When Translation Goes Wrong
AI is taking over the world. Translators will all be unemployed soon. Or will they?
At STAR, we’ve encountered numerous amusing translation errors that highlight the pitfalls of relying solely on machine translation or overlooking context. For instance, translating “a school of fish” into French resulted in “école de poisson” (a literal school building for fish) instead of the correct “banc de poisson.” Similarly, “Sharks swim in schools” became “Sharks swim in colleges” in French.
One classic blunder involved a supermarket translating “Egg Poacher” into French as “Bracconier d’oeuf” (egg hunter) and Spanish as “Cazador furtivo de huevos” (egg poacher in the hunting sense), rather than the correct term for the kitchen tool. Another gem was Cork’s “English Market” mistranslated into Irish as “Béarla sa Mhargadh” (English in the Market) instead of “An Margadh Sasanach.”
Medical contexts aren’t immune either: “Your child is fitting” (having seizures) translated to Swahili as “Your child is dead,” while a Polish request to “donate organs became “donate tools.”
Even movie titles can have unusual translations – Home Alone in French was titled “Maman, j’ai raté l’avion!” (Mom, I Missed the Plane!), and Die Hard With a Vengeance in Danish became “Mega Hard.”
These examples underscore why human expertise is irreplaceable. Machines often miss idioms, homonyms (like “row” a boat vs. a “row” argument), and cultural nuances. A hyphen error in a headline—”Two hundred odd members” vs. “Two hundred-odd members”—shows how tiny details can create unintended hilarity. Always proofread, and trust professionals to avoid such mishaps!
So – do you trust AI? or will you double check in future. Have fun.
Regards,
Damian Scattergood