It’s one thing to be able to master a spoken language, but another thing to be able to translate well. Translation takes years of learning and involves more than just word for word conversion into another language.

Simple translation mistakes can have a big impact, changing the tone, the meaning and the intent of a document. Professional translators Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche know all about this. They recently released a book, Found in Translation, which covers the weird and wonderful world of translation.

We took a look at five examples from the book that show how small translation mistakes can have a big impact.

Five small translation mistakes that made a big difference

1. A dangerous error

Back in 1980, a young man in Florida called Willie Ramirez was taken to hospital in a coma. Friends and family who accompanied him spoke only in Spanish and when asked by paramedics and doctors to describe the 18-year old’s condition, they described him as “intoxicado.”

A bilingual member of staff translated this as “intoxicated,” implying the man were suffering from a drug overdose, which would account for the symptoms the man displayed. However, the proper translation of “intoxicado” is nearer in meaning to “poisoned” – the family believed he was suffering from food poisoning. He had, in fact, suffered an intracerebral haemorrhage which doctors may have spotted sooner if they were able to quickly discount food poisoning.

Unfortunately, the delay in properly diagnosing Mr Ramirez resulted in him being left quadriplegic and was awarded a settlement of $71 million due to medical malpractice.

2. The radiant horns of Moses

This example goes to show how tiny translation mistakes can last for millennia – with dangerous results. When St. Jerome, patron saint of translators, embarked on the task of translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin, instead of the Greek version that was widely used at the time.

However, Hebrew is written without vowels and in translating the document, Jerome had to make some educated guesses as to the intended word, resulting in some translation mistakes. One glaring error was the translation of “krn” into “keren”, meaning ‘horned’, instead of “karan”, which means ‘radiance’.

The result had Moses descending Mount Sinai with horns instead of a halo and, unfortunately, the image stuck, leading to countless paintings and sculptures over the years showing a horned Moses. It is also the likely origin of the offensive stereotype of the horned Jew.

3. Where in the world in Sheng Long?

Video games is a surprisingly fertile field of apocrypha – tales abound of hidden levels, unlockable characters and other weird secrets. One such myth came about as a result of a mistake in translation from Japanese to English.

For years, Western gamers puzzled over the mysterious intonation in Street Fighter II that “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.” Rumours abounded of a secret, unlockable boss character, not unsurprising given the mechanics of the game already had unlockable bosses.

However, the reality was more prosaic. The original words of the character Ryu were “if you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win!” The phrase “rising dragon” is ‘Shoryuken’ – which will be familiar to most players as one of Ryu’s fighting moves.

Nevertheless, in ’92 Electronic Gaming Monthly unveiled an April Fool’s joke on players offering an incredibly complicated series of button presses that would “unlock Sheng Long.” It took 8 months for the magazine to reveal it was a hoax – no doubt to the annoyance of many players with blistered thumbs.

4. Maori mistranslation

Translation mistakes in legal documents can cause no end of difficulties and one of the most complex and long-lasting disagreements resulting from translation was between the British government and Maori chiefs in New Zealand.

In 1840, the British were seeking colonial expansion. The Maori, on the other hand, sought protection from other renegade foreigners who were causing trouble. A perfect situation for an accord, you might think.

It wasn’t to be so, unfortunately. The Treaty of Waitangi was drawn up in both Maori and English, but they differed in intent. The Maori translation stated that they would only give up governance, not the sovereignty, while the British document decreed that the Maori would cede all sovereignty to the English Queen.

Generations have passed since this translation and the difficulties arising from it are being dealt with to this day.

5. Capitalism wins!

Capitalism is a never-ending source of bizarre translation mistakes as companies attempt to sell products to foreign markets. One example in which both consumers and producers won out took place in the 1950s in Japan.

Chocolate manufacturers attempted to capitalise on sales by exporting the idea of Valentine’s Day to the Japanese but a mistranslation in one company’s promotional literature suggested that this was a day where women bought chocolates for men, rather than the reverse.

To this day, Japanese women buy the men in their lives chocolates but, in an attempt to redress the balance, men do the same for women on the 14^th of March. Cue many happy couples and even happier chocolatiers, who benefit from the sales of chocolates on two days instead of one.

How to avoid translation mistakes

If you want to avoid translation mistakes that could cause confusion or offence, your best bet is to use fully qualified and certified translators. They will have skill in not only translating language but also cultural meanings and conventions.

All Languages works with a team of top-class translators across the globe, so no matter what kind of document you need translating, we can help!