At Bubbles, we take our translation services very seriously. But to spread Christmas cheer we’d like to share some of the very best (worst) translation errors we’ve found this year.
We’ll admit it, we can’t help but stifle a small chuckle at the less fortunate translations we find across the web mainly from using Google Translate or an amateur translator.
It seems we’re not alone in this feeling, in Germany they even have a word for it! Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the deserved misfortunes of others. This word is taken from German and literally means “harm-joy”. We don’t take any joy from seeing these – we just wish we could have helped!
So here are 10 of our favourites we’ve found this year.
Let’s start with 5 signs that caught our eye, mainly as they suggest something sinister, confusing or just downright strange!
5 of the Worst Sign Translation Fails
This is clearly trying to suggest that an area isn’t suitable for children, but the lack of a native speaking translator means that it actually carries a much darker undertone.
We genuinely have no idea what the translator was getting at here but we’re sure that we don’t wish to be buried in a man toilet.
Again, some good advice gone horribly wrong. Being careful with children around water is a simple sentiment – this more instructive approach simply doesn’t translate.
We’re not sure you need a sign to give you instructions to follow if you are kidnapped. Also, the length of the government department this was issued by (along the bottom of the sign) is particularly impressive!
Ok, it’s not strictly a translation fail but, as we’ve said many times before, translation is as much about context as the word content.
This was a genuine shop in Ahmedabad, India. Manish Chandani, a co-owner, told AFP news agency they had never intended to glorify Hitler.
“I was not aware of Hitler being responsible for the killings of six million people before the shop’s inauguration. Next time I will choose a non-controversial name.”
Mr Chandani says the shop’s name was a tribute to his grandfather who was nicknamed Hitler because he was “very strict”.
It seems that ignorance and insensitivity played a large part in this failure, another great reason to use native speaking resident translators who understand a wider set of cultural nuances.
Another bonus fail from India is this fabulous bollywood subtitle translation of “you’re one in a million”:
Factually correct, romantically inept!
Our favourite food & drink fails
We’re not sure how the Blendy instant coffee marketing team researched this – and we don’t want to know.
This is another case of innocent turned sinister, with the unwelcome addition of a creepy smiling child and an image of an unidentifiable bread topping.
In reality, this is just a failure to avoid a direct translation of the words in the sentence and not the sentiment.
Found in Russia, this isn’t a dessert we’ll be ordering thanks.
This one’s a fairly obvious fail, but rarely do we see such a misspelling that it completely transforms the instructions from polite to disgusting with the addition of just two characters.
And the winner is…
We’ve only just discovered this particular translation fail from 2012, but it was an instant classic as it ticks all of the boxes immediately:
- It’s a huge brand who should know better
- It’s massively offensive
Unilever spends $7.8 billion (€6 billion) a year, globally, on advertising and in 2012 they decided to employ WPP Group’s Ogilvy Dusseldorf to create a tagline for Du darfst, a slimming brand sold in Germany.
In an almost anarchistic move, they decided to use an English tagline of “F**k the diet”
Don’t believe us?
Here is a picture from their website at the time:
And here is the TV commercial:
It translates as:
“You don’t want to count calories? Just let it be.
With Du Darfst you can enjoy food without regret.
Because Du Darfst means “you don’t have to.”
Just take what you want – F**k the diet.
Du Darfst [you may].”
We genuinely empathise with the sentiment, especially as we head into a period of Christmas over-indulgence. We understand that marketing often courts controversy and in doing so a larger audience is reached. It’s also the case that the word may have less outrageous connotations for much of the English speaking German population – but it’s still a massive misstep for a huge brand and agency who really should know better.
It’s clear that this tagline didn’t work for the brand and their http://www.du-darfst.de/ website has changed significantly since the outrage!
It’s another case of understanding your target market more fully and translating with cultural and linguistic context.
The teams behind the (undoubtedly expensive) advertising may have thought they were being quirky and cool, but we think the lack of depth in the local focus group stage of the new campaign may have led them down a route that didn’t represent the brand they wanted to be. Ultimately they had to change and reinvest which undoubtedly left a nasty taste in the consumer’s mouth.
So there we have it – another year and another awfully brilliant round of translation fails.
Ensure your brand doesn’t fall foul to these errors in 2016 and let us help you grow your business internationally with professional translation services.
