Off topic: They really botched things up big time! Thread poster: Vincent Lemma
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Hello all,
I came across this article on Yahoo (ok Yahoo is not the echelon of journalism, but this seemed fair) on translation blunders.
Though that it could gather some interest h... See more Hello all,
I came across this article on Yahoo (ok Yahoo is not the echelon of journalism, but this seemed fair) on translation blunders.
Though that it could gather some interest here.
Link is:
http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/9-little-translation-mistakes-that-caused-big-problems-194944285.html?page=all
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9 little translation mistakes that caused big problems
The importance of good translation is most obvious when things go wrong. Here are nine examples from the book that show just how high-stakes the job of translation can be.
1. The seventy-one-million-dollar word
In 1980, 18-year-old Willie Ramirez was admitted to a Florida hospital in a comatose state. His friends and family tried to describe his condition to the paramedics and doctors who treated him, but they only spoke Spanish. Translation was provided by a bilingual staff member who translated "intoxicado" as "intoxicated." A professional interpreter would have known that "intoxicado" is closer to "poisoned" and doesn't carry the same connotations of drug or alcohol use that "intoxicated" does. Ramirez's family believed he was suffering from food poisoning. He was actually suffering from an intracerebral hemorrhage, but the doctors proceeded as if he were suffering from an intentional drug overdose, which can lead to some of the symptoms he displayed. Because of the delay in treatment, Ramirez was left quadriplegic. He received a malpractice settlement of $71 million.
2. Chocolates for him
(Photo: monika.monika / Flickr)
In the 50s, when chocolate companies began encouraging people to celebrate Valentine's Day in Japan, a mistranslation from one company gave people the idea that it was customary for women to give chocolate to men on the holiday. And that's what they do to this day. On Feb. 14, the women of Japan shower their men with chocolate hearts and truffles, and on March 14 the men return the favor. An all-around win for the chocolate companies!
3. Do nothing
In 2009, HSBC bank had to launch a $10 million rebranding campaign to repair the damage done when its catchphrase "Assume Nothing" was mistranslated as "Do Nothing" in various countries.
4. Markets tumble
A panic in the world's foreign exchange market in 2005 led the U.S. dollar to plunge in value after a poor English translation of an article by Guan Xiangdong of the China News Service zoomed around the Internet. The original article was a casual, speculative overview of some financial reports, but the English translation sounded much more authoritative and concrete.
5. Your lusts for the future
When President Carter traveled to Poland in 1977, the State Department hired a Russian interpreter who knew Polish, but was not used to interpreting professionally in that language. Through the interpreter, Carter ended up saying things in Polish like "when I abandoned the United States" (for "when I left the United States") and "your lusts for the future" (for "your desires for the future"), mistakes that the media in both countries very much enjoyed.
6. We will bury you
At the height of the cold war, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech in which he uttered a phrase that interpreted from Russian as "we will bury you." It was taken as chilling threat to bury the U.S. with a nuclear attack and escalated the tension between the U.S. and Russia. However, the translation was a bit too literal. The sense of the Russian phrase was more that "we will live to see you buried" or "we will outlast you." Still not exactly friendly, but not quite so threatening.
7. What's that on Moses's head?
St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, studied Hebrew so he could translate the Old Testament into Latin from the original, instead of from the third century Greek version that everyone else had used. The resulting Latin version, which became the basis for hundreds of subsequent translations, contained a famous mistake. When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai his head has "radiance" or, in Hebrew, "karan." But Hebrew is written without the vowels, and St. Jerome had read "karan" as "keren," or "horned." From this error came centuries of paintings and sculptures of Moses with horns and the odd offensive stereotype of the horned Jew.
8. You must defeat Sheng Long
In the Japanese video game “Street Fighter II” a character says, "if you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win!" When this was translated from Japanese into English, the characters for "rising dragon" were interpreted as "Sheng Long." The same characters can have different readings in Japanese, and the translator, working on a list of phrases and unaware of the context, thought a new person was being introduced to the game. Gamers went crazy trying to figure out who this Sheng Long was and how they could defeat him. In 1992, as an April Fools’ Day joke, Electronic Gaming Monthly published elaborate and difficult-to-execute instructions for how to find Sheng Long. It wasn't revealed as a hoax until that December, after countless hours had no doubt been wasted.
9. Trouble at Waitangi
In 1840, the British government made a deal with the Maori chiefs in New Zealand. The Maori wanted protection from marauding convicts, sailors, and traders running roughshod through their villages, and the British wanted to expand their colonial holdings. The Treaty of Waitangi was drawn up and both sides signed it. But they were signing different documents. In the English version, the Maori were to "cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty." In the Maori translation, composed by a British missionary, they were not to give up sovereignty, but governance. They thought they were getting a legal system, but keeping their right to rule themselves. That's not how it turned out, and generations later the issues around the meaning of this treaty are still being worked out. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks for Sharing | Feb 15, 2013 |
Hi Vincent,
Here's one I like very much too, not really a mistranslation but definitely a misunderstanding. When Cook landed in Australia, he asked an aborigine what the name of the native hopping animal was and the reply was kangaroo which means "I don't know" or "I don't understand".
| | | | Vincent Lemma 
Italy
Local time: 04:23
Italian to English
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TOPIC STARTER | I heard of that | Feb 15, 2013 |
I actually heard of that from an Aborigine while I was in Australia Very funny
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 05:24
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Moses with horns | Feb 16, 2013 |
Even Michelangelo depicted Moses still with horns in the famous sculpture.
Was it during his discussion with Nixon on the agricultural fair that Khrushchev said this about "burying you"? The video is on Youtube.
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| Reality is harsh | Feb 16, 2013 |
According to the Wikipedia article on kangaroos, the "I don't understand you" story is false. Bummer.
| | | | Jack Doughty
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:24
Russian to English
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In memoriam | Another serious botch-up | Feb 16, 2013 |
From today's 'Daily Telegraph':
The risks of Google in Polish
A Polish worker was seriously injured in a dumper truck accident after following safety instructions that had been translated into "gibberish" using Google.
Grzegorz Krzyzak, 32, who speaks pidgin English, was using a one-ton articulated dumper truck to remove soil at a nursery and garden centre near Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex. As he was tipping a load, the truck overturned and crushed his ri... See more From today's 'Daily Telegraph':
The risks of Google in Polish
A Polish worker was seriously injured in a dumper truck accident after following safety instructions that had been translated into "gibberish" using Google.
Grzegorz Krzyzak, 32, who speaks pidgin English, was using a one-ton articulated dumper truck to remove soil at a nursery and garden centre near Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex. As he was tipping a load, the truck overturned and crushed his right leg.
Parker's Nurseries was convicted of breaching health and safety laws and fined GBP5,000 after bosses at the firm converted instructions and health and safety manuals using Google Translate, the search engine's free translation service. The Polish that resulted was gibberish, Colchester magistrates' court heard.
The Pole sustained multiple fractures to his shinbone and foot and required four operations. Doctors inserted pins to help repair the bones and gave him a skin graft but it is not known whether he will regain full use of his leg.
Geoff Parker, director of Parker's Nurseries, said the firm now had an external translator to translate health and safety documents. He added: "We are obviously very sorry that an employee was injured in our workplace". ▲ Collapse
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