diff --git a/apply.c b/apply.c
index 8bd0109fcc..45dcd645e6 100644
--- a/apply.c
+++ b/apply.c
@@ -414,9 +414,10 @@ static void say_patch_name(FILE *output, const char *fmt, struct patch *patch)
 
 static int read_patch_file(struct strbuf *sb, int fd)
 {
-	if (strbuf_read(sb, fd, 0) < 0 || sb->len >= MAX_APPLY_SIZE)
-		return error_errno("git apply: failed to read");
-
+	if (strbuf_read(sb, fd, 0) < 0)
+		return error_errno(_("failed to read patch"));
+	else if (sb->len >= MAX_APPLY_SIZE)
+		return error(_("patch too large"));
 	/*
 	 * Make sure that we have some slop in the buffer
 	 * so that we can do speculative "memcmp" etc, and
diff --git a/t/t4141-apply-too-large.sh b/t/t4141-apply-too-large.sh
index 58742d4fc5..20cc1209f6 100755
--- a/t/t4141-apply-too-large.sh
+++ b/t/t4141-apply-too-large.sh
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ test_expect_success EXPENSIVE 'git apply rejects patches that are too large' '
 		EOF
 		test-tool genzeros
 	} | test_copy_bytes $sz | test_must_fail git apply 2>err &&
-	grep "git apply: failed to read" err
+	grep "patch too large" err
 '
 
 test_done