Ok - here are a few more that will give you a giggle
COORS put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into
Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhoea".
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used
the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
Clairol introduced the 'Mist Stick", a curling
iron, into German only to find out that mist" is
slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the manure stick".
Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called
Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
An American. T shirt maker in Miami printed
shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the
Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope (el
Papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato la papa).
Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation'
translated into Chinese reads "brings your ancestors back from the grave.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa,
they used the same packaging as in the US, with
the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later
they learned that in Africa, companies routinely
put pictures on the label because most people
cant read and the label shows what is actually in the box!
Frank Perclue's chicken slogan, it takes a
strong man to make a tender chicken was
translated into Spanish as it takes an aroused
man to make a chicken affectionate
'The Coca Cola name in China was first promoted
using the Mandarin characters as "Ke kou ke-la",
meaning "Bite the wax tadpole or female horse
stuffed with wax, depending on the dialect. Coke
then researched 40,000 characters to find a
phonetic equivalent "ko kou ko le", translating into "happiness in the mouth".
When Parker Pen marketed a ball point pen in
Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it
won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you".
Instead, the company thought that the word
"embarazar" meant to embarrass, (whereas it
actually means to impregnate) so the ad read. "It
won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.
General Motors launched their NOVA car in Spain
and couldnt figure out why it wouldnt sell,
despite breaking sales records in most other
European Countries. Until, that is, someone
pointed out that in Spanish No Va means It wont go.
All these firms have multi-million pound budgets
yet didn't spend a few thousand hiring a
translator! The perils of working to a budget!!
Peter MacGregor
At 14:23 06/02/2007, you wrote:
On Tue, 6 Feb 2007, Peter MacGregor wrote:
> Can't answer that one Tris - but I hope that the
> translations you are given have been done by a
> native of the country! As someone that has been
> involved in International Trade most of my years
> (now 50+) in business, I've seen some real howlers!
Oh yes, there's plenty of special translations out there alright :)
Manuals for cheap chinese crap seem to be particularly bad.
My first motorbike was a 125cc chinese-made bike, based on a suzuki gn125.
It was ridiculously cheap, and actually quite a good bike for the money,
but the manual is a very poor translation into English.
I'll have to dig it out and post some parts of it, but there's things
like:
[in the trouble-shooting section under fuelling issues]:
"There is no oil in the oil-filled place"
(from the context, I can only think they were trying to say that there's
no petrol in the tank, i.e. it's out of fuel).
Cheers
Dave P
____ The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ____
To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or
use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/
Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com
To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface:
http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk
________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________
You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at:
Jupitermedia Corp.
Attn: Discussion List Management
475 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
____ The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ____
To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or
use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/
Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com
To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface:
http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk
________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________
You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: unknown lmsubst tag argument: ''
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at:
Jupitermedia Corp.
Attn: Discussion List Management
475 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
