Pedro Carolino - Icon Profile | Alexandria
Pedro Carolino (fl. 1855) was a 19th-century Portuguese author most notably known for creating one of history's most peculiar language instruction books, "English as She Is Spoke" (originally titled "O Novo Guia da Conversação em Português e Inglês"). This remarkable work stands as perhaps the most famous example of unintentionally comical language translation in literary history.
First published in Paris in 1855, Carolino's guide emerged during an era of increasing international commerce and cultural exchange, when practical language manuals were in high demand. What distinguished Carolino's work, however, was his apparent attempt to create an English-Portuguese phrasebook without any actual knowledge of English. Working primarily from a Portuguese-French phrasebook and a French-English dictionary, Carolino produced translations that were technically systematic yet wildly incorrect, resulting in such memorable phrases as "The walls have ears" becoming "The walls are hears."
The book gained notoriety in the English-speaking world after Mark Twain wrote an introduction to an 1883 American edition, declaring it "supreme and unapproachable" in its "miraculous stupidities." Twain's endorsement transformed what might have remained an obscure linguistic curiosity into a celebrated artifact of inadvertent humor. The work contains such immortal phrases as "Take care to jump out the window" and "He has spit in my coat," demonstrating Carolino's profound misunderstanding of idiomatic expression.
Carolino's legacy extends beyond mere linguistic entertainment. His work serves as a cautionary tale about the complexities of language translation and the dangers of overconfidence in linguistic abilities. Modern scholars have studied "English as She Is Spoke" as an example of early machine translation failures and the importance of cultural context in language learning. The book's enduring appeal lies not just in its humor, but in its reminder that language is far more nuanced than simple word-for-word translation. Today, Carolino's name has become synonymous with well-intentioned but catastrophically misguided attempts at cross-cultural communication, raising intriguing questions about the nature of language acquisition and the role of cultural understanding in meaningful translation.