piranha". a few months later some person called kahran042 came and changed it to the correct "rainfall piranha". this apparently pissed gool off, because he immediately changed it back with the comment "Fixed WEIRD Japanese translation.". even funnier is the fact that this reversion was part of some kind of campaign he engaged in to revert a whole bunch of kahran042's (correct) translations back to his own (wildly incorrect) versions. my favorite part is when he decided to insult kahran042 in the comments of an article kahran042 had never even edited
so ok that turned into a much longer post than i expected, and i've only talked about like five "translations". maybe if people think these are enjoyable i'll do some more later. you could also just look through his edit history yourself, though. a lot of the things he writes are so blatantly wrong that you don't really even need to be able to speak japanese to find them. do share if you find anything good
