‘Marketing Translation’ Archives
Racing Turns Racist Due to Product Translation Error
A German company learned the hard way that its PR firm lacks cultural sensitivity and professional linguistic ability. One year ago, the German "tuning shop" AVUS Performance souped up an Audi RS6 Avant and released the car with the terribly offensive name "Audi RS6 White Power." Yes, the color of the car was white. However, the non-native [...]
Business Card Translation Success | 4 Elements to Get Right
Business cards may seem small and uncomplicated, but here are a few things you should know about business cards that appear in other languages. Using these tips will help business go smoothly when working with international clients. Know that size, nontranslation of certain elements, and even the way you present your business card are different [...]
Fly Naked? Spanish Radio Ad by Braniff Airlines
In 1987, Braniff Airlines ran ads on television, on radio, and in newspapers touting its leather seats. Radio ads in Florida were the first to reveal an unintended double meaning. For years, international business books have cited this example without a reference, and other publications have reported that the blooper came from American Airlines. [...]
Avoid Translation Generalists | Subject Matter Experts Are Best
Translators who are subject matter experts will produce higher quality results than generalists. The principle is pretty simple. Only people with a solid understanding of a topic are qualified to write about certain topics for you, so why should it be any different with translation? Someone who has honed his or her skills to become expert at [...]
Is the Water Safe? | Hotel Translation Error
Various sources have reported that a sign with the following message once appeared in a hotel in Acapulco, Mexico. The manager has personally passed all the water served here. Native English speakers quickly realize that the word "approve" would have been a better choice than its synonym "pass;" however, that may not be so obvious to a native [...]
Stinky Swedish Product Names Lost without Translation
In the fifties and sixties, there was a Swedish car magazine named "Fart." "Fart" is a Swedish word meaning "speed." Although this likely caused no problem in the magazine's home country, rumors abound that this was quite embarrassing when the writers would travel to international car and racing events. Fifty years later, another Swedish [...]
Chinese Restaurant Named “Translate Server Error”
Machine translation is not appropriate for restaurant signs. In this case, someone input the Chinese name into a machine translation program, unaware that the application was not working at the moment. Without having a human check the result, they submitted it to the sign maker and posted it above their restaurant. That is why boingboing.net [...]
Top 10 Web Languages
If you want to reach non-English speaking internet users, what languages should you focus on first? Well, the answer depends on several different factors. However, if you would like to reach the maximum number of internet users, regardless of other demographics, then you might consider some of the top languages spoken by internet users [...]
Google notranslate: Preventing Automatic Translation by Google
If your company website has already been localized or if you plan to localize it into other languages, you will want to ensure that your clients see that high quality human translation, not the machine translation provided by Google. Google can provide automatic translation of search results for users browsing in other languages. However, Google [...]
Pee Pee Phone Brand Does Not Pass “the Snicker Test” | Japanese Brand Localization
A few years ago, International Systems Research (ISR) released a softphone in Japan called the PPPhone (pronounced "pee pee phone"). Unfortunately, that name does not pass what some people call "the snicker test" in English and many other languages where "pee pee" is understood to mean something else. ISR had some good reasoning for using the PP [...]
