They say that Cinderella from a well-known fairy tale received her glass slippers as a result of a translation error. It is claimed that in the original French story Cinderella’s slippers were made of vair (the fur of the grey squirrel). A translator supposedly confused this word with verre (glass) thus endowing Cinderella with beautiful glass slippers (by the way, they are crystal in the Russian version of the fairy tale).

Well, forget the fairy-tale slippers. Inaccurate translations sometimes result in much more tangible gifts. So partly thanks to an interpreter’s error, the Russian Federation agreed to donate three Siberian tigers (the endangered species) to South Korea. During a visit of an official Russian delegation to South Korea, Koreans told Russian officials about their great interest in Siberian tigers. However, the interpreter mistranslated those words and asked if Russia was willing to donate the tigers. As a result, Russia agreed to make that valuable gift.

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Please “Slip and Fall Down Carefully” and “Show Mercy to the Slender Grass.” The unique mix of Chinese and English known as “Chinglish” produces many funny translations. Here is a handful of funny translations picked up form The China Daily:

Subway signs:
“Fleeing for your life” (the sign tells how to escape in the event of an emergency)
“Your mobile phone on your waist seems like the gifts for thieves”
“Be careful with the bags you take, with more safety in chest”
“If you are stolen, call the police at once”

A restaurant menu:
“The ovary and digestive gland of a crab digs up the cabbage”
“Royal Worshipped Beef”
“Ideas’ powder” (that is “Italian spaghetti”)
“Choke of cucumber”

One can find funny translations not only in a Chinese menu (or Ukrainian, or Spanish, or Finnish, etc), but on pages of a reliable news agency as well. Thus, Reuters’ translators bravely mistranslated the German word schwanz as penis (however, the correct translation in that case was tail). As a result, Reuters published a remarkable article about an unlucky Lego giraffe model that stood at the entrance to the Lego Discovery Center with its manhood being regularly stolen. Readers were informed that it was a popular souvenir and that the Lego Discovery Center was erecting a “metal construction to protect the giraffe’s genitalia.” In that way, the tail turned into penis and the whole story was good for a laugh.

It turned out that there is an institution named

Piece of advice on studying of productive forces of Ministry of Economics of Russian Federation and RAN

in the organizational structure of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Employees with mysterious prefixes des and ces work on the staff of this institution. By the way, an unintelligible abbreviation RAN also intrigues.

Original Russian pages lift a cloud of mystery from this translation: Piece of advice proves to be Council, des – Doctor of Economics, ces – Candidate of Economics, and RAN – Russian Academy of Sciences

Funny translations have found their way to many facets of life, including business and politics. Thus, the slogan “Come Alive with Pepsi!” failed in Germany because of its unhappy translation: “Come Alive out of the Grave with Pepsi.” And the Taiwanese translation gave even more details: “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave.”

Time Magazine relates:

In 1965, prior to a reception for Queen Elizabeth II outside Bonn, Heinrich Lübke, then the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, attempting an English translation of “Gleich geht es los” (It will soon begin), told the Queen: “Equal goes it loose.” The Queen took the news well, but no better than the President of India, who was greeted at an airport in 1962 by Lübke, who, intending to ask, “How are you?” instead said: “Who are you?” To which his guest answered responsibly: “I am the President of India.”

To avoid these kind of mistakes and to help communication flow across languages use Wolfestone for all of your translation needs!

http://www.language-translation-help.com/funny-translations.html

As ever, brand names can go astray. The apocryphal story about the Chevy Nova (that it didn’t sell well in Spanish-speaking countries on account of “no va” being Spanish for “doesn’t go”) is just that – apocryphal. It didn’t actually happen. Neither did the Ford Pinto sell badly in Brazil, on account of “pinto” being Portuguese for “a man with a small…”, erm, never mind; because the Ford Pinto was never actually sold in Brazil at any point. (This was not necessarily a bad thing for Brazilians – the petrol tank in the Pinto had a nasty habit of exploding.) Bad brand names and slogans do, however, slip through the net.

French telephone company Orange thought their new slogan “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange” would drive sales in the British market. Whether this was achieved on the mainland is unclear, but it did the exact opposite in Northern Ireland. In that part of the world, green is associated with Catholicism, and orange is associated with the Protestant Orange Order. Vodafone and BT Cellnet weren’t too unhappy that Orange went for that slogan, though…

Then there’s the Italian mineral water brand “Traficante”. This sounds all Mediterranean and healthy, conjuring up pictures in the head of La Dolce Vita. It may well have done so in many countries, but not in Spain. In Spanish the word “Traficante” means “(hard) drugs dealer”.

Another unfortunate company was a Japanese tourist agency which decided it was high time to branch out into the English-speaking market. They no doubt had visions of starting to join the big guns by getting lots of high-spending Americans in. Unfortunately, most of their customers had decidedly, well, weird requests for what sort of holidays they were looking for. The company finally discovered that being called the “Kinki Nippon Tourist Agency” was always, always going to lead to this sort of problem.

Finally, when Electrolux decided to enter the American market, it spent quite some time and money thinking up a catchy slogan. And still they managed to come up with “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.

No, nothing sucks quite like not using the professionals who can stop embarrassing linguistic fiascos. And, as ever, here at Wolfestone, we’ll be happy to help you make sure that your customers are looking at your product, not laughing at your ineptitude.

Russia’s tiger donation came about partly through an interpreter’s mistake. While visiting Korea in June, a Russian delegation led by Vladimir Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Federal Supervisory Natural Resources http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cross-cultural/intercultural-communicati…) center right no-repeat;” rel=”external”>Management Service, went to the National Institute of Biological Resources with Vice Environment Minister Lee Byung-wook to see a display of mounted animals, including a Siberian tiger.
During the tour, a Korean official said, “Korea is very interested in Siberian tigers.” But the interpreter mistranslated the comment, and asked about Russia’s willingness to donate the animals. In response, Kirillov asked if Korea could raise donated tigers in the wild.

“The government didn’t give much thought to the remarks at the time, but it seems Kirillov proposed the donation while briefing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on his visit to Korea,” a ministry official said. The Environment Ministry made an official request to Russia for the donation of the tigers in a bilateral environmental cooperation meeting in Moscow on Oct. 30.

http://eng.i-iter.org/content/interpreter%E2%80%99s-mistake-gets-korea-free-siberian-tigers

In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

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

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.

In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Aets by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

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 Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.

If you want to get a professional translation visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!

Gaddafi’s interpreter was so frustrated after 75 minutes of translation that he shouted “just can’t take it any more”, into the live microphone in Arabic, following which the UN’s Arabic section chief Rasha Ajalyaqeen had to take over the proceedings and translate the final 20 minutes of the dictator’s speech.

“His interpreter just collapsed, this is the first time I have seen this in 25 years,” the New York Post quoted another UN Arabic interpreter, as saying. Gaddafi had bought in his own interpreters from Tripoli for the speech rather than use one of the 25 Arabic translators supplied by the UN, as he reasoned that he would be speaking a special dialect.

For more resilient interpreters! contact us at Wolfestone Translation