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We’ve all heard the saying, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, try hiring an amateur,” and most of us can tell stories about how, in our personal or professional lives, this has rung true. Yet, in the foreign language translation and interpretation field, we see professional organizations working with amateurs all the time and how “little” translation mistakes can lead to big blunders.

Think about this: in our native language, organizations hire professional copywriters and editors to create their marketing and product materials and often spend weeks and months fine-tuning the words to get the message just right. If you need a professional to work within your own language, why would you trust your foreign language translation or interpretation needs to your neighbor, brother-in-law, college student or office mate? They may speak two languages, but are they trained experts in translation nuances, grammar, customs and other important factors that make ALL the difference? Language is more than just words. It takes years of studies and total immersion to know the nuances to create truly accurate translations.

Here are a few examples of “small” interpretation and translation mistakes made by amateurs that had SIGNIFICANT results.

1. THE SEVENTY-ONE-MILLION-DOLLAR WORD
This example comes from an article written by linguist and author Akira Okrent. In 1980, Willie Ramirez was admitted to a Florida hospital in a comatose state. His family, thinking he had food poisoning, tried to describe his condition, but they only spoke Spanish. Translation was provided by a bilingual staff member who translated "intoxicado" as "intoxicated." A professional interpreter would have known that "intoxicado" is closer to "poisoned.” The doctors proceeded as if he were suffering from an intentional drug overdose, which can lead to some of the symptoms he displayed. Because of the delay in treatment, Ramirez was left quadriplegic. He received a malpractice settlement of $71 million.

2. YOUR LUSTS FOR THE FUTURE
Another example from Okrent: When President Carter traveled to Poland in 1977, a Russian interpreter was hired who knew Polish but was not used to interpreting professionally in that language. Through the interpreter, Carter ended up saying things in Polish like "when I abandoned the United States" (for "when I left the United States") and "your lusts for the future" (for "your desires for the future").

3. ACCIDENTAL BROTHEL AD
The Max Planck Institute is one of Germany’s top scientific institutions. For a special issue on research in China, published in December 2008, it printed what it thought was a “classical poem” on the cover (a text that certainly looks Chinese to the non-Chinese speaker). The editing team didn’t realize that the text they chose was a handbill for a Macau strip club, and it said “hot housewives in action,” “enchanting and coquettish performance.”

4. JUST DO IT
Nike aired a commercial in the United States that showed multiple people from various countries repeating the company’s “Just Do It” slogan. They failed to verify that the words were actually adequate translations, and it was discovered that the Samburu tribesman was actually saying: “I don’t want these, give me big shoes.”

Click here to read more examples.