‘Language News & Media’ Archives
Taboo topics like weight are treated differently in other cultures
Years ago, in Chile, I was walking around a city on a warm day with a close American friend and colleague. As we walked up a hill, in business attire, my colleague began to perspire. A former basketball and football player, he was much larger than most Chileans and was in good shape, but inherently perspires more than most. Upon reaching the [...]
Angry Twitter mobs wield ‘twitchforks’ in worldwide attacks
Shortly after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Microsoft tweeted the following message from its Bing Twitter account: “How you can #SupportJapan? For every retweet, @Bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K.” The response from the Twitter public was not at all what Microsoft intended. An angry mob pounced [...]
Some international ads are perceived as sexist due to different cultural norms
Procter & Gamble, like many other international corporations, learned U.S. portrayals of women in advertising are not always socially acceptable in other countries. In her book, “Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble,” author Alecia Swasy relates the result of one misguided soap commercial. “A Camay campaign pitched the [...]
Google Translate has great uses, disastrous misuses
Google Translate and other free online translation tools can be great for instant, informal translation. When expectations are properly set, particularly for low-value text, unedited machine translation can be quite useful. However, when a user overestimates machine translation capabilities, the results can be confusing at best. When one online [...]
International symbol, icon blunders can be avoided
Some of my European colleagues still remember when the old Macintosh operating system of the 1980s used a trash icon that Apple’s European users confused for a postal box. Why was the icon confusing? People across the globe have different cultural ideas and assumptions about what things are supposed to look like. In other countries, trash cans [...]
‘Airline pulp’ and bad translations that can crash a plane
Southern China Airways once distributed a snack package with the mysterious-sounding label “Airline Pulp” and no other description. Yum – sounds tasty! This mistranslated label will probably not get the airline nominated for any airline food awards, but it could be worse. Some in-flight mistranslations will make you laugh, but others will [...]
Food lost in translation: How authentic is that international cuisine?
Thirteen years ago, during my first month in Chile, an American friend decided to give my palette a rest from unfamiliar food and took me to a pizzeria. The proprietor was very friendly and allowed us to help assemble our own pie. Though I can not recall what toppings we chose, I definitely remember one interesting item we spotted on the menu: [...]
The wrong marketing picture can be a thousand words lost in translation
Starbucks recently released its new logo, which features a green image of its well-known siren. Noticeably absent from the image is any text mentioning the words Starbucks or coffee. International business experts praised this move as a way to eliminate the need for logo translation. In this case, a single, almost universally understood image [...]
Overstock.com panelist: All I really need to know about international business I learned at age 3
“Everything I need to know about international business I learned from my mother when I was three years old,” said Lee Boam, assistant professor of organizational behavior and international business at the University of Utah, recently. "You know what those simple lessons are: be nice, don’t hit, sit with your legs closed and all those other [...]
Preserving Brand Strength in Global Markets by Following a Few Simple Steps
...Aribex is a Utah-based company that understands the importance of preserving its brand message in translation. Aribex efforts in multiple market segments are geared toward being "the worldwide leader in handheld X-ray." The latest models in the company’s NOMAD® product line are sleek, lightweight and uniquely positioned in the market. [...]
