{"id":23665,"date":"2024-06-13T16:34:32","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T14:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/sport-translations-ten-legendary-mistakes\/"},"modified":"2024-09-04T09:44:06","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T07:44:06","slug":"sport-translations-ten-legendary-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/sport-translations-ten-legendary-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport translations: ten legendary mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sport is a global phenomenon <\/strong>and therefore has ongoing translation and subtitling requirements. This usually works well. But not always.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

One mistranslation was so spectacular that it even attracted the attention of the international media. When American Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin gave an interview<\/u><\/a> to a reporter from Austrian TV after winning the giant slalom event in January 2023, she was refreshingly candid about how she found the race particularly challenging this time. She explained that \u201cI\u2019m kind of in an unfortunate time ofmymonthlycycle.\u201d The local reporter earnestly translated this as: \u201cI can\u2019t even ride a bike, which is something I do every month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

However, the embarrassment that will probably follow this man for the rest of his life is by no means an isolated occurrence. Professional sports, in particular, with their global reach and interviews that are often held in English are a constant source of translation errors and misunderstandings. Some are highly amusing\u00a0\u2013 others have rather more unpleasant consequences. We\u2019ve compiled a short \u201cbest-of\u201d list.<\/p>\n\n

Controversial national anthem lyrics at a major sporting event<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

London, Wembley Stadium, June 29, 2021: England and Germany are facing one another in one of the last sixteen matches of the European Football Championship. Germany ended up losing the game, but the trouble began long before that. Dutch TV channel NPO decided to display subtitles for the national anthem lyrics as they were played. However, while the German players and fans were singing the words \u201cEinigkeit und Recht und Freiheit\u201d (Unity and Justice and Freedom), viewers in Germany were treated to the subtitles \u201cDeutschland, Deutschland \u00fcber alles, \u00fcber alles in der Welt\u201d (Germany, Germany above all, above all else in the world), which is the banned part of the anthem. The fact that Holland had to endure these lyrics under very different circumstances made the error all the more embarrassing.<\/p>\n\n

Wise guys are not feared opponents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The fact that sports stars, probably driven by passion, don\u2019t always refer to one another in the most glowing terms is well-known. However, sometimes mistranslation can also play a part. In 2017, Chile\u2019s soccer star Arturo Vidal caused a stir when he appeared to \u201ctalk trash\u201d about Portugal\u2019s Cristiano Ronaldo: He used words to the effect that this wise guy does not exist for him. What he actually said was: \u201cEl cuco no existe.\u201d The world \u201ccuco\u201d can actually be translated as \u201cclever\u201d but in Chilean Spanish can also mean \u201cfeared opponent\u201d or \u201cnemesis.\u201d The fact that Vidal simply wanted to say that Ronaldo and his Portuguese team were not opponents to be feared was only corrected after the supposed insult had been circulated by the world\u2019s sports media.<\/p>\n\n

Online translations have consequences<\/strong>:<\/strong> for a handful of eggs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

February 2018: Marked the start of the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Norway had sent 109 athletes, all of whom had to be fed. Naturally, the Norwegians ordered plenty of food, including 1,500 eggs. However, they ended up taking delivery of 15,000 eggs. The UK newspaper The Guardian ultimately figured out why the Norwegians received ten times more eggs than they asked for: the Norwegian chefs used an online translation service, which was sadly not equipped to decode the different and clearly rather complex counting system used in the Korean language. One of the chefs subsequently admitted that the Norwegian Olympic Team was fed every variation of egg dish during the weeks that followed.<\/p>\n\n

A fatal subtitling error<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Li Haotong is a Chinese pro golfer who climbed to 32nd place in the world ranking. Since this sport is known to be extremely lucrative, he was asked after a tournament win during an interview conducted in English what he was going to do with his prize winnings. Since he speaks English with a strong Chinese accent, the interview was subtitled. The affable Li Haotong responded: \u201cI may buy some gifts.\u201d That he was planning to buy \u201csome girls,\u201d according to the automatic subtitling, was definitely not the plan.<\/p>\n\n

Discriminatory sport translation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Manuel Neuer had an unpleasant experience. The goalkeeper who has played for Bayern Munich and the German national soccer team for many years is known for his committed and proactive stance against racism, homophobia, and misogyny\u00a0\u2013 known and consistently problematic areas in the sport of football. Back in 2011, while he was still a goalkeeper at Bundesliga club Schalke, he was asked about the issue of homosexuality in football in an interview. The-then 24-year-old responded: \u201cPlayers who are gay should go public about it. That would take a load off their minds. And the fans would also get over it quickly.\u201d He then went on to describe how one of his fellow high-school students came out and was clearly misunderstood by a Peruvian journalist. The message that Neuer himself was gay spread across South American sports media, culminating in headlines such as \u201cGay goalkeeper begs colleagues to liberate themselves\u201d or \u201cGoalkeeper relieved after coming out.\u201d These explicitly homophobic phrases alone demonstrate the importance not only of accurate translations but also of athletes like Manuel Neuer.<\/p>\n\n

Translation errors: The body and soul problem from antiquity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The importance of knowing the context of translations is demonstrated by a quote that originally had nothing to do with sport. When the Roman poet Juvenal came up with his famous quote \u201cmens sana in corpore sano,\u201d he was poking fun at fellow citizens who begged the Gods for meaningless gifts\u00a0\u2013 instead of much more important things such as mental and physical health. It is well known what the National Socialists and their collaborators, who were not only uneducated but also opposed to education, made of this: the interpretation that only a healthy body was capable of supporting a healthy mind is to this day probably the most common one. It is also one that would probably have rendered the sharp-tongued Juvenal speechless.<\/p>\n\n

Translation software ruins transfer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The case of the Ecuadorian professional soccer player Bryan Cabezas shows just how quickly incorrect translations can have far-reaching consequences. In 2018, the left winger was due to be transferred on loan from his Italian club to the Argentinian club Independiente. All the contracts had been drawn up\u00a0\u2013 however, they were translated by a software program. This program transcribed the player\u2019s name as \u201cHeads\u201d, which was, strictly speaking, correct. However, it meant that the contract was not valid, and the transfer never took place.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

An unconventional tiebreaker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Those who regularly play on a PC or game console will be familiar with the phenomenon. Even expensive Triple-A games are not immune to astonishing subtitling or dubbing errors. An oft-quoted example that is well documented with screenshots is the football simulation World Class Soccer from 1994: If a game is still undecided after 90 minutes, the message\u00a0\u201cElfmeterscheissen\u201d is displayed prominently in capital letters in the German version of the game. \u201cElfmeterschiessen\u201d is the German word for \u201cpenalty shootout\u201d. Unfortunately, if the letters \u201cie\u201d are flipped around to become \u201cei,\u201d the players will have to perform a \u201cpenalty sh#t\u201d. So, definitely not a world-class translation.<\/p>\n\n

The Gospel according to Lothar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A minor translation glitch also occurred at the administrative court of Kassel in Germany in 2018. Fortunately, it led to nothing more serious that general amusement. An asylum seeker was questioned about his conversion to Christianity. He was asked to explain the subject of the previous Sunday\u2019s sermon. His answer was translated by the interpreter rather surprisingly with \u201cLothar Matth\u00e4us.\u201d It took some further questioning to ascertain that the sermon was actually about Martin Luther and the Gospel of Matthew.<\/p>\n\n

Not everything is a translation error<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The phenomenon of mistranslations also has a downside: time and again, athletes who say something offensive have tried to shift the blame to mistranslations. This is exactly what legendary Brazilian Formula One driver and world champion Nelson Piquet tried to do. In 2022, he lashed out at the (dark-skinned) English superstar Lewis Hamilton, obviously insulting him. In an interview, he referred to him using the racist epithet \u201cNeguinho\u201d and then responded to the media outrage by claiming the term meant nothing more than \u201cthat guy\u201d in Brazilian Portuguese. Journalists from the \u201cMotorsport total\u201d platform surveyed native speakers and came to the clear conclusion, \u201cthat actually everyone we spoke to felt that the word used was definitely derogatory.\u201d Put simply: incorrect translations can explain a great deal but not everyone can hide behind them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sport is a global phenomenon and therefore has ongoing translation and subtitling requirements. This usually works well. But not always. One mistranslation was so spectacular that it even attracted the attention of the international media. When American Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin gave an interview to a reporter from Austrian TV after winning the giant slalom\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1181,1182,1197,879],"tags":[1204,1201,1205,1202,1203],"class_list":["post-23665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facts-en-gb","category-localization-en-gb","category-terminology-management-en-gb","category-unkategorisiert-en-gb","tag-language-mishaps-in-sports-en-gb","tag-mistranslations-in-sports-en-gb","tag-pro-sports-translation-errors-en-gb","tag-sports-and-translation-misunderstandings-en-gb","tag-sports-translation-errors-en-gb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23666,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665\/revisions\/23666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.act-translations.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}