Five famous language mishaps
What happens when translation goes wrong?
Here at Unbabel, high-quality translation is in our DNA. We pride ourselves on helping the world to communicate, and we like to think we’re pretty good at it. However, some language usage certainly wouldn’t pass our evaluations, and over the years there have been plenty of language mishaps. Here’s a selection of the most famous ones:
“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” | Let them eat cake
For those of you who haven’t heard it before, these words were supposedly uttered by Marie Antoinette upon hearing the plight of the poor in France. There’s scant historical evidence that she actually ever said these words, in fact most historians now believe that they were attributed to her in propaganda cartoons, yet they’re remembered around the world as a symbol of the decadence of the pre-revolutionary French ruling class. However, for those of you with even a little bit of French, you know you’d probably never translate cake into “brioche” — you’d use gâteau instead. It’s likely that brioche hadn’t crossed the English channel at that point, so it was translated as cake — but that mistranslation has stuck with us for hundreds of years.
“Ich bin ein Berliner” | I am a doughnut
When President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin in 1963, he delivered a speech that became symbolic of the struggles of the Cold War. The problem? He actually told the world that he was a jam doughnut.
Is this true? Well, it is and it isn’t. This one isn’t so much a mistranslation as a double entendre that Kennedy wasn’t aware of. In strictly correct German, the addition of the indefinite article (ein) isn’t correct here and does change the literal meaning of Berliner to “doughnut”. Much was made of this by journalists at the time, and I’ve heard more than one tour guide in Berlin talk about this. But as a German speaker and in context, it’s not really an error. If the leader of the free world is up on a stage and makes that small mistake, you’re not going to get confused by it.
“Porzuciłem Stany Zjednoczone na zawsze” | I abandoned the United States forever
Fast forward fourteen years and go a few hundred miles further East, and we find ourselves at President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Poland where the state department had hired an excellent linguist by the name of Steven Seymour. An expert and accomplished translator from Russian and Polish into English, he wasn’t quite equipped to interpret direct speech into Polish in front of huge crowds of people. In the course of one speech, he told the Polish people that Jimmy Carter had abandoned the United States forever early that day (when he had just meant to say that he’d left that morning) and also interpreted that he’d like to have sex with the Polish people (when really he’d meant to say that he wanted to know their desires for the future). Needless to say, when it came to a state banquet later on in the visit, they’d found a new interpreter. Ouch…
Мы вас похороним! | We will bury you!
Of course, it wasn’t just the US that had translation mishaps. In a speech in November 1956 at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow, and whilst talking to ambassadors from Western nations, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev said (via his interpreter) the common Russian phrase «мы вас похороним» which was translated directly into English as “we will bury you.” In English, however, it loses the underlying Russian meaning pointed out by many linguists and historians — that it invokes the concept of outliving someone and being there at their funeral. Thus, what Khrushchev meant to say, and indeed later clarified, was that the West’s failings would be their downfall, and they’d be there to watch at the end. At the beginning of the nuclear age and coupled with Khrushchev’s strong delivery, there’s no doubt it was seen as an escalation. Interpreting can be a dangerous game…
Estoy constipado, perdónadme | Excuse me, I’m constipated
…but sometimes, also not. Apparently, according to a book published in 1971 by a French conference interpreter, at a Franco-Spanish meeting one of the Spanish delegates had a cold. Turning to his interpreter, he said “estoy constipado, perdónadme” and the interpreter, not paying much attention, translated it as “excuse me, I’m constipated.” Realising the error, the room fell about laughing while the interpreter rushed to correct his mistake.
Did you like this article? Then be sure to check out our blog article and video about mistranslations that (could have) led to war.
