Mistranslations in History

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That made me laugh!!

“BBC Culture looks back at the greatest mistranslations of the past, with a 19th-Century astronomer finding signs of intelligent life on Mars and a US president expressing sexual desire for an entire nation.”

1. Life on Mars

“When Italian astronomer Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli began mapping Mars in 1877, he inadvertently sparked an entire science-fiction oeuvre. The director of Milan’s Brera Observatory dubbed dark and light areas on the planet’s surface ‘seas’ and ‘continents’ – labelling what he thought were channels with the Italian word ‘canali’. Unfortunately, his peers translated that as ‘canals’, launching a theory that they had been created by intelligent lifeforms on Mars.”

Translation tip from Rstone: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t expect that words spelled and pronounced similarly in another language will have the same meaning.


2. Pole position

"Jimmy Carter knew how to get an audience to pay attention. In a speech given during the US President’s 1977 visit to Poland, he appeared to express sexual desire for the then-Communist country. Or that’s what his interpreter said, anyway. It turned out Carter had said he wanted to learn about the Polish people’s ‘desires for the future’.

Earning a place in history, his interpreter also turned “I left the United States this morning” into “I left the United States, never to return”; according to Time magazine, even the innocent statement that Carter was happy to be in Poland became the claim that “he was happy to grasp at Poland’s private parts”.

His translator, Steven Seymour, specialized in Russian and, as you can imagine, this was his first and last job translating Polish.

Translation tip from Rstone : Even when languages have related roots, it’s best not to assume you can wing it.


3. Keep digging

"In 1956, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was interpreted as saying “We will bury you” to Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow. The phrase was plastered across magazine covers and newspaper headlines, further cooling relations between the Soviet Union and the West.

Yet when set in context, Khruschev’s words were closer to meaning “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in”.

Translation tip from Rstone : As many foreign speakers have learned the hard way, idioms don’t always translate well. The overall meaning in context of an idiom is usually more accurate than the individual words.

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From RStone and NPR:

4. In the hospital, a bad translation can destroy a life

When 18-year-old Willie Ramirez was admitted to the hospital in a coma in 1980, his family, who spoke Spanish, described him as “intoxicado”. While the interpreter translated this as “intoxicated” or drunk, the word refers to being poisoned or ingesting anything that has made you sick. Ramirez actually had bleeding in the brain but doctors wasted precious time trying to treat his symptoms as those of an overdose. The delay in his treatment resulted in Ramirez being a quadriplegic and his family sued and won a $71 million settlement.

Translation tip from Rstone : If you’re not sure, it’s always useful to ask more questions or get a second opinion. Especially when translating during emergency situations.


​5. The ad campaign that translated into nothing

HSBC bank had a famous slogan, “Assume Nothing” , that communicated their strategy about investment and worked well for English customers. Problems arose when they launched an ad campaign in 2009 and took their business to international markets. In many languages in Europe and across the world, there was no equivalent phrase and “Assume Nothing” was widely mistranslated as “Do Nothing” . HSBC ended up spending $10 million to reframe and rebrand their ad campaign with a slogan that worked in both national and international markets.

Translation tip from Rstone : For some phrases or concepts in your native tongue, there just won’t be a catchy equivalent translation no matter how hard you try.


6. Japan, mistranslations are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’ll get

In the 1950s, an executive at the chocolate company Morozoff decided to bring Valentine’s Day to Japan. It had been a success in the States, but the executive had misunderstood that these chocolates were intended for women. Because of the company’s mistranslation and subsequent ad campaign, the Japanese thought women were supposed to give men chocolates instead. Happily for the candy companies, this became a tradition in Japan and to this day, women give chocolates to men on February 14th and a month later, men do the same for women.

Translation tip from Rstone: The ability to understand and interpret native speakers comes from not only understanding the language but also the culture and history of a country.


Translation Do’s and Don’ts by RS

DON’T trust the machines. There are subtleties of any language that won’t translate literally in Google and even modern-day artificial intelligence is not advanced enough to interpret nuance.

DON’T rely on a word-for-word translation. As you’ll quickly observe, word order and sentence structure are different depending on the language and can greatly alter the meaning. A word-for-word translation will be, at best, inaccurate and at worst, embarrassing.

DO mind your tone . While some slang words may be the most common usage of certain phrases, they may not be the most appropriate. Translating something relies not only on determining the best words to fit your meaning, but also figuring out the audience and setting.

DO pay attention to gender . And by that we mean gendered nouns. Many languages do have them and are governed by different rules depending on the language. While it’s a common mistake among foreign speakers, it’s still one you should avoid.

–

It’s an article from an American firm that creates language-learning softwares.

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Well, this topic might not fit 100 percent, but …
I am currently watching Maiden Homes, the main page says that the drama plays in the 6th century CE
https://www.viki.com/videos/1171200v
And here is where the main lead says:
“I’m someone who schemes in such a machiavellian way …”
So this made me stop a moment and think, weren’t the Machiavellis most powerful in the 15th century?
Should this word be even in use for this subtitle?
I mean, I don’t know what originally was said in Chinese.
So, … Here I am stopping a drama at the most crucial point because of one word.

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I could about bet there are many mistranslations in history, if this is a year old, then I have missed it big time! I read the whole thing, a good read

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