Watching an old QI last night, and one of the contributors came up with a great illustration of the pitfalls of translation. Apparently Rabbie Burns’s “Address to a Haggis” – the one that begins:

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!”

…had been translated into German, and then back again, by which time the second line had become:

“Mighty Führer of the sausage people!”