Posts Tagged ‘product labels’
Airline Pulp
"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..." Read more airline-related translation bloopers in the article "'Airline pulp' and bad [...]
Basketball Bloopers Lost in Translation
Products and apparel for basketball fans have been the victims of broken English translations. This is not the only sport to see translation blunders - baseball, soccer, and just about every other sport have seen similarly humorous mistranslations - but here are a few from the world of basketball. One UNLV Runnin' Rebels T-shirt (obviously [...]
Product Label Translation Omissions
An omitted translation can be as embarrassing and wasteful as a bad translation. See the following example from a package of wooden plugs featured on the very popular FAILBlog.org. Contact Globalization Group to receive a free quote for product label translation.
Motorcycle Translation Bloopers
A small scandal-that-never-really-was erupted when motorcycle racer Nicky Hayden's remarks were mistranslated last week. Hayden had commented that "it is a shame" (meaning "it is a pity") fellow racer Casey Stoner is leaving the Ducati team for the Honda team in 2011. However, his words were translated into Italian and then back into English as [...]
Tounge of Frog
The "Tounge of Frog" was a toy manufactured in Taiwan in the 1980s, poorly translated from Chinese to English, and sold in the United States. One of the best lines is "Never throw out the other person's head." These mistranslated product instructions have become an internet meme and are found below with typos included: Frog. If it is thrown [...]
Editing by a 2nd Linguist
This tip may seem very obvious to most. We certainly hope it does. Unfortunately, not everyone gets it, as evidenced by the fact that we know of companies who regularly request a exception to this rule and various language service providers that rarely follow it. So we are including this tip here for the benefit of those who are not yet [...]
International Brand Check | A Service to Protect Your Brand Investment
An international brand check can save your brand investment. Without one, your company brand could suffer embarrassing and costly damage, and repairs may require more time and money than you can afford. This global brand checking service is something that should be done even earlier than most marketing executives realize. Most marketing and [...]
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 [...]
Wash in Coleslaw? | Chinese Care Label Translation Error
We suspect the stock price of Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, rose slightly with the release of this fuzzy pink clothing line. This care label symbol from EngrishFunny.com appears to indicate that the garment should dry in the shade, away from direct exposure to sunlight; however, the [...]
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 [...]
