We’ve all laughed at stories of travelers translating something incorrectly and getting hilarious or embarrassing results. But there is nothing funny about mistakes in business language translation that cause a company to lose face – or worse, customers. Some of these examples are humorous and some are not, but they all emphasize the importance of hiring professional business translation services.
1. Deadly medical mistakes. In Epinal, France, a medical group tried to interpret a medication dose for prostate cancer without using a language translation service and massively overdosed several patients, four of whom died. No hospital or medical team wants to cause death or suffering, or have a mistake like this on their record. A medical business translation service could have prevented this mistake.
2. Triple X toothpaste. When Colgate’s new toothpaste didn’t sell in France, it had nothing to do with the product. Simply consulting with a business translation service could have alerted the company to the fact that its chosen name of “Cue” was the same as one of the country’s leading porn magazines. Perhaps not the demographic they were aiming for?
3. Pens and pregnancy. Parker pens created an ad without a business language translator and became the laughingstock of Mexico. Instead of choosing the word for embarrass, they chose the word for impregnate, thus assuring Mexicans that Parker pens would not leak and make them pregnant.
4. “Gee, your hair smells…” Clairol also chose not to employ a professional business language translator when promoting its new curling iron. But the Mist Stick was not exactly a hit. The word “stick” was alright, but the word “mist” translated as “manure” – not something the women of Germany wanted anywhere near their hair.
5. Get a buzz while you cleanse. Idiomatic phrases seem to get businesses in the most trouble. Trying to translate slang without using professional business translators is one of the most dangerous things to do in advertising. “Turn it Loose” may have worked for selling Coors beer in America, but in Spain the phrase translated into a promise of diarrhea for all who consumed it. Not the ideal image of relaxing on a hot summer’s day.
It’s understandable that businesses today want to save money, and not using a business language translation service may seem like a good way to cut corners. But having to completely retract and redo a campaign will be much more costly. Unless you want your product or service to be the latest international joke, it’s wise to find a proven business translator to handle your next international advertising or marketing campaign. Using an internet interpretation machine or a dictionary could land your company on a list like this.
