Translated Advertisements Gone Wrong
- Professional translation or no, there's really no excuse for turning the Salem Cigarette tagline of "Salem; feeling free" into the long yet tragically entertaining, "When smoking Salem, you'll feel so relaxed that your mind will seem empty and free," in Japanese.
- A Miami-based American t-shirt company tried to take advantage of the Spanish market during the Pope's visit there, but instead of their t-shirts stating, "the Pope" or "el Papa", it instead read "the potato" or "la papa". Big difference.
- A translation service was able to botch up the KFC slogan of "Finger-licking good" and turn it into the horribly transliterated "Eat your fingers off" message in Chinese.
- How did Parker Pen's ads go from "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" to "It won't leak in your pocket and impregnate you"? One word: embrazar (to impregnate); the company thought this meant ‘embarrass’ in Mexico. Well, they definitely were once the ad came out.
- Human translation companies everywhere have all probably heard about the story of Gerber selling its "baby food" to Africa, which confused the natives because companies usually put pictures on the label of what's inside, so they thought it was "baby food" in the most literal sense of the term. The prejudiced and nigh-racist tall tale's truthfulness is highly suspect, but its message of bad translation still rings true.
- Here's another one from China. Pepsi's promotion that asks people to "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" ended up becoming the creepy and bizarre "Pepsi resurrects your ancestors back from the dead" in Chinese.
- Remember the Chevy Nova's tagline that got translated into "It won't go" in Spanish markets? Ford one-upped their competitor's gaffe by selling the Pinto to the Brazilians. Unfortunately, "Pinto" was Brazilian slang for "Tiny Penis", so Ford eventually renamed their infamously dangerous car into "Horse" or "Corcel".
- The "It takes a strong man to make tender chicken" slogan of Frank Perdue was corrupted into the bestial and iniquitous "It takes an aroused man to make chicken affectionate" in Spanish.
One Hour Translation is the world’s fastest professional translation service. One Hour Translation provides Fast, High Quality Expert Translation service on a 24/7 basis thanks to a community of over 8000 certified translators from all over the world.
You might also like:
We are proud to announce that our agency has been awarded with not one, but two of the prestigious FinancesOnline awards. One Hour Translation scored
International Translation Day is held in celebration of the feast of St Jerome, the Bible translator widely considered the patron saint of translators. The International Federation of Translators is the promoter of International Translation Day, and has been since it was first held in 1953.
The translation industry is a relatively small one but it’s also a highly competitive one. Basically, do your research on a translation agency prior to making initial contact and it will certainly pay off; perhaps not immediately because there may not be any work available at the time, so just be patient. Your application must stand out above the rest, and by following these simple steps you should have no problem whatsoever in achieving your translation goals.