Culture Smart: What's the Trouble with Translations?

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Culture Smart: What’s the Trouble with Translations?

by Sheron Long on November 3, 2013

The word to say when you miscommunicate in another language

Communicating Across Cultures

An oft repeated story faults Chevrolet in marketing the Chevy Nova in Latin America because “no va” means “does not go” in Spanish. The only problem with this classic international business blunder is that it’s just not true.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been plenty of companies who made big mistakes when taking their marketing messages across cultures. Some prime examples:

The now-defunct Braniff Airlines targeted ads to the Hispanic market in 1987, only to discover that their campaign took off in an entirely different direction. In the campaign, Braniff used the slogan “Vuela en cuero” (fly in leather) to promote its luxurious new leather seats, but over the radio the phrase was too easily confused with “Vuela en cueros,” which is Spanish slang for “fly naked.”

When Colgate launched their “Cue” toothpaste brand in France, the brand managers clearly hadn’t dug deep enough into French culture. As they soon discovered, “Cue” was also the name of one of France’s most notorious porn magazines. That, in turn, became Colgate’s cue to discontinue the brand.

Good reminders that developing cultural sensitivity means doing some homework if you want to make the grade!

Read about missteps in international shoe marketing in this article by Adam Wooten.

Increase your understanding of different cultures at PocketCultures, and explore cross-cultural etiquette with this guide from Culture Crossing.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Comments:

2 thoughts on “Culture Smart: What’s the Trouble with Translations?”

John Matro on November 1, 2018 at 3:58 pm said:

I think that the A# that you show in the Middle Eastern Scale, also called the Double Harmonic Scale or the Arabic Scale, should be Ab instead.
M. Bucarelli on November 14, 2013 at 7:17 pm said:

I am fortunate to command a few languages and very much enjoy being able to read literary works in their original language. Amongst those languages, I have complete command of English, and of the Spanish languages and its regional and cultural variations. Since 1992, I have been doing translations from English to Spanish-Spanish to English, mainly technical language and manuals for industrial equipment but also ranging from 300 pages books to correspondence.
A very frustrating experience for me is not finding a translator job and yet, reading translated materials full of spelling errors, wrong word choices and the worse, horrible syntax, usually changing completely the meaning of a sentence.
Notorious for that type of translation are owner’s manuals and instructions accompanying newly purchased equipment. Magazine, journals, periodicals, websites and blogs are also among those and the list goes on. The online translators are great but are not a substitute for a translation done by an experienced professional who also counts with and intimate knowledge of the cultures; perhaps just as important, the audiences for which the material is intended.

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Culture Smart: What’s the Trouble with Translations?

Communicating Across Cultures

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2 thoughts on “Culture Smart: What’s the Trouble with Translations?”