Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was kind enough to give us the latest example of how poor quality translations can leave an organization looking foolish. In this case, the organization in question was the United States government.
As reported on CNN’s website, Hillary presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a “reset button” to symbolize a new age in U.S.-Russian relations.Then this happened:
“I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship, and so we will do it together.’ …
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” she asked Lavrov, laughing.
“You got it wrong,” said Lavrov, as both diplomats laughed.
“It should be “perezagruzka” [the Russian word for reset],” said Lavrov.”This says ‘peregruzka,’ which means ‘overcharged.’”
Sure, it’s a harmless mistake and does not carry significant ramifications. Yet, the nagging suspicion remains that such simple errors could lead to more embarrassing and potentially hurtful gaffes in the future. Which leads me to the core of all of my arguments: make sure your translations are done by professionals and, ideally, checked by another.
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Tags: diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, Russia, russian, translation error, United States of America
Thank God it was a fake resetting button and not the bloody real red phone!!!
Hillary Clinton Translation Gaffe:
http://digg.com/world_news/Hillary_Clinton_Translation_Gaffe
Digg it!
Thanks.
Who can guarantee impeccable work done by a professional translator will not be butchered by a less-than-professional proofreader? There is such little respect for this profession that all of a sudden I find myself offering my services as a “professional translator”. Why should I? Physicians do not claim to be “professional doctors”, attorneys do not claim to be “professional lawyers”… and so on.
Just like those professionals, I had to go through four years of college to obtain my degree in translation. That makes me a professional.
People at all levels need to be more careful regarding the entire chain for producing documents, regardless of the level. The problems and errors come from too many people taking “the easy way out”, i.e. having their cousin, who speaks a little English, do it, or even worse…Google Translator. But no one (we hope) would have surgery done by someone who was not licensed. Part of the raison d’etre of this blog is to show the necessity of professional translation services. After reading about stories like this one, people will be more careful with documents they need to have translated.
By the way, I enjoy calling myself a “professional translator”. It’s the same line of reasoning as the medical professionals who insist you refer to them as doctors.
Thanks for commenting