When Subtitling Goes Wrong

Subtitling is another area of the translation profession that is very publicly humiliated when done badly. I know that subtitles are sometimes machine translated, but, really? Can't someone proofread them? On the other hand, there is a lot of enjoyment to be gleaned from fabulous screen shots with poorly translated captions, so read them and (try not to) weep.

I don't know if I could have phrased it any more descriptively...

In the form of APARTMENTS?! No! What an entrepreneurial bastard!

Hmmm...wonder why the translator didn't just translate that word, then?

No comment...

Tatwos

Even Tattoo Clients Need Translators...

...And Proofreaders

Touch Woody

I have heard this story in countless language classes and professional lectures, and I am sure you have, too: Chevrolet made a major marketing and translation misstep when they released the Nova in Latin America because of the irony of naming a vehicle "no va" or "doesn't run/go." The veracity of this popular and humorous story has been often called in to question, and Gerald Erichsen's argument on About.com that it is just a tall tale is very convincing. Aside from the nitty gritty of fact verification, though, the point behind the story is painfully important. So, I like to think of the Nova story as more of a fable for language translators, except instead of a tortoise and a hare and the moral of "slow and steady wins the race," we have a car and a corporation and the moral "you can't freaking be careful enough with language that is translated or used in different cultural and linguistic settings!" On that note, for your reading pleasure, please enjoy the collection of translation fables that follow and message me if you have one to add!

• 
  
•  You know about IKEA'S popular and inexpensive furniture with very Swedish names that are often a challenge for English speakers, right? How do you feel about buying the FARTFULL work bench (it even has space under the seat!)
• (Copied from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/06/60minutes/main239219.shtml) 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace, known for his tough interviewing style, drew a sharp rebut from Boris Yeltsin - thanks to a translator's error. The confusion arose when Wallace asked Yeltsin if he had a "thin skin" when it came to public criticism, but the translation had Wallace describing Yeltsin as a "thick-skinned hippopotamus." Yeltsin was not amused."An experienced journalist like yourself," Yeltsin said, "should express himself in a more civilized fashion. But this may be the translator's fault, and if so, he is the hippopotamus!" (Note from Alayne: Actually, it sounds like this was an interpreter's mistake, not a translator's mistake.)
•  A Swedish company named Locum sent out some cards a number of years back. To be cute, they replaced the "o" in their name with a heart.Think about it.Yeah, oooops!
• Are you in the market for a body bag? Hopefully not in the USA. But if you were in Germany you might look for one since that is what some Germans refer to a one-strapped backpack as!
• Also in Germany, the word "mist" means manure. How do you think the products "Mist Stick" (a hair product) and "Irish Mist" (a beverage) went over in that market?!
• I saved the best for last. Have you heard the one about Panasonic's touchscreen product launches? They secured the star Woody Woodpecker for their campaign and their slogan was: "Touch Woody - The Internet Pecker." WOW!
  

ZOMBIE NOUNS!

Helen Sword wrote about zombie nouns as an op ed in the New York Times last summer, and I have been thinking about them more and more often as I notice examples cropping up all over the place. The problem with living dead verbiage, or nominalizations, is the pomposity of the presumption to ply readers with an excessiveness of wordiness. Did you get that? Probably not. It's a lot easier and more direct to just say that zombie nouns make sentences unnecessarily wordy and pompous. If you haven't already caught on from my example above, a nominalization is the creation of a noun by fusing a noun ending (like -ism, -ity, or -ness) onto a verb or an adjective. The irony is that the name nominalization is in itself a zombie noun, isn't it?! Here is Ms. Sword's definition: "Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them “zombie nouns” because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings." Wonderful!

This is your warning to steer clear of the zombies and viva active verbs! Or, if you like the living dead, join the comment conversation below to make a few new blood-sucking zombies...

Mosey On Home

You always say walk. Why not use stroll, amble, wander, meander, mosey, march, trudge, saunter, or stride? English is pretty wonderful in its richness and nuance. Do you appreciate the fact that we can differentiate between walking confidently and walking with a purpose without using a single adjective?! I do. Spanish offers us several options as well; for example, you can caminar, patear, recorrer, pasear, or marchar. Today I challenge you refresh and broaden the range of words you employ. Let's ditch our habitual words and phrases and challenge our brains and tongues. Add some synonyms to my list in either English or Spanish...or get a new one going!

Cake-tastrophe!

    As you know, yesterday I wrote about people using poor spelling in their routine on- and off-line correspondence and on their social spaces like Facebook and Twitter. It made me remember a book I saw years ago at a friend's house called Cake Wrecks, which you can check out here. The author is Jen Yates, and I found her blog, Cake Wrecks, which is just as hilarious and pithy as that book I flipped through. 

     Translation often involves working in conjunction with transcribers, and I have often found myself in the position of having to interpret what a transcriber has written due to spelling or other mistakes that happen in the process of transcribing. These cakes are a really funny testament to the cake decorator's role as a part-decorator, part-transcriber (all courtesy of cakewrecks.com). I only wish that these bakeries had had a translator or an editor to catch their terrible transcriptions and spelling and punctuation mishaps!

Dose spilling rilly mater?

Poor grammar and spelling mistakes are two things that I am apt to notice right off the bat. Even my fiancé, who isn't nearly as nit-picky or sensitive to language variation as I am, complains rather frequently about how often he encounters spelling errors in his day-to-day business and personal correspondence. Why is this? Have we gotten so lazy about communication and taken our casual  channels of communication, like email, twitter, Facebook, and IM, to such an extreme that we don't even care if our language is correct as long as it is communicative.
     Most of us have seen this well-circulated example of how our brains can comprehend a passage even if every word is spelled incorrectly: "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
     It is an interesting cognitive ability, yet when we refer to it in terms of the importance of spelling, you must take into account the many years of schooling we have all had to get to where we are now. If we didn't already have a solid knowledge of spelling, would we still be able to comprehend the passage above? If we all forsake spelling rules and begin writing carelessly, will our English still be the same language in a few generations?
      I read an article today on FinancialTimes.com called If You Want a Job, Learn Your It's and Its. It's an extremely interesting article that I'd suggest you read. The author, Michael Skapinker, quotes several employers who claim that they would not hire someone who made spelling errors such as confusing "it's" with "its" or "they're" for "there" or "their." These employers are skeptical about such a person's ability to pay attention to details on other tasks, as well as the cause of their inability to straighten these problems out in the twenty plus years prior to seeking work at the companies in question.
     As a translator, I am a writer and a lover of language, so spelling errors often feel like garlic to my inner writer vampire. Maybe we can raise awareness and help some people correct their "your" and "you're" usage! Okay, probably not, but at least we can laugh! Besides the few examples I mentioned here, what are some of the other most frustratingly common spelling mistakes (in English or Spanish) that you see around? Comment below and let's get a conversation and a good laugh going!

Bad Chistes

 I know you think you are too good for these bilingual bombers, but I also know that you are laughing inside.

¿Por qué el mar es azul? Porque los peces hacen blue blue blue.
¿Por qué los cocodrilos son alargados, verdes y grandes? Porque si fueran redondos, rojos y pequeños serian tomates. 
¿Por qué un libro de matemáticas se quiere suicidar? Porque tiene muchos problemas.
¿Por qué los peces no van a la escuela? Porque se les mojarían los libros.

What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall? “Damn.”
What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho Cheese.
What do you call Santa’s helpers? Subordinate Clauses.
What do you call four bull fighters in quicksand? Quatro sinko.
What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled milk.
What’s the difference between roast beef and pea soup? Anyone can roast beef.

Tootle Him With Vigor

Badly translated materials. They abound. And, of course, grammatical and lexical errors are hardly limited to translators; just the other day at a gas station I paid by debit card at the pump and there was a sign posted that I should push the green button if I wanted to "except" the transaction. Sigh. Well, let's just enjoy them, then, shall we? Here's a list of some infamous and hilarious translations.I hope you tootle with vigor today!

 The 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 read "Are you lactating?"

      In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

      In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

     In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages.

     In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk."

     Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

       

     Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

     In a Tokyo bar: "Special today for the ladies with nuts."

    

     In a Rhodes tailor shop: "Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation."

       Puffs tissues tried to introduce its product in German only to learn that "Puff" in German is a colloquial term for a whorehouse.

     Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: "Would you like to ride your own ass?"

     In a Rome laundry: "Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time."

     A hotel notice in Madrid: If You Wish Disinfection Enacted In Your Presence, Please Cry Out For The Chambermaid

      An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).

       Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

      The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

      When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"

     In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

      The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty".

      Ford had a problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company discovered that the word Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals".

      When Kentucky Fried Chicken entered the Chinese market, they discovered that their slogan "finger lickin' good" was translated as "eat your fingers off".

      Frank Perdue was no better off. This chicken magnate's slogan: "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" was rendered in Spanish as "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

     In a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

     In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.

     In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

      When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

      From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

     Two signs from a Moroccan shop entrance:  - English well speaking   /  - Here speeching American.

     Tokyo hotel's rules: Guests are requested not to smoke and do other disgusting behaviors in bed.

     In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur Coats Made For Ladies From Their Own Skin.

     Sign in a German hospital: No Children Allowed In The Maternity Wards.

       The sign at the concierge's desk in an Athen's hotel:" If You Consider Our Help Impolite, You Should See The Manager.

     A notice in a Vienna hotel: In Case Of Fire Do Your Utmost To Alarm The Hall Porter.

     Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive sideways.