Translation Bloopers: 3 Most Hilarious Mistakes in Translations

You know what happens when a million dollar company gets slapdash in its approach to translation? Well, the blooper can be both costly and embarrassing at the same time. Translation is often taken lightly and the result can be extremely unpleasant. Here are three of the most hilarious mistakes in translations that turned to be severe humiliation for the companies:

1. The funniest mistake by far that embarrassed the translation industry was Pepsi’s new slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi generation.” The slogan when translated into Chinese read, “Pepsi brings your relatives back from the dead.” Could anything have been more embarrassing than this?
2. Something similar happened with KFC, the popular restaurant chain specialising in fried chicken. The company with the slogan “Finger lickin’ good” had to face severe awkwardness when it expanded its campaign to China. The company translated its slogan to a phrase that read “We will eat your fingers off”
3. Coca Cola was no different in this regard. The world famous beverage company had to go through humiliation when it attempted to translate its brand name into Chinese. What came off sounded to the Chinese audience as “bite the wax tadpole” and “female horse stuffed with wax.”

Certified Translation Services is one of the leading translation offices in London offering high quality translation in over 100 global languages. The company specialises in marketing translation services, medical translations, website translations and technical translations among a plethora of other translation services and is also adept at translating legal documents.