Archives for September, 2007

Slovenia was seriously flooded last week. Here are some of the haunting pictures that bloggers posted of the unfolding disaster:

—> Železniki took the brunt of the storm.
Pictures of the town two days after the flood.

—> Scenes of chaos and repair.
I find the last photo in the series particularly heartbreaking.

—> The tops of car roofs are barely visible.
Roughly 150 cars were swept away in Železniki alone.

—> The Franja Partisan Hospital is gone. It is no more.
An Italian blogger beautifully laments its loss here.

—> Two videos of the torrential flooding in action.
And also some information on donating.

Have a safe weekend!

From the beginning, Slovenia has not had enough translators in Brussels. This is still the case. And as anyone who has been here and seen brochures, tourist information, menus, or anything else in English knows, the country is missing skilled translators at home as well.

Here’s a nice example of how sloppy some translations turn out. These instructions are from an appliance bought at Bauhaus:

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

You don’t even have to speak Slovene to see that something is off here. “Manufactory service,” for example, isn’t something you’ll find in a Slovenian dictionary. And even anglophilic Ljubljanians wouldn’t say Prosim don’t sprememba to sam. (literally: please don’t change this alone, where the “don’t” is inexplicably left in English.)

All in all, these instructions are almost (but not quite) as awesome as The Ultimate Menu, which remains the undisputed champion of bad translating. Still, we’re gettin’ there.

(Thanks Miran!)

Slovenian Pop Songs, the first 40, featuring hits from 1962 to 1980.

Why didn’t the artist also draw a big green vein going down the ice cream cone?

And just in case you’re wondering: None of the 40 song titles on the album mention ice cream. So there’s no connection or anything. It’s just random Slovenian mayhem… but an absolutely stellar 20th entry.

The official logo of the Society for Slovene Studies.

Brian recently dropped me a line to tell me about the Society for Slovene Studies. They’re a non-profit organization with about 300 members whose mission is “fostering closer communication among scholars interested in Slovene studies.”

They’re apparently looking to drum up some new members; the annual fee is $20 ($5 for students) and includes a subscription to the Slovene Studies journal. I’ll probably join once I figure out an easy way to pay the fee. It seems like a good enough cause. For one thing, the group is looking for some support for a study center in Cleveland and the idea of them luring unsuspecting victims into learning Slovene appeals very much to my sadistic nature.

The SSS has lots of information (and some good resources) on their official page here.

Rail Map: Europe proudly presents: Slovania!

How do you pronounce Slovenia? I’ve always said Slo-VEEN-ia but regularly hear people (both English speakers and locals) saying Slo-VAIN-ia. The reasons vary. Natives will usually tell me that this more closely resembles the way it’s said in Slovene. I strongly suspect foreigners are subconsciously thinking of “Transylvania” and pronounce it accordingly.

It’s kind of a weird subject. I’ve actually had people (note the plural) get angry with my pronunciation. It’s odd.

Anyway, that just came to mind when I saw this mess of a map, which features the definitely-100%-wrong “Slovania.” The zoomed-in map fixes that mistake, but adds more in its place: displaying “Maribo” (macht Kinder froh?) instead of “Maribor,” not to mention a creative interpretation of where Ljubljana is. For that matter, Maribo, too, seems to have moved from the Austrian border to the Croatian one for no apparent reason.

But how would you pronounce Maribo? Mar-ee-bo? Or Mar-eye-bo?

Life is full of linguistic mysteries.

(Big thanks to Gary in Florida!)

—> Maribor graffiti just plain sucks.
Well, it certainly doesn’t beat any of these.

—> Prime Minister Janša has trouble saying the word “nuclear.”
Not unlike other world leaders you may know.

—> A naked blonde in front of Ljubljana University. (nsfw)
Enroll today… and get your learn on!

—> Camille has made the jump from New York to Radovljica.
What a crazy idea… Welcome to the chicken, Camille!

—> The Strojan Roma Family is now in its 11th Month of Exile
With many beautiful photos and an audio statement by Elka.

—> Leaving Drama behind.
A very symbolic picture.

Have a pleasant weekend!

The clip from Sicko that references Slovenia.

Michael Moore’s latest film, Sicko, opens in Slovenia today. It’s already garnered plenty of attention here thanks to the clip shown above.

A somewhat hapless journalist recently chatted with Michael Moore in Sarajevo about the film. PopTV has video of the interview here. Moore basically goofs off the whole time, but his reaction to a Bosnian reporter who interrupts the interview is especially funny.

(Thanks Mitja!)

Yes, Virginia, there is a stock exchange in Slovenia. [source]

The internet is crawling with scams but this has got to be the strangest one I’ve ever seen: Arin Greenwood, a graduate of Columbia Law School, got roped into doing financial research on Central European markets, including Slovenia, for two months before discovering she was being conned. She writes:

Most information about investing in, say, Slovenia, was not in English. I do not speak Slovenian. But I got up every day and answered the morning message sent out by an executive assistant—she’d e-mail and say, “This is your morning Roll Call!” and I’d reply “Good morning! I’m here!”—and then I’d spend eight or 10 or 12 hours on my computer trying to find out what a fixed-income investment opportunity is and how you’d know if Slovenia offered one.

Ten to twelve hours sounds pretty hardcore to me, especially since there do seem to be quite a few resources available: Slovenian Business Report, The Slovenia Times, The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, Slovenia Business Week, and Slovenia Partner to mention some.

For that matter, how long does it take to determine if Slovenia has a stock market? Just typing “Slovenia stock market” into Google settles that question in 0.27 seconds.

At any rate, the company promised her $28,000 (€20,000) for two months of work but then vanished into thin air on pay day. She writes that she suspected something was up but thought the work was too “ordinary” to be a scam. Greenwood:

OK, but still, I reasoned, let’s say it is a plan to cheat us: What’s the payoff? What would they do with all this research on Slovenia’s investment opportunities if this Web site weren’t for real? What could anyone do with all this work that would make it worth going through the trouble of cheating us?

I have to admit that this is pretty solid reasoning. I mean, cheating a group of 80 people to get information on how money markets work in Slovenia? It’s the worst scam in the history of scamming. The conclusion Greenwood comes to is certainly surprising and, ironically, very difficult to believe.

Read the whole article here: Wanted: Gullible Lawyers.

[via metafilter]

Forget about all those other (worthless) weather stones. Photo: Black Betty

Translation:

The sign is an almost exact copy of this one, except that the final line is different. (In the Slovenian version, the final line is also written in a heavy dialect, which is impossible to translate but adds to the humor.)

(Thanks Barbara! And thanks Black Betty!)

Behold the soccer stars of 1986/1987 Yugoslavia:

Click for original mega size.

See also:

* I Love Mullets
* Rate my Mullet
* Mullet (alias Bundesliga) at Wikipedia

(Thanks to the always-potentially-nsfw Pengovsky!)