Translation bloopers
English World Cup fans in Germany
Two English World Cup fans recently visited Cologne to watch England play Sweden. They parked their vehicle in a street where they noted the street sign said ‘Einbahnstrasse’. After the match, they could not find their car and discovered, to their horror, that every second street in Cologne has an ‘Einbahnstrasse’ sign. A friendly policeman told them that in German this means ‘one-way street’! Several hours later they finally found their car.
Machine translation software
As an amusing aside, these translations demonstrate the possible dangers of using machine translation software:
- ‘Queen-size bed’ was machine-translated into French on a website as ‘lit aux dimensions de la reine’, which means ‘bed the size of the Queen’.
- Machine translation software also produced this ‘uncomfortable’-sounding translation for the Tehao Rechargeable Shaver RCCW-320: ‘Smuggle the razor blade (reference value 400g) on your muscle vertically. Then drag your skin and shave back slowly.’
Mix-ups
Unless the translator is a native speaker of the target language, literal ‘gaffes’ are inevitable.
These store signs show how the English language can be tortured into humorous examples:
- ‘Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin’ – Scandinavia
- ‘The manager has personally passed all water here’ – Acapulco restaurant, Mexico
- In Copenhagen, an airline promised to ‘take your bags and send them in all directions’
- From a low-budget Romanian translator: ‘The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time, we regret you will be unbearable.’
- Greek tailor’s promise: ‘In a big rush, we will execute customers in strict rotation’
Babelfish
A food-related website translated by the Babelfish online translation service produced the baffling instruction in French/German/Spanish that you should bake the cake ‘jusqu’à la société au milieu/bis Unternehmen in der Mitte/hasta la firma en contro’ (= until company in the middle). It takes some lateral thinking to realise that it is actually telling you to bake until ‘firm’ in the middle. The free translations had the effect of generating some indignant feedback from native speakers of the languages concerned, little new overseas business, and a tasteless automatic back-translation from German with such gems as ‘To form super+simple! Deeply in the fat, strongly in the taste!’ Machine translation has its uses, but they do not include translation of high-profile websites or creative promotional material.
The U.S. Dairy Association
The U.S. Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign ‘Got Milk?’ prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention that the Spanish translation of ‘Got Milk?’ read ‘Are you lactating?’
Moscow hotel
On the door of a Moscow Hotel, a sign read: ‘If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.’
Cyclists dismount
According to a BBC report, bike riders in Wales were left confused by a bilingual road sign referring to problems with an inflamed bladder. The ‘CYCLISTS DISMOUNT’ sign between Penarth and Cardiff became ‘LLID Y BLEDREN DYMCHWELYD’ in Welsh – literally ‘bladder inflammation upset’. It is believed that an online translation led to a confusion between cyclists and cystitis.
Honda Jazz
Honda introduced their new car ‘Fitta’ into Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to do some cross-cultural marketing research, they would have found that ‘Fitta’ was an old word now used in vulgar language to refer to genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it Honda Jazz.
More famous translation errors
Chinese
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coca-Cola company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means ‘bite the wax tadpole’ or ‘female horse stuffed with wax’, depending on the dialect. Coca-Cola then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as ‘happiness in the mouth’.
Japanese
A warning to motorists in Tokyo: ‘When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.’
Spanish
Chicken-man Frank Perdue’s slogan, ‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken’, got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained ‘It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.’
In a Tokyo hotel
‘Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis.’
In a Bangkok temple
‘It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.’
In a Swiss restaurant
‘Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.’
In a Czech tourist agency
‘Take one of our horse driven city tours – we guarantee no miscarriages.’
In a Moscow hotel lobby
‘You are welcome to visit the Cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.’
Back to previous page >
Get in touch
Our office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
New Zealand time (8:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. GMT).
Please don’t hesitate to call us. We’ll be delighted to help you.
Call us on 04 801 4814 for a free quote.
Fax: + 64 4 384 8554
E-mail: sales@nztcinternational.com
Copyright © NZTC International