My favourite is the mistranslation of semi-formal as "demi-habillé" (or half dressed). As a result, the Quebecois, in a good natured attempt to remind English speaking Canadians of the importance of translation, collectively came to the semi-formal event literally half dressed in a shirt or blouse and boxer shorts (other more "creative" Quebecer's choose which half to dress up). Now at all semi-formal events, they come continue to come "demi-habillé". The proper translation for semi-formal is "tenue de ville".
While these mistranslations were embarrassing, we weren't alone in a few other disastrous mistranslations of advertising slogans by public entities.
With the recent 2008 Olympic games in China, I was fairly happy with some of the Mandarin translations of foreign products including:
- Coca Cola translated in Chinese to "Delicious Happiness".
- BMW is translated in Mandarin as Bao Ma (literally "valuable horse"). It also doesn't hurt that "Bao Ma" is a useful phonetic equivalent of the slang "Beamer".
This is also the case with certain lucky numbers and images in Chinese culture. For instance, the word for the number 4 sounds an awful lot like death and is therefore associated with bad luck. The number 8 is prosperity associated with fortune. The traditional Chinese new year greeting "Gong hei fat choi" contains the word "fat" sounding like 8. Without an intimate knowledge of the language and context, Babelfish style translations (replacing words with literal translations and with a rudimentary understanding of grammar) are sure to run awry.
2 comments:
even having a NOTORIZED translation done doesn't necessarily mean it will be correct. I suppose the best way is to really understand the culture and the little idioms associated with any langugage in order to get it right.
i never understood why the Chinese has to translate BMW? I mean... its just three letters?? and its not like they don't know what B - M - and W sound like....
although, delicious happiness, or pocari sweat... really do sound like refreshing drinks.
I don't know if I'd call Pocari sweat "enticing"... That was actually one of my first English translation internet meme's my friend introduced me to. ;)
And that understanding the culture would be the key to getting it right, but you really need a local to get the translations correct.
There's always little things people do which give away their non-native background (or geographic preference): "Le weekend" (Quebec) versus "fin de semaine" (France) etc.
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