English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Entirely Unknown

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Title: English as She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Entirely Unknown
Authors: Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino (Paul Collins, Ed.)
Publisher: McSweeny's Books
Year: 1855/2004
145 pages

If your favorite Monty Python sketch is "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" ("My hovercraft is full of eels"), you'll enjoy this English phrase book, written by a non-English-speaking fellow who used a Portuguese-French phrasebook and French-English dictionary to render what appear to be well-formed Portuguese sentences into inexplicable sentiments such as "He burns one's self the brains." Some of the errors make sense--they are literal translations of reflexive constructions, or homophones. Others defy easy explanation. While it may be true that "It must never to laugh of the unhappies," you may find this  a difficult dictum to which to adhere in the face of these translations. I especially enjoy the section presenting anecdotes which are all but incomprehensible in the telling. Laughing of the unhappies, however, may bring about the uneasy realization that your attempts to speak another language probably sound exactly like this phrasebook.

You can learn to say "My hovercraft is full of eels" in many tongues, including Esperanto, at http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/h

overcraft.htm