Latest Translation Blooper – A Russian Translation
Today Secretary of State Hilary Clinton presented to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia a gift to reset the nations past difficulties. Instead of the intentional word “reset” (”perezagruzka”) the gift was labelled in bold “peregruzka,” which means “overcharged”. Oooops!
This just proves the importance of professional translations, especially when dealing with delicate international matters. Luckily, there was no damage done.
I bet that translator is not going to put that experience down on their CV. How embarrassing for all!
It just shows that there are many translators out there acting as professionals. How can you really trust your translator or translation service provider, especially nowadays with new translation websites springing up every second and so called e-lancers on a budget fighting for jobs? Anyone can do it, thus, translation quality is becoming worse year upon year.
I guess most clients trust your translation services and then it it them the ones having to cope with embarrassing and unprofessional results.
Every translator should have their work proofread by a native speaker of the language to translate into
All translators make mistakes,no matter if they are experienced, sworn translators or just freelancers as they are human beings. The best policy is to offer some type of revision period in all translation services
Examples like that always come up to make translators look unprofessional, however I consider that if you are a professional translator that shouldn´t happen at all.
Every sector is, at some point, criticized by showing some examples found in really strange places.
The world is full of pseudo translators, that is, people calling themselves translators but with no master in any language at all; as a consequence we find these types of mistakes. Also, double-checking texts is, after all, one of the most important aspects when delivering a translation.
I agree with Juan that all translators makes mistakes, but to a certain point
People who call themselves “professionals” need to prove so. I guess you can find rather unprofessional people in all professions. Examples like the one posted by the people at this blog shouldn´t be taken seriously. If you are contracting a professional translation service i don´t think you should worry that much. Humans are humans after all but a professional service provides some type of guarantee for what you need translated. As for freelancers who make mistakes, just watch out!
Situations like that have happened in Spain as well concerning the Education Minister, but I guess there must be an ulterior motive behind these unprofessional translations as I can´t really believe nobody has realised before that goes on national TV.
Being Russian myself, this mistranslation is quite resentful for me.