Blunders in translation by companies

Language translation is a tricky process which involves an important consideration-culture. Culture affects everything we do. Similarly culture has a great impact in business promotions in the global world. Often companies do blunders in translation by ignoring the aspect of culture. As an individual, business or any organization, one should research everything from the symbols, colours and words of the target consumer before finalising the name, tagline, packaging and marketing campaign in their native language. There are several examples where world’s famous businesses and companies have messed up with the translations. Here are some of them:

KFC

When KFC translated ‘Finger-Likin’ Good’ in Chinese language, it was translated in Chinese as ‘We will Eat your Fingers fast’.

Cocoa Cola

Similarly Coca Cola’s name in Chinese language was read as ‘bite the wax tadpole’.

Pepsi

When Pepsi translated its marketing campaign, it was read as ‘we bring your ancestors back from the dead’ in china.

General Motors

In Europe, GM motors created a blunder by translating its campaign ‘every car has a body’ into ‘every car has a corpse’ in Spanish language.

Schweppes Tonic water

Scweppes Tonic water was translated into Italian language as Schweppes ‘Toilet paper’.

We often have a misconception that Spanish and Italian are inter-related. Unfortunately it is not. An Italian mineral company, Traficante translated their product for native Spanish speakers. Traficante means ‘drug dealer’ in Spanish language. Similarly, Irish Mist, did not succeed with its translations in German language as ‘Mist’ in German means ‘dung’.

French translations have also created blunders due to the pronunciations. Toyota launched MR2 for French which sounded somewhat close to ‘merde’

Companies should consider the cultural aspect while marketing their products for foreign customers.When pampers launched their product for Japanese market, they showed a stork delivering baby which did not suit Japanese consumers. According to a Japanese folklore, babies are delivered by floating peach and not by stork!