Recent product design awards at International Forum Design have featured a new Chinese electronic smartphone. The launch video for the product is rather interesting linguistically.

The English translation of the Chinese features some mind-bending concepts…

• Simplicity is hidden complexity
• The essence of flat is super curved
• Uncomfortable is the new comfortable
• Right is right
• Left is also right
• No detail can be too detailed

And the “Star Wars”-style voiceover is the icing on the cake.

A more serious analysis of the Chinese-English translation can be found here (just a little hiccup in the title where the product is stated as a watch rather than a smartphone).

.

Credit: Thanks to the great blog Language Log for bringing this to my attention.