Since the subject of Engrish has been broached, here are another couple of examples of how using third party translations can go horribly wrong.

First, there is this Asian four-star restaurant, the English name of which is "Translate Server Error".

Then there is this road sign in Wales, the English text of which reads "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only". Unfortunately, the Welsh "translation" reads, in Welsh, "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

Yeah, I understand that. But why "apple"?!
Yes, we do that in Polish too: click

"Apple" and the various Germanic words related to it ("Apfel", "appel", "æble") all have proto-Germanic origins in various words meaning "fruit" or "harvest". We have some cases of it in German as well ("Erdapfel", another word for potato in German that literally means "earth apple", "Apfelsine", "Kienapfel").

A pineapple is so called because it is fruit and resembles a pine cone.

Oh, and ironically enough, the word "Kienapfel" above means "pine cone" but translates literally as "pine apple".

Edit: Just realised I put exactly the same as Wishbone there...

After all those years... finally I'm illuminated! Thanks man!

That's the same in French, by the way. Potato is "pomme de terre" which again means "earth apple" or "apple of the earth".

The Danish word for pomegranate is "Granatæble", which translates directly as "grenade apple".

"I will not to buy this record, it is scratched."

When I was younger I roughly spend an evening debating with an US-american that they should not have attacked Irak just because Hussein would have "eventually" attacked the USA... the word "eventually" sounds a lot like the german word for "maybe" or "possibly" and was thus mistaken to be that by me.

You could have just read the wikipedia entry... ;)

True, but I have more interesting stuff to do ;)

For me, it's the other way around, my mistake is what causes the other party yo get upset. Though i do choose words rather poorly in Polish too, so that might be the real culprit. Usually it's too late to correct it, so i don't mention it.

That's interesting. The closest word I've heard to 'ananas" in any language until now was "bananas" - I was under the impression that "pineapple", "pynappel", "peneapole", "painappuru", "uphayinaphu" and other variations were predominant.

Protip for spanish speakers:
If you've got a cold (constipado in Spanish) don't ask for some medicine by saying that you are constipated, it can lead to some unpleasant experience.

Oh, I believe you. I was just saying I'm surprised to see how out-of-the-loop I am :P

The best is the Afrikaans word for pineapple: "pynappel". Literally translated into English, it comes out as "pain apple", which seems remarkably appropriate.

Same here. :D