Translation FAQ

Global headlines in May 2009 highlighted car company Audi and its new project car. Ordinarily Audi should be celebrating its ability to be given so many inches and minutes of free news coverage over the announcement of an upcoming car -- and especially in a tough economy.

 

Sadly, Audi is instead looking quite shamefaced over the matter. So what's the problem?

 

A terrible mistranslation!

 

Audi claims that its PR firm mistranslated the name of the car from German to English as "White Power." This term is synonymous with racial hate, white supremacy, and neo-nazi movements.  A scathing image for a German automaker. Audi is quickly backpedaling and attempting to correct the error. The "corrected" name is the Audi RS6 V10 biturbo.

This is not the first time car manufacturers have made such gaffes. Some of the more memorable ones are given at the bottom of this page.

The moral of this story is this: ALWAYS USE a PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATOR for high profile publications like your company's marketing brochures, product names, Web site, and press releases. 

 

 

 

It can be very tempting to ask Bilingual Bill down the hall to translate your documents -- after all, he's always talking about his travels to Mexico. I'm sure he speaks Spanish really good [sic]. Um...no. Even if someone can speak a second language well, he may not be a decent writer (even in his native language). More importantly, it takes many years of constant exposure to both cultures and both languages to become truly fluent in a second language. This is why Oregon Translation's owner, Virginia Anderson lived, breathed, traveled, and formally studied French for nine years and Spanish for six years before she even attempted translating those languages commercially.

 

Places where cultures overlap due to recent influxes of immigrants or live side-by-side (co-cultures) wind up blending two cultures and languages. It is quite common to find bilingual people in such areas, and I believe this is a marvelous thing to be fostered. Yet occasionally, growing up in a blended area means the person is not fully conscious of how the two cultures and languages operate distinctly outside of the blended setting. I worked in the agricultural industry for a few years. I met plenty of Hispanics people who spoke both English and Spanish fairly well, but could not write either without frequent misspellings and unsuitable calques.

 

To make language learning more complex, human languages are living and evolving all the time. New slang, street jargon, and French verlan are constantly being invented by younger generations. (French verlan is a type of slang that reverses the syllables of some words). New pop culture fads are introduced, and new technological innovations come along. These new concepts and allusions result in new words being coined or old words borrowed from foreign languages or given new meanings. Professional translators and interpreters read constantly and travel frequently to stay abreast of such new words, new meanings, and cultural shifts.

 

High-profile documents -- marketing brochures, product names, Web sites, and press releases -- portray your company's brand and image in the direct spotlight. If you want your consumers, vendors, and competitors to take you seriously, you need to take your own marketing profile seriously. Even if you do use Bilingual Bill to translate those internal memos and meeting reports, you don't want the whole world to think Bilingual Bill is the best you can offer when you're advertising your company's products and services. If you put out marketing materials riddled with misspellings and mistranslations, buyers are going to think your product also contains flaws.

I cannot repeat enough, the best thing you can do for your bilingual marketing campaign is invest the money required to get the translations done properly by a team of professionals with the language training and cultural experience to get it right and to help you avert the type of disaster Audi just encountered.

 

Memorable mistranslations: Auto industry

 

When Ford introduce the Pinto in Brazil, it was received with laughter. In Brazil "pinto" is a slang term for small male body parts, if you know what I mean. Ford renamed the car model "Corcel," meaning horse.

 

When Buick launched its LaCrosse car in the Canadian market, it swiftly and wisely decided to rename it the Buick Allure. The Canadian French term "la crosse" has negative connotations related to swindling and masturbation.

And car dealerships are not immune to such translations. I recently drove past a dealership in Newberg, Oregon, that proudly hung a sign along the highway: Se habla espanyol (Spanish spoken here). My retort: "Pero no se escribe" (But they can't write it.)

 

A car rental agency in Tokyo published this poor translation of its brochure: 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.