lost in translation
cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. it shouldn’t be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. for example……the name coca-cola in china was first rendered as ke-kou-ke-la. unfortunately, the coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. coke then researched 40,000 chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, “ko-kou-ke-le”, which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth”.
in taiwan, the translation of the pepsi slogan “come alive with the pepsi generation” came out as “pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”
also in chinese, the kentucky fried chicken slogan “finger-lickin, good” came out as “eat yoru fingers off”.
the american slogan for salem cigarettes, “salem—feeling free” got translated in the japanese market into “when smoking salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty.”
when general motors introduced the chevy nova in south america, it was apparently unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go”. after the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its spanish markets to the caribe.
ford had a similar problem in brazil when the pinto flopped. the company found out that pinto was brazilian slang for “tiny male genitals”. ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted corcel, which means horse.
when parker pen marketed a ball-point pen in mexico, its ads were supposed to say “it won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. however, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. instead the ads said that “it won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.
an american t-shirt make in miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the pope’s visit. instead of the desired “i saw the pope” in spanish, the shirts proclaimed “i saw the patato”.
chicken-man frank perdue’s slogan, “it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” got terribly mangled in another spanish translation. a photo of perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over mexico with a caption that explained “it takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused”.
hunt-wesson introduced its big john products in french canada as jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means “big breasts”. in this case, however, the problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
colgate introduced a toothpaste in france called cue, the name of a notorious porno mag.
in italy, a campaign for schweppes tonic water translated the name into schweppes toilet water.
japan’s second-largest tourist agency wa mystified when it entered english-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. upon finding out why, the owners of kinki nippon tourist company changed its name.
in an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating england, a campaign was devised to extol the drink’s eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. hence the slogan, “orange juice. it gets your pecker up.”
胡翻乱译
打入国际市场是大多数发展中公司的目标。事情本不该那么难，可是由于语言不同及文化差异，就连那些巨型跨国公司也碰上了麻烦。例如，coca cola 这个名字，在中国起初译成“可口可拉”。遗憾的是，成千上万的标牌印出来之后可口可乐公司才发现，这个词在不同的方言里意为“嗑口蝌腊”或“腊扣骒马”等。可口可乐公司查阅了4万个汉字，才确定了一个发音接近的词“可口可乐”，翻译过来，大体上是说“有口福”。
在台湾，百事可乐的促销口号come alive with the pepsi generation，译出来成了“与百世代一起活”。
同样在汉语中，肯德基家乡鸡的标语finger-lickin, good，一经翻译竟成了“舔掉手指头”。
salem牌香烟在美国的促销口号salem—feeling free，在日本译成了“抽着salem倍感提神，仿佛大脑一片空白”。
通用汽车公司在南美洲推销chevy nova牌汽车时，显然不知道no va的意思是“不走”。该公司弄明白自己何以卖不动车之后，就把在西班牙语市场上的同一种车更名为caribe。
福特公司的pinto牌汽车在巴西砸锅，所遇问题与此相似。该公司发现，pinto一词在巴西俚语中是“极小的阳具”之意。结果，福特公司撬掉了所有的pinto标牌，换上了corcel一词，后者意为“马”。
派克笔公司在墨西哥销售一种圆珠笔，它的广告想说的是“它不会在你口袋里漏油从而使你难堪”。然而该公司误以为西班牙语的embarazar就是英语的embarrass。于是，该广告成了“它不会在你口袋里漏油而使你怀孕”。
美国迈阿密的一家t恤衫制造商为讲西班牙语的市场印制t恤衫，意在为教皇来访造声势。恤衫上想表达的是“我见过教皇”，可印出来的西班牙语却是“我见过这个马铃薯”。
另一次，烹鸡大师弗兰克·帕尔杜的口号本来是“硬汉才能做出嫩鸡”，但在译成西班牙语时却搞砸了。墨西哥各地的广告牌上出现了帕尔杜与一只鸡的照片，上面的一句话解释道：“需要一个硬男人才能让一只鸡燃起欲火”。
hunt-wesson公司在加拿大法语区首次推销它的big john系列产品时定名为big jos，后来才发现这一短语在俚语中当“大奶子”讲。不过这一次翻译问题没有对销售造成显著的影响。
高露洁公司在法国推销一种起名为cue的牙膏，这一名称正好是当地一本臭名远扬的色情杂志。
在意大利，一项为斯瓦普生发水搞的促销活动中，竟把它译成了“斯瓦普厕所水”。
日本的第二大旅行社刚进入讲英语的市场时，常收到一些要求参加买春旅行的信。这事不同寻常，公司也摸不着头脑。搞清原因后，日本近畿旅行社的老板就把公司的名字改掉了。
英格兰极流行欧洲大陆式早餐，为了在那里扩大橙汁的销售，便设计了一项旨在宣传这种饮料的醒目提神之特点的活动。于是，就有一这句口号：“橙汁令人亢奋”。